How do you control mania???

I do that hyper focused all the time where I want to do one thing constantly and think about nothing else, didn’t realize it was mania. I wish I could translate it into something positive and constructive. Also my normal sleep cycle is to stay up until dawn, sleeping during the early day.

I'm not qualified to know what medications would work best for others, but I can share my experience. What causes me mania more than anything else are the following:

* Being unmedicated
* Drinking alcohol with or without medications
* Taking any kind of antidepressant (though I know many people with bipolar disorder benefit from them)
* Taking a stimulant (like Provigil)
* Taking bipolar medications that are activating for me. In my case, Lamictal and Abilify were quite activating. I do take a small dose of Lamictal now and have for a while, but I take it along with an antipsychotic and a large dose of a moodstabilizer that is not activating for me (Tegretol XR aka carbamazepine ER).
* Being on bipolar medications that just don't have enough umph to fight my mania
* Being under great stress (being triggered by that). Sometimes the great stress is even an extremely positive one.
* I often get upswings in the spring. This year it has been controlled well, though.

If I avoid all of the above, I can usually (but not always) fight off mania.

I won't go into detail about my manias because they pretty much include everything in the symptom list. I do get elated manias, but often either during the elated mania or towards the end, it gets extremely irritable. Often my manias become mixed.