Latest / Understanding Your Concussion / Episode 8: The Mindset Required to Navigate A Concussion Recovery Journey
Transcript
- 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. When was navigating my concussion recovery process, I was living across the country away from my family. I didn't have a huge support system around me, but I did have a huge support system on the end of the phone. And I often would call my mom to commiserate, to complain, to cry. And she always answered the phone, bless my mother. And one day I remember her calling me out on my mindset. she said, Jana, you're stuck in an all-or-nothing mindset. You either do everything and push yourself so hard and then crash, or you're doing nothing at all. And she was right. I can't remember if it was in the same conversation or a different conversation that we had. But she also recognized that I was catastrophizing a lot. I was making mountains out of molehills. But at the time everything felt like a mountain to climb. I didn't realize that the all or nothing mindset I was in and the catastrophizing that I was doing was actually a physiological response. A couple years ago, I joined Concussion Nerds run by Natasha Wilch. It is a fabulous program. And in that program, We learn about all the systems, how they're interconnected, and how to approach the recovery process through a physiotherapist lens or a concussion provider lens. But having navigated this experience myself, there were a few things that I looked at or took on through more of a client or patient lens. we had a guest speaker that was talking about. The autonomic nervous system, and this underlying physiological response that now is starting to be discussed about concussions It really triggered me. And I called my mom. Crying. I was like, my God, this wasn't my fault. I was experiencing this as a result of a dysregulated nervous system, but I didn't have any clue. And that she was right. That I was stuck in an all-or-nothing mindset. But it wasn't something I chose. It wasn't something that was as a result of the actions that I was taking. It was a result of sustaining three concussions and the impact it had on my physiology. What the research is showing is that there is this underlying physiological response that happens between the brain and the nervous system. There is this disconnect. between the brain and the heart. When the brain and the heart are not communicating, there is a number of things physiologically that can start to show up. There are things we can measure, there are things we can see, changes in heart rate, changes in blood pressure, changes in pupillary responses, changes in our digestion. So we can experience those physical changes. But what also happens is we experience emotional changes. And that is the all-or-nothing mindset, along with catastrophizing. It also includes more rumination when you're stuck in a loop telling yourself the same stories. Over and over again, and you can't get out of it. It leads to a negative mindset. I wasn't connecting the dots that those behavioral changes, personality changes that I was experiencing was actually a result of something physiological that was happening in my body. Had I had had this understanding going through the journey, I think it would have changed my outlook. But I'm not entirely sure because I didn't learn this information until after. I did recognize navigating my journey that I couldn't only focus on the physical sides of things. I did recognize. That the emotions and my behavioral was impacting my recovery process as well. And I really did a deep dive into how I could start to change. The all or nothing mindset, the catastrophizing, and the negative outlook. There were physical things I needed to do, and there were emotional things I needed to do. The physical sides of things is what I address more so in the clinic. there are ways that we can use the physical sides of things to help us on the emotional side. There are emotional things that we can do to help us on the emotional side. to make more positive changes. There are actions that we can take in order to change. the meaning behind what we're experiencing, to put it into a different perspective or reframe it in order to help our brain and our nervous system After I had that conversation with my mom, I was starting to pay attention to what she meant by the all or nothing mindset. In hindsight, I now see what she meant. But in the moment when she had brought it up to me, it wasn't something I really truly understood and agreed with. so I was paying attention to how I was functioning to see, am I really in this all or nothing mindset? One day I decided to go for a bike ride with my husband. it had been for so long of doing nothing, no bike rides, that now all of a sudden my brain or my mindset really did switch it was, all right, I'm in. I am doing this bike ride and I am going for it. And if I'm gonna do this bike ride, I'm really gonna do it. I hadn't been exercising in the way that I typically would. I always love being outdoors and doing outdoorsy activities, but I hadn't really been allowing myself to get out there except for maybe very minimal walks. But I wanted to do something. It was something my husband wanted to do. We hadn't been able to do things together for a long time that I just decided to go for it. And I started to understand what my mom was talking about. It wasn't a very gentle, easy bike ride. We went trail riding. I'm not an expert trail biker. I'm not an expert biker by any means, but I live in an area where it's very accessible. And I thought, yeah, I should get into this. So off we went on our bike ride. And my brain started spinning. And all of these stories started to come out of, well, if you're gonna do this, make it worth your while. Get in some exercise. Make it as hard as possible. It was that all. of the all or nothing mindset. It wasn't just just enjoy the bike ride, enjoy pedaling, being outside, go at an easy pace. It was push it to the max. When you're on a trail It's all uphill, which was not