Lithium and other mood stabilisers

Explains how lithium and other mood stabilising drugs work, how they might help you, whether to take them if you're pregnant or breastfeeding, and what alternative treatments are available.

View this information as a PDF (new window)

What are mood stabilisers?

Mood stabilisers are a type of psychiatric drug. They are licensed to be used as part of the treatment for:

bipolar disorder
mania and hypomania
recurrent, severe depression and schizoaffective disorder, in some cases.

Some of the individual drugs we call mood stabilisers are actually very different chemical substances from each other. But healthcare professionals often group them together, because they can all help to stabilise your mood if you experience problems with extreme highs or extreme lows. They can also help if you have mood swings between extreme highs and lows.

What are the different types of mood stabiliser?

Lithium, anticonvulsants and antipsychotics are the three main types of drug which are used as mood stabilisers. There are several types of individual drug within each of these groups.

Each of these individual drugs may be known by several different names, some of which we have listed in these pages. See our page on drug names for more information.

Lithium

Lithium is a mood stabilising medication commonly used to treat bipolar disorder. It can be prescribed as:

lithium carbonate (Camcolit, Priadel, Liskonum)
lithium citrate (Li-liquid, Priadel).

Lithium carbonate is the mood stabiliser that I'm on… Apart from the side effect of it making me really thirsty, I've found it has really evened me out, brought up my lows and made them not last as long and balanced the highs out, too.

Anticonvulsants

Some anticonvulsant medication can be used to help stabilise mood. You may also hear these drugs referred to as anti-epileptic medication.

Anticonvulsants which are used as mood stabilisers include:

carbamazepine (Tegretol)
lamotrigine (Lamictal)
valproate (Depakote, Epilim).

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is updating its recommendations on the use of valproate. But if you’re currently taking valproate, it’s important to continue taking it unless your doctor tells you otherwise. Find out about the planned changes.

Valproate pregnancy warning

If you take valproate while you are pregnant, there is a higher risk of your child being born with birth defects and learning disabilities.

The regulators of this medicine say that you should not take valproate if you are pregnant.

They also say you should not be prescribed valproate if you are able to become pregnant, unless you have a pregnancy prevention programme in place.

See our page on valproate for more information about this.

Antipsychotics

Some antipsychotic medications can be used as mood stabilisers, as part of the treatment for bipolar disorder.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), the organisation that produces guidelines on best practice in healthcare, has guidelines for treating bipolar disorder. These guidelines recommend using the following antipsychotics as mood stabilisers:

haloperidol (Dozic, Haldol, Haldol decanoate, Serenace)
olanzapine (Zalasta, Zyprexa, ZypAdhera)
quetiapine (Atrolak, Biquelle, Ebesque, Seroquel, Tenprolide, Zaluron)
risperidone (Risperdal, Risperdal Consta).

The antipsychotic asenapine is also sometimes used as a mood stabiliser, as a treatment for mania.

Are antidepressants mood stabilisers?

Some people assume that antidepressant drugs are also mood stabilisers. This may be because they can help to lift your mood if you're experiencing depression.

But antidepressants are not included in the group of drugs we call mood stabilisers. They are a separate type of psychiatric medication. See our pages on antidepressants for more information.

Was this page useful? Yes No Tell us more Tell us more

Tell us more

Why did you visit this page? *

For my own mental health
For someone else’s mental health
Academic/educational/professional reason
Other reason

What do you want to tell us about?

Praise – things we do well
Criticism – things we could do better
Errors, mistakes or broken links

Please give us your feedback:

Note:

Please don’t include personal details like your name or email address. If you do, data protection law means we’ll have to delete your comments.
Unfortunately we can’t reply to this. If you want a response from us, see our Contact us page.
If you are in crisis right now and want to talk to someone urgently then you could call Samaritans on 116 123 (freephone). Our pages on crisis services have more options.

There has been a problem submitting your feedback.

Thankyou for providing your feedback.

This information was published in June 2020.

This page is currently under review. All content was accurate when published.

References and bibliography available on request.

If you want to reproduce this content, see our permissions and licensing page.

Campaigning

Volunteering

Membership