Tips on How to Find Out What Your Triggers Are

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I created the Blog posts, “What Are Triggers” & “Common Triggers & How to Cope,” so why not keep it going with today’s topic, “Tips on How to Find out What Your Triggers Are.”

Reminder – I will say this again that I am not a doctor, psychologist, psychiatrist or therapist. I am just a single 50-year-old lady with bipolar who is not on medication,  and who has educated herself a little & these are my thoughts:

When it came to learning my triggers, I used 2 ways:

#1. Many hours talking to my therapist! I have often given the advice on getting a doctor and therapist whom you trust and seeing a therapist you feel conferrable with. You have to trust them. Have one that will talk to you, not at you. One who offers tools to cope and helps you learn and apply those tools. One who explains things to you. I also feel there is never too much or too little time you can go in for therapy. One-on-one therapy is the greatest! Then adding support groups and family therapy. If you are in a relationship, couples therapy helps. Use them all; talk, talk and talk some more. Be heard and learn. I say do it all!

#2. Keep diaries and journals and read what you put in them. They are no good if you do not read what you write and learn from it. I keep a few: food, dream/sleep, mood, and a regular diary.

• Food journals help me find these kinds of triggers: It helps me notice what I was eating, times I was or was not eating and how it affected my moods 

• Dream/sleep journals help me find these kinds of triggers: helps me notice what kind of dreams I was having. How often I was having nightmares and other kinds of dreams. How my mood was when waking up. Also, tracking how many hours of sleep I was getting a night.

• Mood journals help me find all kinds of triggers. This journal is where I would jot down when my mood changes. Helped me pick up on places, words and other kinds of triggers that affect me. Things like when I walk in Wal-Mart and stay too long my mood changes, if I am in a car too long, even words that make my mood change would get jotted down. After some time you can see a pattern identifying the trigger.

• Using a diary can help with other kinds of triggers. Reading over mine was a way I found that past traumatic events and people can be triggers. Once I learned the triggers, I burned everything that was too hurtful; Eliminating dwelling on it preventing me from healing.

So that is how I learned my triggers. Hope this helps, peace and love all!