Latest / Understanding Your Concussion / Episode 4: The A.B.C's of a Successful Concussion Recovery
Transcript
- Jana: Recovering from a concussion is very personal. I know this after recovering from my own concussions. There is not a one size fits all in this recovery process. It's not about finding the right way to heal. It's about finding your way to heal. Hi, I am Jana Capp. 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. It is a journey. that's what I determined for myself. The reality is that there isn't a concussion protocol to follow. although there are guidelines, There's no framework or protocol like there is if you tore your ACL or sprained your ankle. without that framework, we often feel lost and unsure about how to navigate and move forward. having been through this journey from beginning all the way to the end, where I do feel and function now like myself and not live my life through the concussion recovery lens, I've taken this bird's eye view approach and created an overview of a successful recovery process. today, I want to share with you what those elements are. so that you can start to get a better idea of how you can start to navigate this journey. the essential steps are the ABCs to a successful concussion recovery. A is action. B is breaks. And C is cardiovascular exercise. Now, let's talk about the ABCs. action. Gone are the days of the sit and wait it out approach. Often we thought that rest was the best choice of action to take in response to this journey. now we know that sitting and resting alone is not the best way to manage this injury. You cannot sit around and wait until you feel better and then be able to go out and do your daily lives. This was something that I was hoping for in my concussion recovery journey. sitting around and waiting until the day that I was actually feeling better and just could go back into my life. I realized that after many years of taking this approach, it was not working. and now the research has caught up. So gone are the days of the sit and waited out approach. We are now taking an active approach. An active approach means that we are starting early intervention as soon as possible. The reality is that the brain can heal. It's just not very good at it on its own. It needs support and guidance from you. The way that the brain heals is through the act of neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity is the brain's ability to repair, rewire, and create new neural pathways. a concussion has impacted the inner workings of your brain, which are those neural pathways. those pathways get stretched, frayed, or torn. And along with the inflammatory process, information is not being sent appropriately because those neural pathways have been disrupted. But the good news is that we can heal. This is where the active approach comes in we need to guide and support our brain towards building, repairing and creating new neuropathways in a way that's going to support how we want to feel and function. the action that we want to take has to be in response to what our brain is communicating. Symptoms are a part of this process we can use them to our advantage by understanding that this is our brain's way of communicating with us. When we can start to change our perspective around what symptoms are, then it can start to guide the action that we take. In the research, they're suggesting that when you take action, you follow a two point scale. what this means is that any task or activity that you are participating in, when you start to feel your symptoms increase from your baseline is an opportunity for you to take a break, which we'll dive into what that is when we talk about B breaks. When we don't see symptoms as communication from our brains, it's really easy for us to push through and ignore our symptoms. our brain starts to learn. When I do this task or activity, I get this symptom. it starts to wire it in. But when we start follow the two-point scale, We start to teach our brain, we can do this task up to this point when you communicate to me when it's too much, and now we stop and we rest When we push through, it is not the path to healing. Now, having said that, there will be times when you will push through, that's okay. It's when it's our only strategy to push through our symptoms that leads to those negative impacts that we don't love the way we end up feeling and functioning. There are many actions you can take to support your recovery process. So I'll list out a few here. seeking out different types of treatments to help you through various healthcare professionals is going to make a huge impact on your journey. Learning how to regulate your nervous system, incorporating safe and effective exercise, working on your mindset, adopting rest, making sure you're getting efficient sleep, managing your self-care and different wellness strategies that are available to us at this point in time Those are just a few different ways that you can start to think about what actions you can take to support yourself, in starting to work towards feeling and functioning like yourself again. All of these actions that we take add up over time. it can be longer than we want it to be. But we have to remind ourselves that the action that we're taking now here in the present, it's what's building and creating and repairing those neural pathways for us to rely on down the road. we are building towards our future self. of how we want to feel and function overall. let's move on and start talking about B, breaks. in the action section, we talked about that two point scale that when your symptoms start to increase from your baseline and you're noticing they're reaching above a two point scale or increasing more than two to three points, now is your time to engage with rest. rest is a controversial subject in a concussion recovery journey. Some say rest is of the utmost importance and then some say don't rest, it's not good for you. Well, the reality is, that rest is an essential aspect of your recovery process. the key point myself included that we are mostly missing is how to rest. A lot of us don't know how to rest. maybe you have a personality type much like myself where you are very go, go, do, do, do, after we sustain a concussion, we're no longer able to function that way. We do have to start to slow down. We do need to pay attention, check in with ourselves With a concussion, we will require more rest than we think we do, or even allow ourselves to do often in our journeys. And our relationship to rest and how we rest will also change throughout our journey. In our society, we don't value rest. We feel that we need to earn it. a little reframe for you is that rest is an active part of your concussion recovery journey. That is why I included it in the action section. Pushing through our symptoms does not work. I tried, I know many people that have tried, perhaps you've been trying and you recognize this isn't working. we have to find a way to engage with rest that does feel good to us. Rest. is not sitting around and doing nothing. There are various ways for us to participate in rest. rest is all about helping