Acceleration

Acceleration is an increase in the rate or speed of internal processes — thinking, speech, movement, or emotional shifts. In mental health, cognitive and behavioral acceleration is about tempo, not just energy. A person can be highly activated but not accelerated (tense but slow) or accelerated without extreme energy (racing thoughts while physically still). In bipolar mania/hypomania, this can entail rapid speech, racing thoughts, jumping quickly between ideas. Acceleration often signals a shift from high but manageable activation into dysregulation, where the system is moving too fast to integrate or control.