Latest / Understanding Your Concussion / Episode 7: Symptoms Are Communication From Our Brain

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Episode 7: Symptoms Are Communication From Our Brain · Understanding Your Concussion

• Jana: 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. There's something I want you to understand about your concussion symptoms. symptoms are a part of this experience. I know that living with symptoms is not enjoyable, and typically our goal when we are recovering from a concussion, is to find a way to be symptom-free. But we have to recognize that symptoms are a part of this experience. And albeit I know they are not enjoyable, they do serve a purpose. I lived with symptoms for four years, and nothing really changed. I wasn't getting better and I wasn't necessarily getting any worse. But my relationship that I had with my symptoms. Was impacting my ability to heal. I looked at my symptoms through a fearful lens. I did not want to experience symptoms, I was scared of provoking my symptoms and having to experience them. So I typically would avoid participating in tasks and activities I knew for sure would trigger my symptoms. On the flip side, there was also times where I just completely ignored my symptoms and pushed through whatever I was doing, regardless of how I was feeling. And that is why nothing changed in those four years of living with symptoms I was either avoiding my symptoms or ignoring my symptoms. Either way, There was a lot of fear and stress around the experience of symptoms. I realized what needed to change was how I perceived the experience of symptoms. And so I reframed feeling scared about experiencing symptoms and made this small little reframe in my brain of, symptoms. Are the way that my brain is trying to communicate to me. once I was able to make this very small tiny reframe, it made a huge change in my recovery process. Now my relationship with symptoms was very different. And that's what led to me having a better understanding of how to support my brain. And in turn, it started to move me forward in my healing journey. That small reframe led me to learn how to respond to what my brain was communicating to me based off of the symptoms I was experiencing. It now became a way. For me to support my healing, I was empowered now because I had a choice. I had a choice to work with my brain and what it was communicating, or work against what my brain was communicating. the brain Is typically trying to communicate to us four things. Either that it the brain detects an error, our system is perceiving a threat, there is an integration issue, or a capacity issue. I'm gonna take you through the four things that the brain is communicating to you through your symptoms and break it down. We can't just look at the symptoms to know exactly what our brain is trying to communicate to us. This is where things get a little bit. Complex. if you think about it, symptoms overlap. We can get headaches, but headaches don't specifically mean that it's coming from our neck. Headaches can also be a sign of a visual issue. Of dehydration of not enough energy of feeling overstimulated by breaking it down into these four different categories, gives us a different idea of how to understand what our brain is actually trying to communicate to us. if we only focus on the headache we're not going to get that same value of information because there's so much overlap of where those symptoms can come from. So when we look at those four things, detect and error, perceived threat, integration, and capacity issues, then we can really start to determine why we are feeling the way we feel. Let's start with detect error. The detect error communication is information that is coming from your brain. Your brain is detecting an error in the way that the brain is processing that information as it's coming into the brain. through the system itself, neck, the vision system, the vestibular system, the cognitive system, your nervous system, these are the systems that are working with the brain and if these systems are struggling to process information efficiently and effectively in real time then your brain is detecting an error and that is why symptoms arise this is what Has been broken down into concussion subtypes. If you want to learn more about the different concussion subtypes, check out lesson one: Understanding Your Injured Brain on my website. It is free, You will have access to information about The different concussion subtypes that are currently present in the research, it will give you an understanding of that system and who to access treatment from. when detecting an error of communication from the brain, the way that we want to respond to those types of symptoms is through rehab and treatment. when you can recognize that your symptoms are coming from a detect error communication issue, then you'll know. That it is important for you to seek out that rehab and treatment. Outside of rehab and treatment, there are things you can do to support your healing along with the rehab and treatment for how the brain is communicating, detect and error. There are actions you can take to help these systems begin to process information efficiently and effectively in real time, even though you're still maybe working on your rehab exercises and not quite there yet. The actions that you can take in detect an error is to switch it up. Change up the style of task and break down the style of task. When you can start to apply these actions to support your healing journey of switching it up, changing the task, and breaking it down, you are helping that system in real time be able to process that information efficiently and effectively. by being able to do so, you're going to reduce the frequency and the intensity of the symptoms that you experience. Part