Is This A Mood Swing Or Irritability?

Is your spouse complaining that you have started barking at the drop of the hat recently? Do you lose your temper at your kids more often? Your colleagues are staying out of your way at work? Friends need to think twice before joking with you because they just cannot figure out what ticks you off any longer? And are these spells of bad mood actually mood swings or plain old irritability? Is there actually a difference between these two terms? If yes, what is that difference between a mood swing and irritability?

Well, if the cause of mood swing, that is the sudden change in your mood, is unjustified then you are definitely experiencing a mood swing. But, if your anger is justified, if you have a good reason to lose your cool then it is irritability. Though these definitions show a distinct difference between a mood swing and irritability, distinguishing one from the other is not as easy as it sounds. This is so because more often than not we cannot be objective about what we feel and cannot differentiate between what is justified and what isnĀ't.

But, a mood swing and irritability have things in common as well. You can also be attribute irritability to the primary cause of mood swing and that is hormonal imbalance. Whenever there is a fluctuation in the levels of estrogen, progesterone or androgen, the levels of serotonin (the chemical in charge of our moods) in the brain also fluctuate. This hormonal imbalance also has other effects on the body such as insomnia, hot flashes, reduced immunity towards certain diseases, all of which make us feel weak or tired. This fatigue then leads to our becoming short-tempered, in other words, our experiencing a mood swing or irritability.

Most women find that they experience a mood swing or irritability during the first and the last trimester of their pregnancy and during menopause. Men go through it during male menopause, also called andropause, and teenagers experience this during puberty. Further, during the formative years, a child will often have a mood swing or be very irritable because of all the emotional, biochemical and physical changes he/she is going through.

One way to find your whether your short temper is a mood swing or irritability, talk to your spouse or a friend about what happened when you have cooled down a bit and listen to whether they think your anger was justified in that situation or not. This will tell you whether you were just feeling irritable or going through a mood swing. But, either ways, you need to sit down and contemplate on what issues tick you off very easily. For all you know, your extreme reactions could be a result of the resurfacing of some old unresolved emotional issue. This emotional baggage needs to be dealt with in order to avoid future mood swings or to control your frequent irritability.