My symptoms feed on each other. I get manic, and I start to spike, and then I can't sleep. After two weeks of poor sleep my psychotic symptoms start to crank up. Both these symptoms make it hard to concentrate or do anything useful. At the same time, stress causes my symptoms to explode, especially the psychotic symptoms. My father died just a few days ago, and I've been listening to ongoing voices saying that I killed him, that he died because of my "bad thoughts," that his soul is in Hell because of me, that he is in Heaven pissing down on me, etc. Interestingly, physical stress doesn't seem to trigger me. I am a hiker, and it is not unusual for me to hike ten or eleven miles at a time, or even more. This makes me tired, but it doesn't fire my symptoms. In fact, during exercise, and for a while afterward, I feel pretty good. Physical exercise reduces the symptoms to some extent, or at least makes me feel more capable of dealing with them. I'd recommend walking a few miles a day, to anyone with mental illness. It may help you and certainly won't hurt.