The Tao of Bipolar: Using Meditation and Mindfulness to Find Balance and Peace

by Annellen Simpkins, C. Alexander Simpkins

If you have bipolar disorder, you struggle with psychological balance, swinging between highly depressed and highly manic states. For you, finding the middle path can be a challenge, which is why the Tao understanding of energy can be so helpful. �Tao,” is a Chinese word meaning �the way” and a metaphysical concept for understanding the universe as a circular flow of energy. The Tao understanding of bipolar disorder is that symptoms are the result of a disrupted or imbalanced energy flow that can be brought back to harmony with dedication and practice.

In The Tao of Bipolar, you will reconnect with your essential, stable, balanced nature, which, according to the Tao, is the inherent state of all matter. In the book, you will learn to manage your energy with meditation and other techniques so that you can always return to their stable center. While you may lose touch with the center during bipolar episodes, this book encourages you to use mindfulness and meditation to consciously shift your energy back to this center before a bipolar episode gets too extreme.

When it comes to bipolar disorder, managing emotions, preventing manic episodes, and dealing effectively with periods of depression is key to your mental health and well-being. This book will give you the tools you need to get your bipolar disorder under control, and get back to living life.

Once you learn to manage your moods, you can function normally and experience far less suffering from the disorder, even when you do have bipolar episodes.

Genres: Mental Health, Psychology, Self Help, Nonfiction, Spirituality

192 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2012

About the author

I am a psychologist who specializes in meditation, hypnosis, and neuroscience, I have copauthored 27 books with my husband, C. Alexander Simpkins, PhD. We are devoted to writing and public speaking to enhance the quality of life, to uplift and add skills. I have been involved in psychotherapy for many decades and believe in the potentials within to grow and develop. Our most recent book is "The Tao of Bipolar," just released April 1, 2013, written for people with mood problems to help find balance and actualize talents. http://www.newharbinger.com/author/an...
"Neuroscience for Clinicians" (Springer, 2012) clarifies the new brain science and shows how to activate your brain for positive change. http://www.springer.com/psychology/bo...
We have three books on therapeutic meditation: Zen Meditation in Psychotherapy, Meditation and Yoga in Psychotherapy (Wiley, 2011 & 2010) http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/Section... and Meditation for Therapists and Their Clients (Norton, 2010). Our hypnosis books include Neuro-Hypnosis (Norton, 2010) http://books.wwnorton.com/books/Autho... Self-Hypnosis for Women with CD (2004), and Effective self-Hypnosis with CD (2000) http://www.radiantdolphinpress.com/. Some of our Eastern philosophy titles include Simple Zen, Simple Taoism, Simple Buddhism, & Simple Tibetan. Buddhism (Tuttle Publishing, 1999-2000). We also have a number of book/CD combinations for meditation including Meditation from Thought to Action with CD (Radiant Dolphin Press, 2005)

Reviews

[Kelvin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow. Where does one start?

I won this book from the goodreads giveaways. It is probably not one I would have found on my own, and I probably would not have read it either. However, "free books"...what the heck? Why not? And I am so glad that I did. If there is some guy sitting behind a desk somewhere at the goodreads office, print this off and pass it around because I want to say thank you for doing the giveaways. Thank you. Thank you.

First, I have been recently diagnosed with bipolar and some frontal lobe damage. So this book was both educational and inspirational. Second, I was not sure I wanted to read a book length woo about Taoism. However, the authors kept the woo to a bare minimum, integrated it with psychology, and (at times) translated it into more Western terminology. They made it both reasonable and accessible to a skeptical reader.

The book is roughly divided into three sections: principles and facts, learning meditation, and handling your moods. All the chapters are relatively short and to the point. They are very economic with their words, which I loved. It was direct and to the point. This will keep a person reading when they are unsure of the validity of the content. But I have to say that my skepticism gave way to excitement and hope.

The section on principles and facts was most educational. I have had a mental health professional explain things to me, and have read handouts, etc but the facts presented here were so basic and well communicated that I better understood the things I already "knew." Again, their economic prose made it easy, accesible reading.

The second section, on meditation, was also very educational. They explained, with simple exercises, concepts about focus, open focus, and no focus meditation, and explained how each can help a person cope with their episodes. I will also add here that the authors were very clear that these exercises were best used WITH the prescribed medication and not instead of medication. They were very responsible to mention this point in a few different places in the text.

Finally, the section on handling your moods took the meditation techniques learned in the second section and applied them to stress, depression, mania, and relationships in easy to understand and implement ways. I cannot overemphasize the point that the Simpkins writing style is so clean and economic. It is refreshing to have a psychology "manual" that can be read and understood by the layman. And enjoyed!

Overall, I will say that I am very happy that I read this book. It gives me encouragement as I deal with this new understanding of what my life is and will be. And, most of all, it gives me hope that I can handle it. I look forward to perfecting the meditation exercises that I have already begun, thanks to this book.

Thanks again goodreads. And thank you Drs Simpkins and Simpkins.

[Skylar · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't have bipolar, but I won this book in a giveaway and thought it might help me anyway. I suffer from depression, anxiety, and OCD. I have plenty of experience with depression, and sometimes anxiety or OCD can resemble mania, if for shorter periods of time. I found this book easy to read, easy to implement, and very helpful. In fact, I think *anyone* would benefit from this book and its teachings.

