Mood Swings: Causes, Risks, & How to Cope

What Are Mood Swings?

Mood swings are a severe, often sudden, shift in a person’s mood and affect. They can impact a person’s state of mind and response to others. Mood swings are also known as mood instability. It is important to remain cognizant of mood swings as they are linked to various psychiatric conditions. These swift and prominent mood shifts are most commonly seen in bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder.¹

Notably, we are all likely to experience mood fluctuations at some point. Fluctuation of mood and affect is a naturally occurring ebb and flow as we respond to our environment and interact with others. The difference between mood fluctuations and mood swings is the rate, intensity, frequency, and severity of the mood shifts, as well as the impact they have on a person’s functioning. Signs that a person may be experiencing more than fluctuations is when they become temperamental and struggle to engage with people in their lives.

Causes of Mood Swings

There may or may not be a specific trigger to mood swings. At times, factors of the environment play a large role, however, there is likely a biological or underlying component at play. Mood swings have been labeled differently across psychiatry, psychology, and neuroscience. These labels include and are not limited to: emotional dysregulation, affective instability, affective lability, and emotional impulsiveness.²

Common causes of mood swings include:

Stressful Life Events

Mood swings can result from stressful life events because our ability to tolerate emotions becomes compromised when we experience distress and/or trauma.Stressful life events, including chronic stressors and/or traumatic exposure, are harmful to our emotional and physical well-being. This is due to the activation of certain parts of our nervous system and brain in response to stress.³

Hormonal Changes

Hormonal changes are often age and gender specific. For women, fluctuations in estrogen levels can cause severe mood swings. Women are at an increased risk for mood disorders from the start of menstruation through menopause and postmenopause.⁴ Furthermore, women with higher testosterone levels show increased mood shifts. For men, higher and lower levels of testosterone create an imbalance that prompts depressive symptoms, aggressive behavior, and emotion dysregulation.⁵

Additionally, stress and inflammatory hormones, such as cortisol and the adrenocorticotropic hormone (ATCH) are shown to have a correlation with mood swings.⁶ Cortisol and ATCH are activated by our stress response system, hence the correlation with mood swings.

Lack of Sleep

Lack of sleep can have a variety of negative effects, physically and emotionally. This can be seen with one night of poor sleep, or more importantly, with chronic poor sleep. Affective regulation is disturbed when a person does not receive enough sleep. Sleep is restorative. Without adequate restoration of our mind-body, mood swings can occur, increase, and/or worsen. There are many mental health conditions where insomnia is a key symptom. Thus, sleep plays a large role in the experience of mood swings with such disorders.

Bipolar Disorder

Bipolar disorder is a psychiatric condition where severe shifts in mood, mania or hypomania, and high risk behaviors are often present. Mood swings are a key indicator of a bipolar process. According to the clinical criteria for bipolar disorder, the mood state in this condition lasts for multiple days. The limitations this disorder causes on emotion regulation puts a person experiencing the disorder at increased risk of emotional reactivity toward themselves and others in their environment.

Depression

Depression is a severe and often persistent psychiatric disorder causing low mood, hopelessness, and suicidal ideations. Depressive symptoms may wax and wane depending on a number of different factors. Generally, there is a common misconception that depressed mood is the main affective state of a person experiencing depression. However, studies have shown that persons with clinical depression often show a higher rate of variable mood instability when compared to a person without clinical depression.⁷

Anxiety

Anxiety can be misdiagnosed as bipolar disorder with the presence of mood swings. Research has begun to show that an over-reactive mood related to anxiety provoking stimuli is at play rather than the severe mood shifts we see in bipolar disorder.⁸ Bipolar disorder mood shifts are cyclical and episodic, whereas over-reactive mood and hyper-sensitivity are related to anxious underpinnings of negative thought cycles and cognitive distortions.

ADHD

ADHD mood swings are common and often under discussed. A person diagnosed with ADHD experiences mood shifts in direct relation to an environmental trigger and subsequent symptoms for which they are struggling. ADHD symptoms including restlessness, distractibility, and impulsivity likely trigger mood shifts due to the environmental and interpersonal impacts of this compilation of symptoms.

Childhood Trauma

Childhood trauma has been found to be a predictive factor in the development of mood and personality disorders later in life. When people think of trauma, they may think of commonly described symptoms such as hyper-vigilance, nightmares, and flashbacks. Additionally, persons who experience traumatic incidents in childhood have been shown to experience mood swings due to compromise in the central nervous system.

