Latest / Understanding Your Concussion / Episode 9: How to Know Healing IS Happening: Recovery Time is the Key
Transcript
- Jana: ⁓ Hi, I am Jana Kapp. I know the concussion recovery journey deeply, ⁓ both personally ⁓ and professionally. Join me in understanding your concussion, ⁓ where I empower you in navigating the complexities of a concussion recovery journey by sharing the science of what is going on behind the scenes, the stories of why we feel the way we feel, and how we can work with our brain to find our way back to feeling and functioning like ourselves again. Recently, I've been on a health kick. I've been working out, eating healthy, drinking water, trying to get good sleep. I'm taking action for me to move forward towards my goal of feeling fit and healthy. And going through this process, I'm getting a lot of ads for. Different apps out there that will help me calculate how long it will take for me to achieve my goal. So the other day I put in the information of what I was working towards and it out popped this timeline of how long it was going to take me to get to my goal. It was about six months away. And something in me kind of shifted. Having that understanding of how long it was going to take me to achieve that goal made me feel more committed to continuing to take these actions in the now. Because the actions that I'm taking right now, it's hard to see. when I will actually achieve my goal. it's hard to know from day to day if these actions are taking me towards how I want to feel and function in the future. having this app that gave me an idea of a timeline helped me feel more committed to my goal. That in reality, yeah. I am going to achieve my goal if I keep taking these actions that I've been taking in the day-to-day. And it really made me think about the concussion recovery journey, that if I had had access to an app to tell me that the actions that I am taking now, in this moment of the day to day, was going to lead me down the road in a certain time frame, to achieve that goal, then I knew that healing was happening. I knew that the action I was taking was going to work. it would make me feel more motivated to keep going. But the reality is, we do not have an app that will help us to know that our actions that we're taking in the now towards our ultimate goal of being symptom-free. Is five or six months down the road, It is really challenging in this concussion recovery journey to know that healing is happening. Many of us look to our symptoms. We look for that objective measure, something that we can see. That healing is actually happening. And it is natural for us to turn to our symptoms for that. That the actions that we're taking now have an impact on our symptoms to know that healing is happening. I was doing the same thing during my concussion recovery journey. Waking up in the morning thinking, is my headache gone? Am I gonna have energy for today? How long am I gonna make it through the day before my symptoms increase? Is this gonna be a good day or a bad day? The guessing is really unnerving to live every single day. And I know. That taking action is important. But staying motivated to keep taking that action is really hard in a concussion recovery journey when you are still experiencing symptoms. If we're looking to our symptoms to guide us, to tell us that we are healed, that we are better, or that we are not, we're really taking on a black and white outlook. I have symptoms, I am not better. I don't have symptoms. I am better. That black and white outlook Can limit our ability to see the healing. What I started to realize when navigating my concussion recovery journey, is that symptoms were a part of the experience. And I've had this conversation this week with clients where we've been talking about symptoms. And I could see that this particular client. Was starting to get into that headspace of that black and white approach of looking at symptoms. I have symptoms, this is bad. I don't have symptoms, this is good. And that's not actually the reality. When we navigate this journey, especially if we've been living with symptoms long term, our brain has learned that symptoms come along with the tasks and activities that we're doing. And so we're trying to find a way. To create new neuropathways to allow our brain to unlearn that symptoms are associated with this experience. But as we're going through that process, we're going to experience symptoms. Much like I've talked about with the weight loss journey, you don't eat one salad and drop 10 pounds. the actions that we're taking. Especially when we're looking through the lens of taking on the principles of neuroplasticity, requires repetition. It takes time for our brain to build new neuropathways. And so, in that process of switching from the pathway that our brain is used to using to now creating a new pathway, there's still going to be elements of that old pathway still arising as we navigate building this new neuropathway. So symptoms are a part of the experience. What we want to ensure is that we're not fearing our symptoms. When we fear our symptoms, it impacts our nervous system and its ability to be or stay regulated. When we can accept the fact that symptoms are a part of this experience as we're navigating from feeling symptomatic to becoming symptom-free, we need something else outside of I have symptoms, I don't have symptoms, to help us be able to see that healing is happening, to see that those neural pathways are changing as we start to move through this journey. So instead of that black and white. approach to our symptoms. I have symptoms, this is not good. I don't have symptoms, I'm healing. There's a different way that we can look at this. In my journey, there wasn't as much information to access at the time that I was navigating the process. But I was searching, And we might have our loved ones, our supportive circle around us. also searching. my mom was someone in my support circle who was helping me try and find the answers to the questions that I had. there was a woman who was a physiotherapist that was a family friend. my cousin is a physiotherapist as well. And this particular physiotherapist was her mentor. So my mom connected the two of us. And my mom and I went to, I think we went to her house just to have a conversation. And talk a little bit about what I was experiencing, what I was going through, and if she had any advice for me. This particular physiotherapist spent her career navigating chronic pain. Chronic symptoms, chronic pain, there is a lot that does overlap, and a lot that we can learn from that research of chronic pain So I sat and chatted with her, and there were a few things that she asked me that piqued my interest a little bit, and things that she was recognizing that I was experiencing and validating my experience. But there was one in particular thing that really stood out to me. in that conversation. And what this physiotherapist said to me was, pay attention to your recovery time. at the time I had no clue what that meant. But it stuck with me. And my brain was lingering on that and trying to understand what she meant and how that would apply to a concussion versus someone with pain. I started paying attention, one of those principles of neuroplasticity, to what I was