![get my moods get my moods](https://image.marriage.com/advice/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Skills-in-Bed-How-to-Get-Your-Wife-in-the-Mood.jpg)
Because it contrasts so much with depression, many with bipolar disorder think hypomania is a normal or healthy mood. It exhibits high energy, productive activity and irritability, as well as other characteristics of mania, but it doesn’t have the extremes that might result in hospitalization.
![get my moods get my moods](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Himn1W6PaFw/maxresdefault.jpg)
Hypomania is a mood that lies between true mania and normal mood. We have all heard descriptions of depression and mania but there are other moods as well. In bipolar illness, the boundaries of healthy mood are crossed, causing distinct moods outside of the healthy range of normal mood. Normal or healthy mood stays within a boundary that allows for happiness or contentment, in spite of positive and negative stressors in one’s life. It isn’t usually in the textbooks! It is a mood with resilience, even though it has its ups and downs.
![get my moods get my moods](https://scopeblog.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/4232232092_fa43c6e102_o-e1470853302760.jpg)
In addition to the moods of depression and mania, normal or healthy mood is one that is important to recognize. In bipolar illness, the key difficulty is the brain’s inability to regulate mood consistently within a normal or healthy range. When we are living in the world of changing moods, it is sometimes difficult to identify the mood we are experiencing. Is there a mood that is neither depression nor mania? Do you experience mixed moods of mania and depression and have difficulty determining which one you’re experiencing?