great for my cardiovascular system at the time. I was pedaling and pedaling with the gears up and just trying to keep up with my husband And I was starting to not feel great. We finally got up to a point where we could stop. And I had a panic attack. I said, I gotta stop. I need a break. I was sweating like crazy. I was breathing. so hard trying to catch my breath. I remember feeling my heart pounding so much. I could feel it and hear it in my head. And I remember just looking down and staring at the rocks at my feet while I was trying to settle my system. I had pushed myself way too far for what I could do Cause I was stuck. in that all of the all or nothing mindset. once my system started to settle and I could regain more of a breathing pattern that was regulated and my heart rate started to come down, I remember looking up and I saw the view of how far we had come up. I looked out and saw the mountains, saw the trees, saw down into the valley. And I thought to myself, this is what it means to be in an all or nothing mindset. I am not allowing myself to enjoy the journey. I am either trying to do it all and make it happen and force it and push through, but it's not making me feel better. It's not helping me to do that because then my symptoms are so intense and so. Frequent that now I can't function. And I crash. that was the pattern I was stuck in for four years. Push so hard that I can't do it anymore. And then crash until I get to a point where I think I can do it all again. And I recognize that that wasn't supporting me. looking out at the view of the sky and the clouds and the mountains and the trees, I realized I'm really not allowing myself to stop along the way in this journey and enjoy the view. And I started to think more about that mindset. What type of mindset is going to support me through this journey? Because this all or nothing mindset is not. My sons are in public school. typically the conversation around mindset is that we're moving from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset. Great outlook. We don't want to be fixed in how we think. We want more flexibility and adaptability in how we think, in our outlook, in our mindset. Now, I didn't have kids when I was going through the concussion recovery journey, but I had a little understanding of that fix versus growth mindset. But my mind always came back to that feeling of looking out and seeing the view. And I came up with this analogy for concussion recovery journey. I live in a mountain town. one of the industries that used to be here is logging. whenever you go hiking in this area, there are a lot of switchback roads up these mountains or paths that you follow because of the old logging industry. A switchback is that you're going up on an angle up to a certain point and then it turns, and then you're going up the other way. it's this zigzag pattern that you're following when you hike up a mountain. And that's what I started to understand of an analogy for the concussion recovery journey. That when we're navigating this journey, we are hiking this mountain. after we sustain our injuries. We're starting at the bottom And we've got this big journey in front of us, especially if we don't get the right guidance and support early on. Or we've experienced a very significant injury, and it is something that is requiring time for us to navigate the journey moving forward. when you're navigating and healing from a concussion or any long-term complex injury. they come with different stages of healing. I always see these stages of healing like one of those switchbacks you start at the bottom, you work your way up, and then you've made progress. There has been improvements, but you're not where you want to be yet. There's another section of switchback that you're starting at the bottom, and you got to work your way up in this new stage of healing. this is how recovering from a concussion feels. That we have all of these different stages that we're going through, we're making progress, but we often get to the end of a stage and realize there's more ahead of us. We're not done yet. And so if we only allow ourselves to focus on the grind. On the pushing, on the forcing, on trying to make our way up all these switchbacks, then we end up feeling like I did at that top of the mountain of that bike ride where we are huffing and puffing, our heart is pounding, our symptoms are intense, We have to stop and compose ourselves in order to be able to then keep going. And I realized that that's what I was doing with this all-or-nothing mindset: I was just head down, get to the top of the mountain, let this be over already, without allowing myself to see the progress I was making and enjoying the process along the way. after this experience of the bike ride and thinking about that view, I realized this is what I need to start doing in my journey. That I need to allow myself to go through a stage, put in the effort, the energy, the repetition, create those changes, and allow myself at that point when I finish that stage to stop and enjoy the view for as long as I need to to celebrate the successes that I have had and how far I've already gotten up this mountain, even though I know there's more ahead of me. Because me trying to just trudge forward and push through and run to the top of the mountain is not working. So I started to allow myself to approach my recovery with this mindset or this analogy of the switchback theory that. Each stage is bringing me closer to my goal. That I might need to focus on this particular stage of my journey right now. And then I can celebrate my success once I've reached the top. Enjoy what I have achieved. Enjoy the view of where I'm at now. And when I'm ready, get ready for the next stage. If we only focus on those switchbacks that are right in front of us, it's really hard to see our progress. But if we allow ourselves to zoom out and see where we started and know where we're at compared to the bigger journey, we can see that we are making progress, healing is happening, healing has been achieved. Even