Meaning & use
mood stabilizer
Last updated
Meaning
nouncountablemedical
A medicine that helps reduce extreme shifts in mood, used especially to treat bipolar disorder.
Grammar: Countable: lithium is a well-known mood stabilizer.
Patterns
- take a mood stabilizer
- be prescribed a mood stabilizer
His doctor prescribed a mood stabilizer to even out his highs and lows.
She has taken a mood stabilizer every morning for five years.
Lithium is one of the best-known mood stabilizers.
Word forms
| plural | mood stabilizers |
|---|
Common combinations
- prescribe a mood stabilizer
- The psychiatrist decided to prescribe a mood stabilizer.
- take a mood stabilizer
- He takes a mood stabilizer to prevent sudden mood swings.
- stop taking a mood stabilizer
- Never stop taking a mood stabilizer without talking to a doctor.
- side effects of a mood stabilizer
- Weight gain is a possible side effect of a mood stabilizer.
Synonyms and how they differ
- antimanic drug
- Antimanic drug is a narrower technical term for medicine aimed at manic episodes, whereas mood stabilizer covers broader balancing effects.
- antidepressant
- An antidepressant mainly lifts low mood, but a mood stabilizer evens out both highs and lows.
Word family
Commonly confused: mood stabilizer or antidepressant?
mood stabilizer vs antidepressant
An antidepressant is a medicine for depression. A mood stabilizer is aimed at keeping mood from swinging too high or too low.
Practice
The psychiatrist prescribed a ___ to help control the extreme highs and lows of his bipolar disorder.
Choose one answer.
A mood stabilizer evens out mood swings. A painkiller treats pain and a sleeping pill helps sleep, so neither fits.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “mood stabilizer”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.