What are mood regulating drugs?

Currently, mood-regulating drugs commonly used in clinical practice are strictly controlled psychiatric prescription drugs, mainly including antidepressants for depression, loss of interest, etc., anti-anxiety drugs for anxiety such as tension and excessive worry, mood stabilizers for mood swings such as bipolar disorder, and some atypical antipsychotic drugs used in small doses can also help regulate mood. All such drugs must be prescribed by a professional doctor after evaluation, and must not be purchased and taken by yourself.

I recently saw a girl who was a sophomore in college. She only slept two or three hours a day for three weeks. She would shed tears while sitting in class staring at the blackboard. She didn’t even want to go to the comic show she loved to go to. She was diagnosed with a moderate depressive episode and was prescribed sertraline. This is the most commonly used SSRI antidepressant, and people often call it “anti-depressant.” It is one of the "Yu Five Golden Flowers". Similar drugs include fluoxetine, paroxetine, fluvoxamine, and citalopram. The side effects of this kind of drug are relatively mild. Most people will only feel a little nauseated for the first few days after taking it. After a week or two of tolerance, the low mood will slowly return to normal levels, and it can also improve the accompanying anxiety symptoms.

If you encounter a patient with bipolar disorder who alternates between mania and depression, ordinary antidepressants may induce manic episodes. At this time, you must use mood stabilizers to "suppress" fluctuating emotions. The most classic ones are lithium carbonate, sodium valproate, and lamotrigine, which all fall into this category. I once had a patient who worked in Internet operations. He just became a department manager at the age of 30. At first, he stayed up all night for a week without feeling tired. Then he told everyone he would lead a team to earn tens of millions next year. Then he stayed at home without even getting out of bed. He had to have his meals handed to his mouth by his family. He was diagnosed with both diseases. After the phase, he was treated with sodium valproate and low-dose quetiapine for more than three months, and his mood was basically stable within the normal range. The quetiapine mentioned here is an atypical antipsychotic. When used in small doses, it not only helped stabilize his mood, but also improved his sleep problem of day and night reversal at that time.

Nowadays, people's attitudes towards this type of medicine are actually quite polarized. They either think that "if you feel bad, just take a pill and it'll be over", or that "taking psychotropic drugs means you're mentally ill and you'll become stupid and addicted", both of which are quite extreme. Last month, a young man who had just changed jobs came to the outpatient clinic. He said that the new position was stressful and he felt flustered at work every day. He asked if he could be prescribed some "happy pills" to take them so that he wouldn't be upset. After I evaluated him, it was a short-term stress reaction, which was not enough to require medication. I made a plan for him to jog for half an hour three times a week, coupled with cognitive behavioral adjustment once a week. In just half a month, he said that his symptoms had basically disappeared. There is also an aunt in her 50s who was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder. The doctor prescribed buspirone. She went back and read the instruction manual that it was an anti-anxiety drug. She was afraid that she would become addicted, so she secretly stopped the drug. As a result, her symptoms of dizziness, chest tightness, and restlessness became worse, so she came back to get it again. In fact, among the commonly used anti-anxiety drugs now, except for benzodiazepines such as alprazolam and lorazepam, which may cause dependence when used in large amounts for a long time, new anti-anxiety drugs such as buspirone and tandospirone are not addictive at all. There is no need to worry if you take them as directed by your doctor.

By the way, don’t believe those health care products sold online that claim to be “purely natural for regulating emotions”, such as St. John’s wort gummies and mood-relieving tablets. They are at most used as psychological comfort. If emotional problems are really pathological, these will not have any therapeutic effect at all. Not only will you waste your money, but they may also delay formal treatment. To be honest, emotional problems are like catching a cold in the soul. Taking medicine is never the only solution, and not everyone who is depressed or irritable needs to take medicine. If you find that your emotional problems have affected your eating, sleeping, and normal work and school, don't bear it, and don't take random medicines on your own. It is better to seek an evaluation from a psychiatrist or psychologist in a regular hospital first than anything else.