of that is being able to slow yourself down. you are not overloading that system that is struggling to process information in real time. that is where those actions of switching it up, changing the task, and breaking it down is really what's going to help you find those tools and strategies of ways to do so to support your system. when it's communicating from your brain that it's detecting an error. dive into more about how to switch it up, how to change the style of task, and how to break down the task in lesson two, how to respond to your symptoms. And I go through each one of the categories we're going through today. So that's an introduction to detect an error. Now let's talk about number two, perceived threat. let's define a perceived threat. A perceived threat is the belief that the situation we are in is dangerous or harmful, even though objectively. It may not be. perceived threats also involve the anticipation of future events and negative consequences or outcomes. we believe that certain tasks or activities are dangerous or harmful to us because we are anticipating symptoms that we don't want to experience, rightly so. We begin to learn to fear that situation or task because of the symptoms, but we're having symptoms because our brain's communicating to us we don't feel safe. But when we are in that fearful state. or avoiding experiencing our symptoms, it can actually lead to more symptoms. we now know that after you sustain a concussion. There is this physiological response that happens within the body, and it naturally places us in a state of fight or flight. just from experiencing a concussion, our nervous systems, have become dysregulated. we can experience symptoms as communication from our brain to let us know that our system, our nervous system is dysregulated, when we are in a dysregulated state, we naturally begin to look at life through a negative lens. we tend to have this negative view about our symptoms and the experience of symptoms. the more we experience stress. the more We become dysregulated if we keep this negative relationship of how we view our symptoms, we keep our nervous systems. Dysregulated. We stay in an elevated state of fight or flight. And when we're in this state of fight or flight or dysregulation, it is really challenging to heal we're fearful that we're going to get symptoms, but we're getting symptoms because our brain's communicating to us that it doesn't feel safe. We can trigger a nervous system state of fight or flight from the emotions and the stories that we are feeling and telling ourselves I find that symptoms arise in relation to a perceived threat of one of two ways. Either before, that anticipation, we're starting to get anxious, we're starting to get We're starting to get stressed or worried. now our system's elevated, and is communicating through symptoms. or delayed symptoms after the task. Because if we are not paying attention or have the awareness in that moment. We go off and do the task But our system stays in that elevated state. And it's not until later when we have completed the task and we recognize, I can do this. I was safe. That was okay. I made it through. I did it. Our nervous system downgrades. We now start to get out of that state of fight or flight and maybe start to head into more of a parasympathetic state, rest and digest, or starting to calm down. And now we're experiencing symptoms. And we're going, What? Why? I was totally fine Why am I experiencing symptoms now? Well, it's because of the stress of that perceived threat. Because of all the emotional stress that we were holding on to before we did the task. Now we can let that stress move through us and we can let it go. And we're experiencing symptoms our brain is communicating to us, hey, by the way, I was really dysregulated. Before, during, and after said task. And now that I've calmed down and relaxed, yeah, you have a headache or you're feeling a little bit nauseous and dizzy as I process through all of those feelings that you had when you weren't paying attention or aware that you were dysregulated when we have those delayed symptoms, it's often a cue that we had perceived a threat in an earlier situation of our day. for an example, What I noticed is that I was already feeling nauseous and dizzy even before I got to the car to drive And I remember thinking, why am I already nauseous and dizzy when I haven't actually done the task or the activity? And I stopped. I worked on a regulation moment of breathing and trying to calm my system down in that moment. I found the nausea and dizziness to settle. And I was able to go to the pool, do the little bit that I committed to, and come home. my brain was trying to communicate to me I was perceiving this threat. I hadn't done anything yet. I was anticipating the fear of experiencing symptoms when our symptoms do increase from our brain trying to communicate to us, that it is perceiving a threat, we need to respond to our symptoms. In a way that will help us manage the stress, manage our perception of the experience or the perception of our symptoms so that we can bring our nervous system back into a regulated state so that we can actually do the task or activity in a way that sets us up for more success and potentially less symptoms afterwards. When our symptoms arise about a perceived threat, We have to find a way for us to reframe the experience. changing that emotional story that we are feeling so that we can teach from the inside out that our system is safe doing this task or activity. a great way of changing our system understanding this is dangerous to this is safe is by starting to change our language. This is a really easy way in to being able to start to work with the perceived threat. when you change your language, you want to change it into that positive reframe. I'm