doing and how it made me feel. I started to pay more attention to the nuance of my symptoms. Not just that I had symptoms, but the intensity of the symptom I was experiencing. As a physiotherapist, we love putting things on a scale. What is the intensity of that on a zero to 10 scale? And so that's what I started to pay attention to. Yes, I have a symptom. I have a headache. I am feeling dizzy or nauseous. I'm feeling foggy or fatigued. But what is the intensity of that symptom? How long have I been participating in this task or activity that now I'm experiencing this symptom? What was I doing before? Have I eaten? Have I rested? I was really starting to pay attention to the actions I was taking and then what that feeling was and how intense that feeling was. And that's when I started to truly understand what the physiotherapist in chronic pain was talking about when she said, pay attention to your recovery time. Because recovery time was about how I was recovering from an increase of symptoms. So my symptoms have increased. That I've accepted. That is a part of the experience. But now I can pay attention to the intensity of that symptom, the frequency of that symptom, and how long it. Takes for my symptoms to settle. Because if I can start to pay attention to that recovery time and notice that I can read, I get a headache, but my headache is five out ten, and it takes four hours for it to settle. Okay. Now, if I adjust slightly some of the other things that I've been doing before reading. How long I've participated in reading for. If I make sure I take a break before and after, how do I feel now? Okay, still have a five out of ten headache, but now it only takes two hours for my headache to settle and return back to how I felt before, The recovery time has more to do about how long it takes for our symptoms to settle. And if we can start to see that our recovery time is starting to shorten, now we know healing is happening, Now I can see that healing is happening and that the actions that I'm taking are working. Because even though I still get the five out of 10 headache, my recovery time is changing. And eventually I might find that I can get myself to doing exactly what I'm doing. And now my headache is a five out 10, but it settles. in 10 minutes. I continue to take the action that I'm taking. And my headache is a three out of 10 when I finish that task or finish reading. I am noticing that the intensity of my symptom is coming down, and I'm not taking as long to recover. Healing is happening, and that new neuropathway is starting to become more established in my brain. That my brain is now working on making that shift from. Relying on that old pathway I didn't like, how it made me feel and function, to now relying on this other new pathway that I do like, how it makes me feel and function. And if I continue to take those actions to support that new neuropathway, that is going to be the pathway that will become the relied on, established pathway to help me continue to feel and function. The way I want to feel and function. Now I can read and not get a headache. Healing has happened. But in that process of trying to get to that point, still experiencing symptoms. This is why we can't just rely alone on the fact that symptoms are present or not. For us to know that we are getting better. Because even though we may still be experiencing that symptom, healing can still be happening. We just need to know where to look. In lesson three, rest and recovery, I talk more to this idea of recovery time and the different ways that you can look to your recovery time to notice that healing is happening. This is very similar to that health journey I was talking about in the beginning. When we put our Focus on the outcome, on the result of the end finish line. We often struggle to stay motivated in this journey. If I'm only looking in my health journey at the weight on the scale, and I am trying to get to that particular number or goal that I have in my head of what I want to weigh. I can be missing some of those signs that I am achieving my goal, even though the scale hasn't changed. The number on the scale may still be the same, even though I'm eating healthy, I'm working out, I'm drinking water, I'm sleeping well. But there are other places I can put my attention to see that healing is happening, that my clothes are a little bit less snug, that I can fit into those shorts or pants that I couldn't a few months ago. That I have more energy. That my mood is better. That the choices that I'm making have switched. I'm not craving as much unhealthy food. Now I want more veggies. I want to drink water. I want to go to bed early because I want to wake up in the morning to move my body. Because I like how I am feeling and functioning. Is the number on the scale where I want it to be? No, not yet. But I can see that the actions that I'm taking are moving me towards that goal. That's what we're missing in the concussion recovery experience, when we're only allowing ourselves to focus on if we have a symptom or if we don't to indicate to us that we are getting better. when we can get comfortable with the idea that symptoms are a part of this experience, and we can help it guide us. I've always said symptoms are communication from our brain. It can not only help us guide our actions and how we respond to our symptoms to make better choices to how we want to feel and function. But we can also use it as a way to know that healing is happening. Allow yourself to take a different perspective on what your symptoms are providing you. Start to see the nuances of your symptoms, the intensity, the frequency, what activity or task they show up in, what symptom shows up in related to what task or activity you're doing. This is going to start to give you a better understanding of your journey and that you can see the improvements. You can see that things are changing in the way you want it to. Instead of just hoping and waiting for the day, you wake up and you don't have a headache. Day after day after day. The ultimate goal for all of us has always been to live symptom free. But it's not a light switch It's not a flip of the switch on and off. It's a little bit more like a dimmer switch in that it's gently going to be turned down while more energy. And The essence of yourself starts to turn up. If you're finding that you're struggling to see that healing is happening in your journey, lesson three, understanding rest and recovery is going to give you a deeper understanding of how to see that Healing has happened. Thank you for joining me in understanding your concussion. I hope that you are leaving this episode feeling empowered in understanding what is going on behind the scenes of your injury, why you feel the way you feel, and how to begin to take action to move forward in your unique healing journey. Interested in checking out understanding your concussion course? Head to concussion healingspace.com or the link is in the show notes. You can purchase lesson one through four, reminder lesson one is free. If you're interested in connecting with me for mentorship and support, one on one consultations are available online or join the Concussion Support Club where you get access to all four courses and weekly drop in support club options