How to Calm an Overprotective Brain After Concussion

What if your post-concussion syndrome recovery was limited by the future your brain keeps rehearsing before your body gets there? Hi, my name is David Brimacombe, and after 7 concussions over a 20-year span, I realized that everything is created twice— first in the mind and then in reality— and why this is crucial When recovering from persistent post-concussion syndrome. Let's begin. Persistent PCS doesn't just impact your symptoms, it steals your future, your dreams, your goals and aspirations. Everything gets condensed into that small, tiny space, that little microenvironment that you're living in. Who you are in that state, living through those symptoms. Now, the problem with this is that your brain is not neutral. Your brain is either going to rehearse a future, a future where you want to go, the best perfect state that you can get to, or it's going to live in the past. It's going to linger in those symptoms, linger in those beliefs that have been residing in your mind. Running through that subconscious mind for weeks, months, and sometimes even years. Now here's the best part: your mind can be your greatest ally, or it can be your biggest foe. Now herein lies the most empowering part: you have a say in which one it's going to be. In this video, I want to go through The concept that in order to see yourself recover, you have to rehearse it first. You can't walk down a path your mind has never seen, doesn't believe is possible, is plausible. You need to visualize first before you can do so in reality. So like I was mentioning, your brain is always rehearsing something. It is not neutral. It is either rehearsing that future that you want to get to Or reliving the past events that you've had to suffer through. Now think about it this way. I think about your identity and your future recovery as a thermostat. Now we all understand that when you set a thermostat at a distinct level, let's say at 21 degrees Celsius, it's going to fluctuate between 20 and 22. When it gets too warm, the AC kicks down and pulls it back to, to a lower temperature. If it gets too low, The heat turns on and pulls it up. This is fairly commonplace, makes sense. Now, your identity runs on a similar type of setup. If I believe that I am going to constantly be suffering from symptoms from this persistent state, I'm always going to be brought back. Okay, when I start to feel a little bit of progress, I'm going to be brought back to that state that I feel comfortable in, that my brain feels is Who I am. Now, the brain is not here to maximize your well-being, to make that recovery so much easier. Your brain is here to simply keep you safe, to keep you alive. Your nervous system and your brain are very archaic in that way. Things are either good or they're bad. Okay, if it is good, you'll get that emotion that elicits that joy and that excitement, and you'll feel like this is the thing I should be doing. You're not going to have the limitations from your brain and from your nervous system. But if it feels like this is going to cause you harm, it is going against your current identity. That is when you feel those symptoms, those alarm bells start to ring, and that is going to cause the stress and the symptom, the anxiety, the apprehension that is going to limit and prevent you from recovering the way you need to. Now, how do we adjust that thermostat? How do we change it so that Your identity is no longer of someone who has suffered, is suffering with symptoms, who is constantly going to have to live with all these setbacks, these light sensitivities and nausea and vertigo and dizziness and anxieties. How can we change this? In this video, I'm going to give you a quick and easy way to reset that identity, to readjust that thermostat so that your brain is not going to be the limiter. It's going to help catalyze your recovery and allow you to become the person you know you can be. Now, your lifestyle recovery starts with mental rehearsal. I think of it this way. I live in a northern climate. In the wintertime, when there's a fresh snowfall, if I would be the— if I were to be the first one to go out and trek through the snow, go through a big field with my dogs and try to Find my path, find my way, it is going to be time-consuming and energy-consuming. Okay? If I wait for a couple hours and I allow someone to make the tracks for me, it is going to be easier to find my way. It is going to take less energy, and therefore it is not going to be so arduous on my systems. Someone who is suffering from PCS, who've had chronic symptoms, okay, you know that you do not have the capacity, you do not have the energy, the wherewithal to To go ahead and waste your time. Rehearsing something allows your brain to understand that it is safe. Where I'm going is not going to cause me greater harm. Now, there's 2 ways to rehearse where you're going. Like I mentioned about the setting the tracks, if I were to allow someone to walk those tracks first, when I walk through their tracks, I know where I'm going and I know it's not going to be so hard having to step through the snow every time. I'm stepping on their footprints, making it a lot easier for me. I consider this channel as those paths that have been laid. Instead of having to walk this trail and make a very circuitous route to maybe, maybe, just maybe getting to where you need to be, instead of doing that, you are now going to follow my path, my lead, listening to the podcast, watching the videos, and, and going ahead and making those small steps. that are going to create the path forward that you need. Again, if you have a guide, if you have a mentor, they have laid the groundwork, they've laid the foundation for your success. Below is a link to a waitlist to join my PCS Resilience Collective that will be going live soon, and I want to make sure you don't miss out. Now, here's the second way that you can go ahead and rehearse something in your mind. It's through visualization. Now, visualization has to be extremely detailed. It is not a matter of thinking of something, thinking of, I am going to be happy in the future, I am going to be able to walk without symptoms, I am going to be able to do whatever I want with whoever I want without having to worry about my symptoms causing me setbacks. No, it has to be as specific as the time that you're living. Your brain cannot tell the difference between something that is vividly imagined and something that has actually happened. Here's