us to work with our brain so that when our symptoms do increase, what action of rest can we take in response to our symptoms? Now, There are various ways to do this and I have a whole course all on rest and recovery. today I'm going to summarize for you some ideas about how you can engage with rest in different ways. I'm gonna use the acronym of BREAKS. B is BREATHE. Sometimes we just need to take a moment to breathe, to return ourselves to the present moment. and tune in to how we are feeling. Our is refill. It requires a lot of energy to participate throughout this journey. We need to ensure we are refilling our tank back up with energy to sustain us going forward. are you still eating? What food are you eating to refuel you? Are you drinking water? Are you sleeping? Are you resting? Are you getting social connection? How are you refilling your tank to keep you moving forward? E is engage your brain differently. Our brain doesn't always love to stay on one task or in the same style of task. So if you're going from one concentration task to another, like reading to scrolling social media, to having a conversation, going to work and then taking a break by checking emails, you're always in a concentration task, your brain is going to fatigue quicker. Whereas when you can switch it up and engage your brain differently, it will actually give you more longevity in your day, week or month by giving your brain various ways to engage. So instead of always doing or thinking tasks, Allow yourself to engage in some mindless or beam tasks. after some computer work, do some dishes, go for a gentle walk. Now sit and do some reading, pop on your stationary bike and do your cardio. Do some breath work. Whatever those actions are that you like to do, just make sure you're switching it up and engaging your brain differently. A is awareness. When we stop to rest, it is an opportunity for us to gain that awareness of how we are feeling. a moment to check in with ourselves. Do I have a headache? How intense is that headache? Am I feeling dizzy? How much energy do I have? How tired am I right now? Those are the things that you can start to gain some awareness on. so that you can start to figure out how to keep moving forward. What action you can take that's going to help you to keep moving forward in your day or in your week without increasing your symptoms too much. K is kindness. You have to be kind to yourself throughout this journey, no matter how long it takes. And it's already longer than you already want it to be. Otherwise you wouldn't be here listening to this. You need to give yourself some kindness through this journey. make sure you are participating in moments of self care and giving yourself moments of joy. so that you're not just solely focused on healing, that you still have an element of healing while you're living your life. And S is stillness and silence. many of us are uncomfortable with silence. But we can just sit on our balconies with a cup of tea, watch the birds and the dragonflies and the butterflies and the wind and the leaves and just be. No music, no podcast, no conversations, no social media and just be, Sometimes I drive in silence. Yeah, I'm doing an activity. but then I'm not adding more information to my brain. I just drive in silence. And it allows for things to get processed behind the scenes. So that's your analogy for breaks. And C is cardiovascular exercise. our brain and our heart communicate to each other. when the brain and the heart can't communicate to each other, it's not functioning well. Therefore, we're not functioning well. we are learning more and more about concussions all the time. And one of the things that there is this underlying physiological response that the brain and body go through after sustaining a concussion. when you sustain a concussion, we experience this brain heart disconnect, which leads to us being in a state of fight or flight or placing our nervous system into a dysregulated state. So instead of being regulated where we can handle the elements of stress, we are now in a more sympathetic or heightened state of fight or flight. When our nervous system is in a state of fight or flight or is dysregulated, it's not functioning well and we're not functioning well. And it can lead to the experience of symptoms that we often don't relate to a concussion. At least this is what I did. I was very dysregulated. didn't have those typical concussion symptoms, headache, nausea, dizziness in the beginning, but I was very dysregulated, but didn't know that a concussion would lead to that until the research came out a decade or so later. some of the symptoms that I was experiencing that I didn't relate to this dysfunction is insomnia, digestion issues, a sensitive gag reflex. an altered sweat response, pupils not responding correctly to light feeling lightheaded or a little bit woozy or dizzy. it's not just always physical stress. It's also emotional stress. And there is science behind this to show that The way our mindset, our thoughts, our perceptions of an experience, if we deem it to be negative, can lead to a low-grade fight or flight response. When we introduce cardiovascular exercise, we're getting benefits for the brain and the nervous system. with cardiovascular exercise, we are gently introducing blood flow to the brain, increasing oxygen and energy to the brain. It also helps to recouple that brain heart connection. if cardiovascular exercise is not something that you've had incorporated into your journey you might still be finding that you are not feeling and functioning like yourself. if you're someone that has done the cardiovascular protocol and are feeling like, I did that and I'm still not feeling and functioning like myself, if you're interested in learning more about cardiovascular exercise, check out lesson four on the website. So that is your overview of the essential steps or ABCs to a successful concussion recovery journey. I know that this journey is not easy, but healing is possible. And doing it on your own definitely makes it harder than it needs to be. Being able to connect with someone who has navigated this journey can give you guidance and support and reassurance to help settle that emotional component as some of the things that you're experiencing of the stress of living with this journey. and give you tools strategies and guidance towards actions that you can take that maybe you didn't think of or reframe it in a different way. that's what understanding your concussion is all about. So that through this podcast, you can start to gain a little bit of insight and understanding of what is going on with you. why you feel the way you feel. And through connecting with me either one-on-one through the courses or through the upcoming mentorship program, you can start to change how you feel and work towards feeling and functioning like yourself again. It is possible. Don't do it alone. Empower yourself through these courses, through understanding, through learning, so that you can find your way to feeling and functioning like yourself again. 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