Latest / Understanding Your Concussion / Episode 10: The Emotional Impact on Our Concussion Recovery Process
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. I walked into work today, and what I noticed is that my walk to work is a very different experience than my walk home from work. a lot of it has to do with more of what's going on in my head than the actual act of walking. I walk. The same pathway to and from work. It has ups and downs in both directions. It is the same amount of time, but just the way that I am allowing my thoughts to navigate in the walk can change up the experience that I'm having. This is one of those things in a concussion recovery journey. That isn't often discussed. The stories that we are telling ourselves, and the meaning behind what we are experiencing. Depending on the lens of what we take through the experience, can impact our nervous system. that impact on our nervous system impacts our symptoms. When I walk to work, I have more of a rush type of energy I want to be on time, I don't want to be late. And so often the stories in my head are keep up the pace, you gotta get there on time. If you're not on time, you're already gonna start to fall behind. And that's going to impact the flow of your day. I'm also thinking about what clients I'm going to be connecting with, the type of clients, and the assessments and treatments that I'm going to potentially pursue to progress them through. I'm thinking about The exercises. I'm thinking about the different personality types. I'm thinking about connecting with my coworkers. There's a lot that I'm thinking during this walk. And the stories or what I am thinking will typically have an emotional charge to it. That can either be positive or Negative. that positive or negative charge is what impacts the nervous system. Typically, when we're in more of a negative headspace, it can lead to a low grade fight or flight response. Whereas when we have more of a positive lens, it's not necessarily engaging. That low grade fight or flight response. my walk into work tends to activate more of that sympathetic activation of my nervous system my heart rate naturally will be going up from walking in, but it's higher. It is elevated compared to my walk home, which I do try and take a similar pace. For additional movement and exercise in my day. But just that slight change of the stories or the meaning that is going on inside my head can then change that impact of the nervous system. On my way home, especially if I've had a lot of successes with clients, I take on more of a positive lens. My breathing. Is more paced and intentional. I'm feeling satisfied of completing my work day. I have more of a positive charge. Now there can be times where it might be more of a challenging day. And maybe I'm not seeing as many successes or outcomes, progression that I hoping to achieve with clients. And that meaning or story that I'm now navigating can change the charge, impacting my nervous system. When we are not allowing ourselves to be mindful or pay attention to the meaning we are giving our concussion recovery experience or the experiences within our concussion recovery, that can impact our ability to heal. It can impact our experience of our symptoms, it can impact our energy levels. Because we are not aware of that emotional charge that we are experiencing that is connecting to and impacting our nervous system. When we have that negative lens and more of that negative charge of our nervous system, as I mentioned earlier, we now get a low grade fight or flight. response. So throughout your day during your concussion recovery experience, if you consistently have a negative outlook, your nervous system is being emotionally charged at this low grade fight or flight. And that accumulates throughout the day. Now your system is ramped up into a Higher sympathetic activation. You're now more in a fight or flight response. And you're questioning why you're experiencing symptoms, why you don't have that much energy, why you are feeling tired, why you can't focus or concentrate as much. You've done your rehab exercises. You're working on all the different systems, yet you aren't seeing progress. It could be related to the emotional charge impacting your nervous system. This is something that I discovered for myself while navigating my concussion recovery journey. As a physiotherapist, I was becoming knowledgeable in the courses that I was taking on concussion management, on how to address the physical side of the concussion experience. Addressing the autonomic nervous system, addressing vision and vestibular. we look to the neck. We tend to take on this lens of the physical components, which is a very essential component to be addressed in your concussion recovery journey. But what I discovered for myself is that not addressing The emotional charge or the emotional experience that comes along with navigating a concussion recovery experience was impeding my ability to heal. I wasn't seeing the progress I expected to see on the physical sides because of the emotional component that was impacting my nervous system. I was really dysregulated. During my concussion recovery journey. And I did have heart rate issues, I did have vision and vestibular issues, and I did have neck issues. And I was working on my rehab component. But then I noticed that the emotional charge was there consistently throughout my day. I would do what I wanted to do or what I needed to do for my recovery. But the meaning and the stories I was telling myself had this negative lens. So I was contributing to ramping up my nervous system. While going through the recovery rehab process, while I was engaging in my rehab component. So by ramping up my nervous system and keeping me elevated in a sympathetic activation or a fight or flight response was not allowing true healing to occur. this emotional charge behind the experiences that we're having, or the stories or the meaning, I typically call emotional flooding. We know during a concussion recovery experience that we can flood our brain with external stimulus, the lights, background noises. Visually demanding environments. Like driving or being in a grocery store, crosstalk in a coffee shop, background music, bright lights, construction noises from the neighbors, whatever it happens to be. There is always external noise that might be happening around us. And when we sustain a concussion, our brain gets flooded with all of that information. And I talked a lot about why in one of the most recent episodes, understanding the difference between a healthy brain and an injured brain, and why our injured brain gets so flooded from external information. But I also recognized that that emotional charge was stimulus that was coming from