the catch. It has to be vividly imagined. Now, when I say vividly imagined, think of an artist who has painted a picture. Think of the detail that they're adding. So when I am vividly imagining something, it is not only the sights, it's the sounds, it's the feelings, the thoughts, any and everything to intricacies of details. Okay, what is the color of the wall that I'm looking at? What is the sound that the birds are making? What is the book that I'm reading, the title, the COVID the sound of the music in the background? Again, the more specific you can make this, the more likely that your brain will realize that this is a safe environment, that I can walk towards this place. And it will be safe. Now, the more you do this, the better. But again, by mentally rehearsing something, you're changing that internal thermostat, okay? It's now allowing more fluctuation. You're now raising the temperature so that you can actually scale up. It takes time, but it can be done. Now understand that the future has to become familiar before it can feel Normal, feel normal within yourself. So again, that rehearsing. Now, here's the craziest thing I've heard. I've seen multiple studies that have shown that rehearsing an outcome has almost the exact same results as actually physically doing it. So if, let's say, an athlete was going to rehearse a skill, a basketball player was shooting free throws, or a baseball player was batting, if they rehearse that with enough detail, thinking about the spin on the ball And how they're actually going to bring their body and their bat through the hitting zone and hit the ball. Same thing as if you are envisioning when you get up, you put your feet on the floor, you listen to the sounds outside the window, you look out, you see the sun rising, you feel your body in that state. Again, athletes rehearse, musicians rehearse. You can rehearse because in this study they found that If you visualize an outcome in your mind enough times, it has about the same results as actually practicing it. Again, shooting free throws, 50 free throws in my mind and in reality over weeks, it has the same result when you go ahead and you apply it. To me, that was crazy because those neural pathways are being carved out regardless if it's through visualization or through repetition in reality. You need to apply this in your recovery. You need to apply those days that you feel like you can't get out of bed, you can't move, you can't actually try walking and applying and trying to increase your exercise tolerance. But you can visualize it. You can lie in that state and visualize what it's going to be, what it's going to feel like, what it's going to look like. That is possible, and that is getting you Closer to where you want to be. Now, if your body only knows the old story, you haven't created that new identity, it's going to constantly want to live inside it. It's not want to go— it's not going to want to go outside it. It's not going to want to expand its abilities. It's going to live within that old existence. So how can we do this? I'm going to give you a simple protocol to use. This can be used every day. Okay, I'm actually gonna give you 2. Okay, the first one is I want you to get into a calm state. So this is not having a bunch of kids and noise around you. It's a calm state. For me, this was first thing in the morning. I am a morning person. I get up at 5 AM. No one else is awake. I have an hour to myself. Part of this hour is me doing any kind of mindfulness, and part of it was visualization. So 5 or 10 minutes I would visualize, and again, it was calm, it was quiet, my body was calm. If I need to, I would do 5 minutes of breathwork, downregulate myself, lower my heart rate, get myself in a calm state. Then I would close my eyes and I would think of a time in my life that I am working towards. Again, I'm going to think of it in as much detail as I need. It's almost like if I were to open my eyes and have those feelings, it would be identical to the visualization in my mind. The more you practice this, the more you're going to understand that you can layer in more senses. Maybe at first it's just what you see, then maybe it's what you hear and smell and taste and feel and think. And again, the more you can layer on, the more realistic it is. But you're going to do this for 5 or 10 minutes. Once or twice a day for a week. How do you feel? Has it enhanced that belief, that opportunity in your identity to change who you are, to change that thermostat so now that you can push forward? If it has, fantastic, keep at it. If it hasn't, I want to give you a second option, something a little bit different. Below, I, I have a link to what I call the 10-minute It's my Belief Reset. All that it is, is it is a 10-minute audio. It's going to change how you think of yourself, how you think of your state of your recovery. It's also going to go through what's called yoga nidra, which allows you to be present in that state. You're going to lie down, you're going to put this— these headphones on, and you're going to relax. You don't have to do anything. You don't have to think. You just have to be present. Okay, it's going to go ahead and start changing that subconscious loop. 95% of your thoughts are in your subconscious. Your subconscious loop isn't necessarily how you are thinking in this moment. It is from past experiences, past thoughts, past lives that you don't necessarily still align with. So changing that subconscious loop, making sure you're present, lowering your stress state is going to help you. So you're either going to do this through your own mindfulness, or you can try the belief reset. You can even do both. Okay, what I want to leave you with though here is this is something that is not a nice to have. It is a need to have in your recovery. You need to change your identity. Your identity is that glass ceiling. Until you can break through and open that window up, you're always going to be reverting back to the person that you were The person stuck in recovery. I believe that you can do this. I was stuck for many, many, many years until I realized my identity was blocking my recovery. All it takes is a small step every single day. Set the framework and the foundation for becoming a different version of you. It is not easy, but I know you can do it. I believe in you. Thank you for listening. Please, if you can, subscribe, review, like this channel so more people like yourself can get this information. I hope you have yourself a great day.