Borderline Personality Disorder

Mood swings are a symptom of borderline personality disorder (BPD). Persons experiencing BPD struggle with interpersonal relationships, disrupted sense of self, and impulsive, seemingly self-destructive, behaviors. Interpersonal difficulties are the hallmark symptom of BPD due to the intensity for which fellow symptoms are experienced in the context of relationships.

Mood swings play a role in the interpersonal difficulties of persons with BPD. The severe shifts in mood and affect can cause a push-pull effect in relationships. On the one hand pushing people away and on the other hand drastically pulling people in (psychological speaking). This psychological pull is wound so tightly, it is as if they are all for which the person diagnosed with BPD has to live.

Low Blood Sugar & Too Much Sugar

What we consume day to day has a large impact on our emotional health. The term “hangry” was coined to combine “hungry” and “angry”. With low blood sugar we can experience mood swings. Low blood sugar can happen when we wait too long to eat between meals or from a medical condition such as diabetes. Alternatively, eating too much sugar can also throw a wrench in our mood. This is why nutrition is a key component to our mental health.

Identifying the Risks Associated With Mood Swings

Untreated mood swings can have dire consequences. These outcomes impact the person experiencing mood swings and those around them, from work or school to home. As highlighted, mood swings pose an increased risk of medical conditions, persistent interpersonal struggles, high risk and potentially life altering behaviors. These ramifications pose a risk to a person’s overall quality of life. Thus, it is imperative for communities and families to support one another in receiving timely evaluation and treatment.

Of note, it has been shown that persons from underserved communities are at the highest risk of developing disorders associated with mood swings than their counterparts who have more access to quality care.⁹ Making care available and welcoming to all, irrespective of race, religion, socio-economic status, ethnicity, ability, sexuality, and gender identity, is the single most important thing we can do to ensure healthier generations in the future.

Strategies for Coping With Mood Swings

Mood swings can feel unmanageable. However, there are various strategies for individuals to cope with mood swings. Coping may look different from one person to the next. There are practical day-to-day changes that can be implemented and intentional coping skills that can be learned, garnered, and practiced regularly.

Here are some coping strategies for mood swings:

• Mindfulness: Mindfulness is the practice of presence. In today’s modern world there are many distractions. Mindfulness can help lessen distraction and give us a sense of control. This is helpful to mood swings as many distractors and moving parts can contribute to frequent mood shifts.
• Meditation: Meditation is a practice of self awareness. Sitting with oneself and having curiosity about the origins and functions of our thoughts, feelings, impressions, and perceptions. This practice can help mood swings as it improves one’s insight into their experience of the world and themselves.
• Regular physical activity: Physical activity and mental health appear to have a symbiotic relationship. Being physically active releases certain chemicals in our brain, also known as neurotransmitters, such as endorphins, dopamine, etc. that leave us feeling happy and more at ease. These released chemicals can help with mood regulation.
• Sleep hygiene: Getting adequate sleep is essential for regulation of mood.¹⁰ Some considerations to improve your sleep hygiene can look like the following: limit your time on electronic devices especially one hour before bedtime, avoid eating heavy meals, sugary drinks/food, and caffeine a few hours before your planned bedtime, additionally implementing a mindfulness or meditation practice as discussed above.
• Stress management: Stress plays a large role in our emotional and physical well-being. Stress management is the active and intentional implementation of daily activities that support improved mood irrespective of stressful circumstances. Stress management may be spending an extra 30 minutes reading, listening to soothing music to unwind from your work day, and taking a few deep breaths to regulate your central nervous system. These intentional acts, when done consistently, can minimize the negative effects of mood swings on your day-to-day.
• Intentional journaling: Journaling can be a positive outlet for our emotions and thoughts. Intentional journaling for mood swings is where a person tracks their mood daily, in whichever way feels most helpful. For some, this can be creating a chart and ascribing different colors to each mood as they fill the chart in. For others, having a 1-10 scale with various moods represented by a number. This type of journaling goes one step further in a person reflecting on the triggers of negative mood throughout their day.
• Aromatherapy: Smell is our most powerful of the five senses. Use of aromatic oils and scents can help to elicit relaxation. Thus, aromas can support the calming of mood swings. There are two methods in using aromatherapy, either by inhalation of the scent alone, or gentle self-massage on tense areas of the body such as temples, shoulders, even the roots of one’s hair.
• Visualization techniques: Visualization, or guided imagery, is a specific type of meditative exercise. This technique can help with mood swings as one pictures oneself in support places and spaces. For example, visualizing oneself in a soothing environment, in a happy memory of one’s past, or with a supportive person in our lives doing one of our favorite things.
• Minimal to no use of mind-altering substances: Mind-altering substances are any drug or alcoholic beverage that causes changes in mood, perception, and decision making. These changes can increase and even intensify mood swings. Due to the potentially negative effects of substances because of such changes, it is important for persons with mood swings to consider minimizing or abstaining from mind-altering drugs.
• Yoga: Yoga is a supportive activity that pairs movement with breath to bring a sense of calming to our central nervous system. This movement and breath focused practice can support soothing of the body and mind, having a positive effect on mood as yoga supports putting us into a place of homeostasis with our central nervous system. The more at ease our nervous system, the more likely we are to experience less frequent and less severe mood swings.

