Hypomania and mania are built from the same six symptom domains. What separates them is severity, duration, and impact, not which symptoms show up.
Elevated mood and grandiosity
Both episodes typically start with a mood shift, feeling unusually good, confident, or "on top of the world", often paired with an inflated sense of importance or ability. In hypomania this might look like feeling unusually capable at work. In full mania it can escalate into believing you have special abilities or a special purpose, sometimes to a degree others clearly notice as unusual.
Sleep, thoughts, and speech
A reduced need for sleep, without feeling tired the next day, is one of the more specific signs clinicians look for, since it is distinct from ordinary insomnia. Thoughts often speed up too, racing from idea to idea, sometimes spilling out as unusually fast, hard-to-interrupt speech.
Impulsivity and activity
Both episodes tend to bring a jump in goal-directed activity, starting new projects, taking on more, moving faster through the day, alongside impulsive decisions: spending, risk-taking, or commitments that look out of character in hindsight. This is often the part that causes the most real-world consequences.
Where the line actually falls
Clinically, hypomania lasts at least four days, doesn't require hospitalisation, and doesn't include psychosis. Mania lasts at least a week (or leads to hospitalisation) and can include psychotic features, losing touch with reality. The symptoms are the same list, the difference is how far and how long they go, and how much they disrupt daily functioning. Only a clinician can make that distinction reliably.