within. And I was flooding my nervous system because of the emotional component and the meaning and the stories that I was giving behind the experience I was having navigating healing for my concussion. When I discovered that this is what I was experiencing, I spent time focusing on changing the story and the meaning and reframing that experience so that I was actually settling my nervous system and not ramping it up from the internal emotional flooding that I was experiencing. So, as I mentioned earlier about the difference between my walk to work and my walk from work, a lot of it had to do with the emotional charge. Because the pace is the same, the distance is the same, the intensity is the same. But I experienced changes in my heart rate. based on just the meaning of the stories or that emotional flooding that I'm experiencing. If I've had a good day on the way home, I'm feeling more relaxed, I'm engaged and activating more of that parasympathetic system. And it's settling my nervous system and my breath rate. Whereas if I've had a more challenging day on the way home and I'm more frustrated and disappointed or feeling drained, then my heart rate is different. We can look to the physical sides of the concussion recovery experience. The heart rate, the blood pressure, your vision and vestibular, your neck, everything I mentioned and more. But we can't only focus on the physical sides of things. We have to recognize that the emotional aspect of recovering from a concussion does impact the physical things. So sometimes just by being able to address the emotional component can change a physical outcome. Because if we've now switched from a negative Outlook that's triggering a low-grade fight or flight response throughout our day, to a more positive outlook that's not triggering a low-grade fight or flight consistently throughout our day. We are going to feel different. We will experience less symptoms. We will experience more energy. And we will feel more like ourselves because we're tapping into those regenerative emotions that fill us up in a different way instead of that negative outlook and experiencing more depleting emotions. So I've obviously given that example of the walking to and from work. But During my concussional recovery journey, I recognized the emotional charge was happening during rest. When I would take a moment to take a break, to rest, because I was feeling symptomatic, because I was tired and drained, because I had done my physical exercises or returned to work part-time, or engaged in a social experience. Now I had engaged in my recovery process. And I was switching it up into more downtime mindless, and simply being But what I recognized when I was in more of that downtime being state, it wasn't actually that mindless. Because maybe I was doing the dishes and I wasn't concentrating in the same way that I was reading. But the story that was ruminating in the background had a negative outlook. I did those vision and vestibular exercises again and I feel like crap. I don't want to feel dizzy anymore. I'm not enjoying this. This is taking too long. Why am I not getting better? Am I getting better? How much longer is this gonna take? Or I was hyper focusing on a negative experience, that conversation that I had. Why did I say that? Why did that come out? I didn't mean that. Why did they say that to me? And that negative voice that constantly would creep in while I was resting was contributing to a low-grade fight or flight response while I was resting. Therefore. I wasn't actually resting. I wasn't truly allowing my system to settle. I may physically not be engaging in something, but That emotional flooding, that emotional charge was still present. And that is why I wasn't getting better. When your system is stuck in a sympathetic state, it is not able to balance out between sympathetic activation and Parasympathetic activation and allow for that ebb and flow in the dance of the nervous system. It is impossible to heal. This was what I experienced. I could not make good physical changes when I was emotionally stuck in a negative headspace because of how it was impacting my nervous system. I was stuck in that sympathetic response and I wasn't getting that balance out of a parasympathetic response. So I was never. in a regulated state, even though I might be quote unquote resting. When I identified that it was more about the emotional flooding that was truly hindering my recovery process, I spent some time on understanding that piece of emotional flooding, of emotional energy, the difference between a negative lens and depleting energy or depleting emotions, and positive outlook and regenerative emotions. And I made more of a conscious effort to really understand that thought process that was going on in my head and how I could change that. In a previous episode, I talked about the four things your brain is communicating to you through symptoms: detect error, an integration issue, a capacity issue, or a perceived threat. The emotional flooding is the perceived threat. If we are perceiving our recovery experience as something that is threatening. As something that is negative, I know how challenging it is. And I don't mean to take away from the challenges and the hardships that do come along with this injury. But if we focus only on the hardships, it is only going to be hard. We need to actively look for the positives. And there are positives there. But it's being able to know where to find the positives and how to reframe a perceived threat so that it's not impacting your nervous system from that emotional flooding, then you are able to settle that nervous system and settle your symptoms. Because sometimes You might be experiencing symptoms because your system is getting ramped up from that emotional flooding. When your system is elevated in that fight or flight, you do not have that much capacity for more incoming information, physical or emotional. So your brain might then start to communicate to you through symptoms. Mine was always nausea. And dizziness. And I knew that it was related to a perceived threat because I was holding my breath and I wasn't allowing myself to breathe and relax because I was so stressed about what I was experiencing or what I potentially was going to experience. That perception of The fear of my symptoms, the fear of not feeling well, the fear of things not going well. Continue to keep my nervous system elevated. So I was experiencing dizziness and nausea. I'll give you an example. I love swimming. because it moves the whole body. And I love being in the water. And at some point during my recovery journey, I decided that I was strong enough and ready to take on swimming in my journey. In the past, I had tried before I understood what was going