1. Watch Your Diet
Certain foods can negatively affect your mood, whether you have bipolar disorder or not. If you're already feeling manic or depressed, eating these foods can exacerbate your symptoms. So make sure you severely limit or completely eliminate the offending foods from your diets. These include sugar, overly fatty or fried foods, artificial colors and flavors and artificial preservatives. Caffeine and alcohol can also have negative effects on your mood, and should be avoided. It's best to eat a natural diet full of fresh produce and small amounts of protein.
2. Take the Right Supplements
People with bipolar disorder are often deficient in certain vitamins and minerals. Supplementing your diet with these vitamins and minerals can help alleviate symptoms. Vitamin B6, vitamin B12, folic acid, vitamin C and omega-3 fatty acids are all generally low in most people with bipolar disorder. Taking a dose of each of these things each day may have a beneficial effect on your mood.
3. Get Moving
Regular, vigorous exercise is very beneficial for many people with bipolar disorder. Exercising increases the levels of "feel good" chemicals in the brain, such as serotonin and dopamine. Exercise is so effective, in fact, that some doctors are now prescribing it to patients with mild to moderate bipolar disorder before trying medication. In general, 30 minutes to one hour of intensive aerobic activity three times a week is therapeutic.
4. Try Herbs
There are several herbs that are beneficial to people with bipolar disorder. St. John's Wort is probably the best known of the herbal remedies, and is sometimes recommended to people with mild depression. Chamomile and valerian are also sometimes recommended by natural health practitioners for people with bipolar disorder, since these herbs have strong calming effects on the nervous system. In fact, valerian is the herbal precursor to the anti-anxiety drug Valium.