safe I've done a lot of work. if I do experience symptoms, that's okay. I will be okay. I can handle it. And I will take this as a learning experience to understand what is my next step in my journey. as you start to talk to yourself a little bit more through that lens, naturally your nervous system will start to downgrade and it will start to alter the perceived threat you're experiencing. In lesson two, how to respond to your symptoms, I talk about certain types of perceived threats we typically experience in a concussion recovery journey, when we get frustrated at our brain, when we feel like nothing is improving or getting better. And we're not sure if healing is actually happening. We can find ourselves in this negative headspace because this is a hard journey. looking at things negatively does make sense. However, we actively have to try and change that story so that we can assist our nervous system in settling the stress that it is experiencing so that we can settle. The symptoms that we are experiencing. Check out lesson two, where I dive into more about how to change your language and reframe some of those more challenging stories that we tell ourselves through the concussion recovery journey. we talked about detect error, we've talked about perceived threat. Now we're going to talk about Number three an integration issue. in an earlier podcast episode, I talked about the orchestra analogy. And how we tend to look at concussions or healing in general in silos, because we're looking at all the different concussion subtypes and categories of things that may or may not need support in the healing. When you look at the orchestra, we see different types of sections. the strings and the percussions and the winds. And often when they're practicing and Rehearsing, they're in their separate sections. However, when an orchestra plays, they play all together to make that beautiful music. And it's the same thing for our brains. And I dive into this deeper into that podcast episode. So check it out if you want more of an understanding of that orchestra analogy. But the brain has to process all this information together. And sometimes it can struggle. Trying to piece all the parts together and make it process as a whole entity again. And that is where the integration issue can arise. So typically, this is a good sign if you're experiencing symptoms from an integration issue, because it means that you've moved through that detect error stage of supporting the individual systems to. process information effectively. But now you might be getting symptoms because the brain is struggling to integrate it all together with everything else that it's been doing, because you've separated this one thing and it needs to come back into the whole. So when symptoms arise from an integration issue, typically the best way to respond is by timing and coordination. It's a timing and coordination thing because the brain is struggling to process information in real time as a whole entity. when you start to play around with time and coordination, this is how you can support your brain in processing information in real time as that whole entity, and then be able to build up from there. there's various ways that you can play around with time. It could be the amount of time that you're participating in a task or activity, it could be the order. Of things that you're doing within your day. It could be the time of day itself. There are various ways to play around with time and timing to assist your brain in minimizing the symptoms you experience from an integration issue. with coordination, that's where breaking the task down and then rebuild it back up. assist your brain in minimizing the symptoms you experience When I Was in the throes of my symptoms and my concussion recovery journey, I couldn't function like myself in how I used to clean the kitchen. I used to be able to do all the tasks that needed to get done in the kitchen within an hour or so. And obviously, with my concussion and my symptoms, that was not doable. either I could force myself and push myself through to do it, but I always ended up experiencing symptoms, which Did not feel good. And so as a way to respond to that, to help my brain integrate that all back together, I broke the task down. I would do the dishwasher, switch it up and have a break. I would go back and clean the counter, switch it up and have a break. I would then deal with the floors. And you know, it was a different way of functioning than the way I wanted to or how I typically could do it. But it was a way that I was able to complete the task without then feeling symptomatic by the end of it. that's how I chose to respond to my symptoms of integration is playing around with time and breaking down the task so that I could experience less symptoms, less frequent, less intense symptoms, and still be able to function in other areas of my day. And last but not least, by any means, is a capacity issue. Now, this is a large component of your concussion recovery journey, being able to understand your capacity. And it does go hand in hand with all of the things that we've already talked about, detect error, perceive threat, integration issue. for me, what capacity is, is the amount of information that we can tolerate and process in real time. we all have a capacity. Whether you have a concussion or not, every single person on this planet has their own unique level of capacity of what they can tolerate of information to be processed in real time. That is not unique to us in our concussion recovery journeys. Now, what is unique to us in our concussion recovery journeys is that after we sustain a concussion, our capacity to tolerate information and processing it in real time automatically lowers. That we all have in common. And throughout our recovery journeys, we