though I may not be in this journey where I want to be yet. So if I'm taking out the all-or-nothing mindset and the head down and the grind and the push-through, and I'm thinking more now about the switchback analogy, what mindset can I adopt to support me through this style of journey of healing? I knew it wasn't gonna be a fixed mindset. And I didn't feel that the growth mindset in theory was supportive because I think the growth mindset made it feel that all healing should be linear, that I should just follow one path all the way up to the top, the path of least resistance, get all the way there, and I'd be done. And if I just allowed that growth mindset, it would just take me there like an escalator. But that wasn't the reality of what I was experiencing. Healing was not linear. Healing was more like that switchback a little bit of progress and then starting over again. A little bit of progress, something new, another stage, a little bit of progress, and then I achieve something. I was getting better, but I was not where I wanted to be yet. I did notice that I was. down and demotivated, trying to get into the next new stage. It was really challenging to go from feeling success and accomplishment after achieving and completing a stage to then turn around and go, I gotta do this again. There were times where I could see that I had success in healing. Healing was happening. I was improving. Things were changing. And I was starting to become healthy again. To then only turn around to the next stage to recognize, I've got more healing to do. what I started to realize is that instead of a fixed mindset or a growth mindset, what I actually needed was a variable mindset. by adopting a variable mindset, there were times where I had to remind myself that I was healthy. I could do this. My brain built new neuropathways to rely on it, and I just needed to rely on them now. That I was healthy in an essence. And there were aspects where I was still injured that I needed to switch back into that other mindset of I need to slow down, I need to be a little more gentle with myself, I need to create new tools and strategies or actions to support me in this next stage of healing as I go through this next. Part of the path. I realized that I needed this variable mindset at times to remind myself I was healthy, that I was stronger, I could do this, so that I wasn't holding back into the nothing. And that there were times where I had to switch and remind myself no, no, you can't push yourself through the all because. You're still not quite there yet at this point. So you need to go back into more of an injured mindset that I need to pace myself. I need to slow down. I need to take my time. I need more support, more tools and strategies through this next stage. So I would switch my mindset at the bottom of a switchback to remind myself that. I had to take on a different lens. I was moving towards the top of that particular path, then I had to allow myself to switch back into a healthy mindset to recognize that I had accomplished this next stage, this next layer. And when I got to the top of that switch back, Enjoy the view, take a pause, and to allow myself to enjoy the effort and the energy and all the repetition I had put in to get to this point. And allow myself just to stay there and live there until I was ready to take on the next switch back and switch back into that injured headspace again when I was ready to become a A beginner and learn something new to get through the next stage and up level for my healing journey. Allowing myself to have this variable mindset made the journey more motivating because I could see that I was moving up the mountain, that healing was happening, I was achieving success in my journey. I was still motivated to keep moving forward in my journey. I wasn't setting myself up for failure to just assume everything should be smooth sailing moving forward. I was setting myself up for success to recognize that there were aspects of how I approach things, how I could shift my mindset, how I could switch. my mindset back and forth between this healthy mindset and injured mindset that would set me up for success to achieve moving forward in that next stage. Living with concussion symptoms long term is a complex journey. When we can recognize that there are physiological reasons to the way that we feel and we can address those physical symptoms, it's going to enhance our recovery. But when we don't allow ourselves to recognize the emotional component we might not be recognizing that that outlook is also blocking our ability to heal. It's not just about physical changes alone that need to be addressed. We need to look at how we provide meaning to the experience that we're living and recognize if we're in an all-or-nothing mindset, if we are catastrophizing, if we are viewing things negatively. And if you are, much like I was, it is not your fault. That emotional peace might be blocking your healing. by being able to change your perspective and reframe the experience in a way That can help us It can keep us motivated through this journey. by allowing myself to understand this switchback theory that stages are a part of the concussion recovery journey. We are making our way up the mountain. But it is not linear. It is constantly switching. from one stage to the next, we can have a mindset that can support us in that, that is a variable mindset rather than all or nothing and fixed, or even a growth mindset. then we can zoom out to see the bigger picture, that we are always making progress up the mountain and headed towards our goal. Just sometimes we get so hyper-focused on what's right in front of us. And that that's okay. But every once in a while we need to zoom out, see that progress is happening, and through the switchbacks, when we're allowing that variable mindset. that we also take those moments to stop and enjoy the view, to stop and celebrate our successes of what we have achieved, even though there's still more to come. 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