This list is compiled by members of our eCommunity. In our experience mania and its symptoms can be personal to an individual.
Having insight is important so you can recognise a behaviour or reaction that is slightly out of the ordinary. That said, the border between having insight and losing it can be quite fine.  The change can happen quite quickly. It can be hard to determine its threshold when you are in an episode.
Keeping a mood diary can be a useful tool to be aware of your own triggers and mood patterns. Also having people around you who you trust and who can give you feedback on your mood and behaviour is helpful.
Here are some symptoms we recognise:
Activity
Highly productive Spinning lots of plates at the same time/multi-tasking Spending or overspending
Cognitive/ways of thinking
Making connections creatively Word play and punning Suspicious thoughts moving to paranoia Making links with coincidences (a kind of benign paranoia) Religiosity, sometimes with delusions of being a higher being or saviour Obsessive thoughts Planning schemes or projects that are never realised Overlap with depressive black and white thinking Secrecy Audio psychosis Paranoia/Feeling like being spied on Racing thoughts Anxiety about everything and nothing Being super animated Short fuse/extreme irritability Heightened senses/sensory overload - everything is magnified - brighter colours or sharper hearing Touch can feel tingly. I get goose bump feelings up my arms and on my scalp which can be heightened by music, laughing, other people Excited feelings like butterflies in tummy, rushes of energy and sensations through body of being connected to everything around you in a spiritual/energy sharing Can sometimes feel like blending into an object, like you can feel the texture merging with you which although may feel pleasant at first, very quickly becomes unpleasant Things are too bright, too loud, too close, clothes feel scratchy/weird or too tight
Behaviour
Grandiosity Sleep loss/no need of sleep Micro managing projects Talking faster and/or louder Needing lot of stimulation...YouTube, TV, conversations Overbooking spare time, leaving no gaps to do nothing More active on forums Overspending - linked to secrecy as mentioned above Driving with too much confidence/more aggressively Repeated loss of spectacles Very high sex drive Risky behaviour Extra-productive and creative eg songwriting Acting out of the ordinary eg being disinhibited Becoming childlike or a joker/buffoon - doing silly things like being silly with my kids (which they love!) Becoming arrogant with a sharp tongue Extreme anxiety as part of hypomania Going into a catatonic state and becoming unresponsive