Great question!

I think it's important to monitor our moods and their fluctuations, but I do think it can go too far.

I can't tell you how important it is to know and understand your 'normal.' It's different for everyone (i.e. some people are, within their normal, more impulsive than others, some are more hyper than others, some are more melancholy than others, etc., etc.). Normal is a range of emotion, not just one emotion. You can have mood swings WITHIN that normal.

And I think it can be empowering to know where your normal lies (I was actually going to say normal was akin to 'stable,' but really it's not, because within your 'I'm not in a BP episode', can lie anxiety, panic attacks, PTSD triggers, situational depression, situational hypomania-like-light moods, etc.) I say empowering because you will know yourself better, and not be looking for BP symptoms under every rock, which has to be exhausting, amongst other things. It might also lead to less unnecessary med changes, when with every change in mood, we want to tweak our meds to make us feel better.

For example (and this is re anxiety, not BP), I was noticing the day before yesterday that I was very anxious, and noticing I was anxious made me even more anxious, because I didn't know when it would stop. But then I thought about it and realized why; it was obvious, but I just wasn't thinking. So extra klonopin avoided, and I just felt so much better knowing why.

I wish I could give advice as to HOW to determine what your range of normal is. I think, in my case, it's been experience with myself (I'm turning 50 in a week!) and lots and lots of therapy (and I still misread things at times until my T and/or pdoc redirects me). I think any good therapist will tell you that not every blip in mood is reason for alarm, and a good pdoc will not change around meds if you can convey to them that, yes, it's very uncomfortable, awful even, but I know it's within my normal and I don't think I need any med changes. On the other hand, if what you present to the pdoc is that this is part of BP, when it is not, you may get med changes you don't need, at least in part because pdocs don't spend the time (or have the time) to suss out what is going wrong, unlike T's.