What Do Mood Stabilizers Do To The Brain?

Mood stabilizers are specific groups of medications used primarily to deal with all types of disturbances in human mood, including depression and mania. Lithium is the commonly used drug associated with stabilization of one’s brain.

Mood stabilizers types of drugs have found their applications in the treatment of various symptoms related to bipolar or mood disorder, also known as manic depression. However, individuals experiencing other related illnesses have benefited a lot from such medicines.

However, before you should understand the mechanism and roles/benefits of mood stabilizers, it is essential for you to stay aware with various types of mood stabilizers available in the market.

Lithium is a prime chemical element, as similar to copper or oxygen, which takes place in the Mother Nature. Lithium element is of highly reactive and combines with various other elements and/or compounds easily. Because of this, one can hardly find it in pure state. However, Lithium exists in the form of compounds with various other elements. When you intake lithium in the form of medicine, you will expect to intake it as a combination with carbon and oxygen, which in turn converts to lithium carbonate.

Anticonvulsant medications help in the treatment of epilepsy and other related seizure disorders. However, few of these medicines act in a relatively more rapid way on mania and other related acute type of mood disturbances.

Few of the antipsychotic medications are helpful in the stabilization of one’s mood.

Until now, a large number of healthcare scientists and medical research analysts are unable to understand the exact mechanism of mood stabilizers. However, they often believe that such drugs influence specific type of neurotransmitters i.e. brain chemicals present in the human nerve cells involved in causing mood swings or disturbances.

Based on broad classification, mood stabilizers have proved to be beneficial based on-

Whenever a person deals with acute symptoms related to depression and mania, doctors recommend for mood stabilization medicines. The medications thus stabilize one’s mood and reduce the related symptoms, which include sleep disorders, agitation, delusions and hallucinations. In case the individual is already taking such medicines, doctors may increase his/her dosage. You have to take stabilizers for several weeks before you may get significant clinical effect. Moreover, depending on condition of a patient, doctors may recommend for antipsychotics medicines in combination with mood stabilizers on a temporary basis.

Other than controlling symptoms related to bipolar disorder or manic depression, mood stabilizers are able to avoid relapse of manic depression in the near future. In this way, patients suffering from bipolar disorder or schizoaffective disorder do not require re-hospitalizations.

To get plenty of benefits associated with mood stabilizers, you should essentially intake them on a regular basis to avoid your symptoms related to depression or mania.

Even regular intake of mood stabilizers prevents your condition to become worse or avoids your problem to relapse.

To make the most from mood stabilizers medications, you should take the medicine at a specific time daily, so that it always remains an important part of your daily routine.

Other than medications, you have to schedule your appointment with the doctor regularly, so that he or she checks your symptoms, discuss key side effects and make adjustments in your medicine whenever it becomes necessary.

To conclude, we should say that mood stabilizers are helpful to manage your symptoms related to manic depression or bipolar disorder. Besides this, when you intake stabilizers in combination with other medicines, you will expect to prevent your condition to become worse and even avoid repetition or relapse of the manic episodes.

Also Read:

• Common Mood Stabilizers Used For Treating Bipolar Disorder & Its Side Effects
• Can Mood Stabilizers Help With Anxiety?
• Do Mood Stabilizers Make You Gain Weight?