are trying to to heal and grow our capacity back to what we once remembered. our brain use symptoms as a way to communicate where we are currently at in our capacity. Whether that's about the amount of energy that we do or do not have, or the space to take in more external or internal information to process. typically our brain will communicate to us through symptoms when we are reaching, have met, or surpass our capacity. I usually use the word threshold because when we are working towards building up our capacity, there is typically a threshold or a line of what we can tolerate. That may not be back to what we once remembered yet. And that's what we are trying to achieve. our symptoms are communicating to us when we are reaching our at or surpass that threshold of our ability to tolerate incoming information. When we are functioning in our lives below that threshold line, we are in our green zone or in our safe zone. And when we're in that zone, we typically feel symptom free or symptom limited. That's when we feel at our best. Then we have our threshold of where we know that symptoms are going to start to increase. above that threshold is our red zone or our danger zone. And that is where we experience intense and infrequent. Symptoms. That's that feeling of overstimulation, feeling symptomatic, or often can be labeled as a setback when we've pushed ourselves so far beyond that threshold or our capacity that we are now overwhelmed with the feeling of symptoms. To me, the threshold isn't just a line. It's not, I'm in my green zone, I'm safe, and now I'm in the red and I screwed up. It's not that simple. I believe that the threshold is actually a zone itself. our brain is trying to communicate to us where we are at in those zones, green, yellow, or red, if we're getting symptoms and we're recognizing we're in that yellow zone, then we can choose how to respond to either push us more into the red or take action that's going to lead us back into the green and feeling less symptoms. It is very empowering to know your zones and to choose how to respond to what your brain is communicating to you about this, because now you have that ability to choose. Right? When you know that you're experiencing symptoms, because your brain is communicating to you about your capacity, you get to decide how you want to respond. To navigate your capacity is by getting to know your zones. What does green feel like to you? What does yellow feel like to you? And what does red feel like to you? And by being able to understand those zones, there are different tools and strategies that I share in lesson two. on how to respond specifically about capacity. And really it's about understanding the nuances of your symptoms. your energy levels and of course your mindset it takes time to practice and understand your We forget what safe feels like. We forget what calm feels like. We need to relearn what that green zone feels like to us. And when you've been living in the red for a very long time, which is exactly what I did for those four years of living with symptoms, I was living in the red. when you've been living in the red, yellow is going to feel a lot better than red because you will experience less symptoms. They won't be as frequent. They won't be as intense compared to what it felt like to be in the red. But we can often mistake yellow for green. Because again, it's not that line of being in the red and now I'm in the green. Maybe we're in the red zone and now we're in the yellow zone, but we haven't actually fully allowed ourselves to return to green. if you haven't truly allowed yourself to settle your symptoms and get into that space of feeling symptom free and symptom limited of what you truly can feel, then it's very easy to be pushed right back up to red. And this is where people with long-term concussion symptoms struggle because they mistake yellow for green. And think, well, I'm not getting better. But in reality, they actually haven't allowed themselves to settle enough to experience green navigating your capacity and understanding this is complex that's why I created the Concussion Support Club, because this is where you can come after navigating some of the modules to talk about it and start to work through those tools and strategies and start to understand by working together with the people who are there as well in the support club to learn from each other how to start to navigate this capacity issue. And all of these other things of, well, do you think this is a detect error issue? Is this a capacity issue? How do I know? And we get to workshop it together when you need it. So symptoms, albeit not enjoyable, are a part of the concussion recovery experience, but we can reframe it for us to recognize that this is communication from our brain. And our brain is letting us know that it's either detecting an error, perceiving a threat, it's an integration issue, or a capacity issue. The courses are designed to empower you and to enhance any rehab or treatments that you are doing and putting your money into. But you need an element of support, reassurance, and workshopping, strategizing of how to apply all of this information for you in your journey. This is how I empower you is for you to be able to have the understanding and that background information of what is going on behind the scenes and why you feel the way you feel. So that you can put your own detective hat on and begin to seek out what treatment and rehab you truly need. When you have that level of understanding, you will be able to show up and support yourself in the best way possible. And ensure that you're putting your money into what you truly need to support your healing journey putting it all together. Can feel complex, but you don't have to do it alone. 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