I have been recently diagnosed with bipolar disorder. does anyone have any tips for how to cope?

Work with your doc: Develop (and maintain) a good working relationship with your psychiatrist. Let him or her know of any changes in your condition, especially mood, sleep, activity level, or destructive thoughts or actions. Be sure to take your medicine as prescribed. Avoid alcohol and other intoxicants, as much as possible. These measures may help prevent and minimize episodes of mood disorder.

Structure: There is evidence that creating structure to your life, also called rhythm therapy, can minimize your episodes. This is especially true of sleep which needs to be as consistent as possible. Make sure you take your medications as prescribed and be as honest as you can with your prescriber about side effects so you can work together to find the best combination of treatment.

Mood stabilizers: As dr miles and dr soto said, the most important thing is to find a psychiatrist you can trust. Bipolar disorder almost always requires medication. Medications such as lithium, Depakote or Lamictal are called mood stabilizers because they help attenuate and prevent both manic and depressive episodes. Antidepressants (ad) may rarely be used with a mood stabilizer, but ad alone may induce mania.

Lifestyle: Agree with all the other answers about needing to take meds and working with doctor. Also as important is not looking at it as learning to cope, but instead realizing you have a chronic disease that is going to need long term changes in how you lead your life, to minimize flare-ups of the disorder. This advice holds true for any chronic disease - whether asthma, diabetes, heart disease or bipolar.