on. And whenever I had gone swimming in the past after sustaining my concussion, I experienced dizziness, nausea, headache, fatigue, all of the symptoms. So I stayed away from it from a really long time. And then I recognized that I was stronger and I wanted to try it again. I was nervous about experiencing symptoms from swimming. But I realized I wasn't gonna know until I tried. as I was collecting all of my gear and walking to the car, I started getting dizzy and nauseous. And I thought to myself, what the heck? Why am I dizzy and nauseous now? I haven't even gotten to the pool. initially I heard that voice come in and that story start to come through of saying, Do you think you really should be going swimming? You're already experiencing symptoms. Maybe this is a bad idea. I don't know if you should do this. But then I realized that that was already the story I was telling myself. I was nervous to go swimming. I was already feeling fear and That worry was a bit of a negative lens. So that emotional charge or the emotional flooding of feeling worried was ramping up my nervous system. Even before I left my house. And the closer I would get to the pool, I was getting more anxious. And that's when I recognized this might not be about the actual physical symptoms. This might be more to that emotional flooding of what I'm telling myself and how I'm perceiving this experience. Often a perceived threat is fear of the future, fear of the outcome of what may come. And I recognized that's what I was experiencing. I was perceiving this threat about what I might experience after swimming, which was already giving me symptoms before getting to the pool because of my emotional flooding and it ramping up my nervous system. And so when I got in the car before I even drove to the pool, I worked on settling my nervous system in the moment. I brought myself back to the present moment. I had my mantras. I started to reframe that experience. I'm not in the pool yet. I can try this. I'm just gonna do 10 minutes. I don't have to do every single stroke I normally do. I'll just kick with the flutterboard and be in the water and I'll see how it goes. And by changing that outlook, by reframing it and starting to see it in a positive lens, not in a way that I was convincing myself everything was gonna be okay, it's all good, and almost adopting toxic positivity. I was being more realistic. about the situation. And that switch can be positive because it takes you out of that negative outlook of what you think potentially could go bad into potentially what could go right. And that's more of that positive reframe that you can use in your concussion recovery journey to minimize the emotional flooding. It's not about toxic positivity. It's not about convincing yourself that everything's gonna be okay. Because when you do that, often you push through and ignore your symptoms. And that's not the goal. The goal is for you to work with your system, but sometimes it needs a gentle nudge or a gentle reframe in order for you to be more successful at that experience. So when symptoms arise, you're asking yourself, what could this be from? A detect error, a perceived threat, an integration issue, or a capacity issue. Physically, we tend to focus on the detect error, maybe a little bit of the integration piece as well. But we don't always address the perceived threat in a way that is connected. to our symptoms and our nervous system. So I went to the pool. I did the bare minimum. I took it easy on myself. I stayed more present and I didn't allow my system to get ramped up in the stories. And it went well. That potential, instead of thinking what could go wrong and allowing myself to put myself in a situation that would set me up for success and focusing on things that could go right. Regardless if I experience symptoms or not, things can still go right. And I was able to swim and I was able to check that experience off my list. I was able to participate in something that was meaningful to me to help my recovery process and also. be able to recognize what my brain was communicating to me, where it had come from, adopt a strategy that I could use to change it up in real time, in the moment, and recognize, okay, yeah, that was a perceived threat. If you're perceiving rest as a threat, which a lot of us do in this journey, then you might be finding you're not seeing a lot of progress in your journey. if you're participating in rest and at the same time experiencing that negative emotional charge, you're not truly resting. this is where you need to start to determine for yourself what your brain is communicating to you of those four things and how you can start to change that. Sometimes it will be a detect error, but sometimes in order to improve the detect error, you also need to address the perceived threat or what I like to call emotional flooding. So take a moment today to reflect on your symptoms, how they are related, what symptoms increase with certain tasks or activities. And then ask yourself what system is involved and what am I telling myself? And you might start to realize well, I've done the cardio protocol. So I can sit on a stationary bike and increase my heart rate, no problem. But yet I still have an elevated heart rate at rest. And I still experience symptoms during this particular task or activity. Maybe it's not detect error. Maybe it is a perceived threat. How am I perceiving this experience that I'm in right now? What is my outlook? What are the stories or the meaning that I have behind it that might be impacting my nervous system? And if that is the case, how can I reframe it? In lesson two, understanding your symptoms, I devote a good chunk to how to respond to a perceived threat, explaining more in detail what a perceived threat really is. How it impacts our recovery process. And I talk about some of the more relevant negative mindsets we often adopt in a concussion recovery. We get annoyed with our brain. We get annoyed with our progress. That we get annoyed when we have a setback. And by being able to reframe those realities into something that's a little bit more of a regenerative or positive charge behind it can really change the experience and the impact on our nervous system, And now we're starting to experience true healing. Take that time to reflect today. And if you're looking for more support or guidance in understanding more about emotional flooding, perceived threat, or the other areas of understanding your symptoms, integration and capacity, check out lesson two If you're looking for more individualized approach, check out the consultations on my website and we can start to work together and address your unique and specific perceived threats. 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