In my own Bipolar experiences, I take the pharmaceutical route, mostly because I am absolutely and completely terrified of the consequences of not taking my medication (ie. going batshit crazy, taking off my clothing in inappropriate places, and things like this).  This doesn’t work for everybody and I have had some suggestions from others that perhaps meditation would work (I think this is possible for a maximum of 15 minutes), yoga, or maybe some fish oil. Because I am Bipolar 1, I prefer to do these activities in combination with my meds.

There are, however, some weird ideas out there that I have yet to try. Today, I came across Harry Magnet, who is a researcher of sorts studying the effects of the earth’s magnetic properties on our bodies, which he believes can affect us pyschologically. He calls this magnetoreception and started testing himself out for it after thinking about why he feels differently in different places. His theory (or hypothesis, I’m not a scientist) germinated in his mind after he realized that he felt differently in different places. Home, for example, was the “safe place”, while too far north or south of the “safe place” translated into something totally different.  For Harry, north of home meant that he was in a more depressed mood and south of home translated into body tics.  The other interesting thing about Harry’s sensitivity was that it disappeared if he closed his eyes or looked up.

On his web site, you can do a little quiz to see if you are magnetically sensitive with questions about whether you have a mental disorder like Bipolar Disorder or if you feel strange in different places. In my case, the first two answers were, “Yes” and “Yes” which means that  according to Harry Magnet’s standards, I may be more magnetically sensitive than most people, which is not always a good thing. 

Fortunately for people like me, his site also gives ideas for how to deal with the problem. He suggests simple modifications like changing the angle of your bed or modifying your sleep schedule, neither of which I have tried.

While I might try to move around the angle of my bed, and might stay up 45 minutes later,  I doubt I am going to quit my medication just yet. Something tells me that although Harry’s research has more of a scientific component than I’m letting on this post, magnetoreception might not be the only reason I feel off-kilter at times.