Treatment Options for Mood Swings

Treatment for mood swings varies. Multiple treatment avenues may be utilized in tandem due to the complex nature of mood swings and subsequent mental health symptoms experienced. Treatment depends on the causes, triggers, and underlying reasons for mood swings. For most, treatment includes a combination of medication, therapy, and lifestyle adjustments.

Treatment options for mood swings may include:

• Medications: There are a variety of medications used to treat mood swings, including: mood stabilizers, antidepressants and even antipsychotics when mood swings are closely connected to mania. These medications help to support certain chemicals in the brain that mitigate mood swings either all together or to lessen the intensity for which they are experienced.
• Online Therapy: Online therapy services, such as BetterHelp, are user friendly and accessible means of therapy that can fit a person’s schedule and lifestyle. This may be a helpful option for a person experiencing mild mood swings as same day appointments, live chat sessions, and both phone and video options are available.
• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT): CBT is used to help persons with mood swings better connect how their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors contribute to the frequency, intensity, and overall experience of a mood swing. This type of therapy is geared toward restructuring negative thought processes and perceptions into ones that are more realistic and growth oriented which can support the minimization of mood swings.
• Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT): DBT is a combination of cognitive behavioral methods, mindfulness, interpersonal skill training, and emotion focused techniques. This can be a supportive model for mood swings as it works to support building insight into difficult emotional experiences. With this insight distress tolerance skills and emotion regulation techniques are taught to improve mood, affect, and decision making.
• Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT): ACT is a behavioral and mindfulness focused treatment. This type of therapy does not focus on symptom reduction, rather, on persons identifying their values and acting in ways that are meaningful to themselves and others. This mindset oriented approach can support reduced mood swings as it is intentional and builds insight into how our actions in the midst of symptoms can harm rather than help.
• Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR): EMDR is type of treatment that utilizes bilateral stimulation to restructure neural networks that play a role in painful memories. EMDR was originally developed to treat post-traumatic stress. Over the years, EMDR techniques have been found effective with mood, anxiety, and substance use disorders. For a person experiencing mood swings, the mind-body focused experience of EMDR can support improved self soothing despite triggers over time.
• Eclectic Therapy: Eclectic therapy is a combination of treatment methodologies that are brought together to meet the individualized needs of a client. This may be supportive to a person with mood swings as skills are intentionally focused to benefit the person and their unique experience.
• Group Therapy: Group therapy is an effective form of treatment that brings people together in a supportively therapeutic environment. Group can be focused toward specific diagnoses and skills. This could be helpful for those with mood swings in order to lessen the isolation of their experience and build skills alongside those that understand their experience.

When to Seek Professional Help

It may be time to seek professional help when experiencing the following: persistent mood fluctuations interfering with daily life, mood swings accompanied by thoughts of self-harm, and/or mood changes impacting relationships, school, and work. Mood swings that accompany significant symptoms such as mania, suicidality, hallucinations, and delusions must be treated immediately at one’s local emergency room where you will be stabilized accordingly.

People needing professional support can access online therapist directories to find a therapist that best fits their needs and is located in their area. For those with insurance that cannot afford out of pocket expenses, it is recommended to dial the numbers on the back of your insurance care to find local and in-network providers. Feel free to do consultations with a few different providers in order to find the therapist that is right for you.