The style of writing may be difficult for some people, as it has a very structured set-up and can be repetitive. From my perspective, I believe it's written like an academic piece. However, I think that's a strength of this book. The repetition didn't feel repetitive to me because the authors skillfully said things differently, increasing my opportunity to fully understand and internalize the lesson. I think this structure is a real strength of the book, yet it still remains very short and to-the-point.

Highly recommended.

[Gregory Day · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has a lot to do with the growth and discipline of your mind. Once you start Meditation and Mindfulness you will quickly realize the benefits, especially if Depression strikes you deep and mania sends you flying. I have experienced the calming effect of this daily routine, and together with prescribed medicine I feel a BALANCE which is very good for me and importantly for those who care for/about me.
Good luck to you,
Namaste,
Greg

[Randee Baty · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not bipolar but I thought this might be a useful read because I am close to several people who are. It is a clear presentation of the the topic. It did help me realize how their minds are operating. It would have been of more use to them than it was to me I'm sure but I found it to be a useful read.

I received this through Goodreads giveaway program and gave my honest review.

[Jackie Berke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good review for therapist to use techniques in session. Good book for family friends that may have bipolar and want some new tools or learn tools

[Maggie Hess · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Tao of Tripolar Order

I was going to write a review of the Tao of Bipolar Disorder focusing on reading the book from the perspective of other diagnoses, especially schizo-affective. I am deeply appreciating the book and the role of meditation in my treatment, plus improving my vocabulary and understanding of the brain. While the book is useful for people of all diagnoses, and I always can just replace the word bipolar with schizo-affective, I am not pleased with the lack of identifiable reading material on schizo-affective. I would expand that to a displeasure with the shortage of media in general on schizo-affective including movies. Diagnosis doesn't really matter to me anymore. I could just as well call my illness tripolar order, but I still want to be exposed to more information and stories of people like me. For one, it goes straight to identity. I want to know how other people like me succeeded in the world or failed so I don't do that. Secondly, it changes how people perceive me. Some people don't seem to mind, but would you be more inclined to hire a teacher who had experienced psychosis? (We're talking a person who no longer believes unreal, or psychotic truths.) I am outspoken about my illness. All the time, people mention to me – and often in private – they too are coping with mental illness. This brings me to my third point, I want my friends to be OK with their perceptions of themselves. I want to be OK with my self too. The Tao of Bipolar is a book that explains the reasons meditation improves the mood and thinking of bipolar people. People with different ways of thinking could use more focus too. The world is growing up quickly in terms of stigma against mental illnesses of all polarities. That's the good news. I am overwhelmed and impressed at what a century has done for mental illness. My suggestion is more focus is placed on schizo-affective like it was before on bipolar and unipolar.

[Kalin Rheanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is necessary material for all mental health patients AND practitioners. When patients are given a diagnosis of bipolar disorder, or another mood disorder, they are told that they will suffer from this forever and are given a prescription. This is how modern psychiatry practices (recognizing there are exceptions). Meditation is a powerful tool that a person can use to completely change their experience and outlook. The authors do a wonderful job of explaining the Eastern philosophy (which can entirely shift perspective in and of itself) as well as presenting the well researched and documented Western evidence. In fact, this book is mostly written in Western terms, so it is understandable to the target population at large. The key Eastern concepts are presented in an easy to understand manner.

This book contains a lot of meditation exercises to use in different circumstances, which will help not only bipolar patients, but individuals with other mood disorders as well as every human being, as we all need calm and clarity at times.

If you are already very familiar with meditation and Eastern philosophy, this book does bring some additional details relating to the biology behind bipolar disorder. It also may serve as a good reference for meditations. However, if you already have such a reference or have gotten to the point where you don't need one, this book may be too basic for you.

Overall, I think that everyone should learn this material, especially healthcare practitioners in the mental health field and necessarily all mental health patients. If I had unlimited funds, I would buy this book for every psychiatrist and psychologist in the area, and give them additional copies for their patients.

[Betsy Ashton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Simpkins and Simpkins combine traditional Eastern meditation with Western medical treatments for bipolar disorder to offer a different approach to treatment.

By practicing a variety of meditation techniques, by doing the exercises in the book, and by taking the medications prescribed by a medical doctor, people with the disorder can find a way to lead a healthy life.

Even if you don't suffer from the disorder, and if you've never meditated before, this book serves as a guide to begin. Tao is a metaphysical concept that teaches how to focus cosmic energy. Simple breathing exercises, visualization techniques and other practices take the beginner along a path to understand the pull of yin and yang, how to harness chi, and how to use your new awareness to manage emotional highs and lows, find inner peace and use mindfulness techniques to understand and control emotions.

[Sidek · Rating 2 out of 5]

i think the word "TAO" is just another hype since nowadays people get really interested with eastern tradition of mind training, that is meditation.

i just skip the chapters abou physiology of brain and stressor and depression and manic, because im a doctor myself.

anyhow, the exercises and training in this book is really useful.

[Rodney Richards · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not great at meditation, unless you call talking it out with myself, out loud, meditation, which I do. But lots of hidden gems on what it means to have Bipolar Disorder and good tips on how to live with it, so it fulfilled its purpose.

[Jen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't actually finish this because I got really bored with all of the technical science.

[Fred Kohn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a fine book if you're willing to wade through a bit of Eastern metaphysics. I've been doing a bit of meditating for years, mainly when disturbing thoughts are keeping me awake or otherwise troubling me. I just grab a meditation from this source or that source as I see fit, and I've written down about 5 from this book, which I think is a record for me.

[Carol & Russell]

It did help with my son. I read it. I like it too.