In this instructional video, concussion survivor and PCS coach David Brimacombe explains why healing the nervous system after post‑concussion syndrome often feels messy and counter‑intuitive. Drawing on his personal experience of seven concussions, he outlines five specific signs that indicate the nervous system is actually recovering, even when symptoms seem to worsen. The first sign is an increase in emotional intensity – feeling more anger, sadness, or irritability – which reflects the system learning to tolerate emotions rather than suppress them. The second sign is moving out of a chronic high‑adrenaline, high‑cortisol state; the body must adjust to periods of calm after constant stimulation, which can feel uncomfortable at first. The third sign is a growing desire for solitude and quieter environments, signaling an awareness of limited sensory bandwidth and the need for down‑regulation. The fourth sign involves temporary setbacks such as night waking, digestive issues, or feeling more fatigued, which are normal as the body re‑establishes new homeostatic rhythms. The fifth sign is the emergence of calm, deliberate decision‑making and the use of simple physiological tools (e.g., the physiological sigh) to down‑regulate when irritability spikes. Throughout, Brimacombe emphasizes the core principle of signaling safety to the nervous system, acknowledging emotions, reframing reactions, and employing practical tools. He reassures viewers that healing is non‑linear, encourages patience, and invites them to explore further resources on mental self‑regulation.
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If you're doing everything to heal your nervous system and it actually feels like you're getting more emotional, more fatigued, more irritable at the smallest triggers, well then this video might be for you. By the end of this video, you'll understand the 5 messy signs that your nervous system is actually healing even though it might feel like you're going in the wrong direction. Welcome to the PCS Resilience Collective. My name is David Brimacombe, and after 7 concussions over 20 years, I've learned that the nervous system plays a huge role in your PCS recovery, even when sometimes it feels like it's going in the wrong direction. Let's walk through the 5 signs that your nervous system is actually healing, even when it doesn't feel like it in the moment. The first sign that your nervous system is actually healing Is that you're feeling more, not less. I think for the longest time I felt like when I was healing, I would start to be in control of my emotions. I wouldn't feel the desire to get angry, to get sad, to be depressed. I thought that I would just be in complete control. I was like someone who is controlling a video game, and at the turn of a button, I could just stop any emotion like that. Now, for one, that is not human nature, and two, that is not how the system heals itself. Because for the longest time, I was suppressing my emotions. I was trying to avoid any situation where I would potentially be triggered— triggered for anger and frustration, triggered for sadness, whatever the case may be. I was avoiding it, so my body was not used to getting into these situations. So once I started to go into to circumstances and environments where I could be triggered, I started to feel it more. I started to feel that irritability boil up inside of me. And again, in the moment, it felt like I was regressing until I started to think about it. I started to think that, guess what, my body's getting used to this again. My body's learning to understand that this is okay. So it's not so much that these emotions come to the surface, It's how you respond to them. Because the biggest takeaway I want you to get from this video is that the only way to heal your nervous system is to tell it that it's safe in a given situation. Why it's becoming so highly regulated in some of these circumstances is because it does not feel safe, because it feels a threat, a danger. Your body is going to go one of two ways, okay? Your body's either going to feel safe, and again, you're probably going to have lower Instances of irritability, of depression, of sadness, all those extreme emotions. Or, okay, your body's going to feel the danger. That's where you start to have that high levels of irritability, high levels of emotional distress, because your body does not feel safe in that moment. So how do we respond when we start to feel those emotions start to boil over? Okay, the first thing you need to do is acknowledge that that is okay. Emotions are part of being human. We should not outright suppress all of our emotions. What we need to do is learn to control them and learn to acknowledge when they are acceptable and when they are not. So when you have a moment where you start to feel those emotions start to boil over, okay, think about it, acknowledge it. Yes, I'm starting to feel frustrated, but in this moment, okay, is that serving me? Is that justified? Acknowledge it. If it's not, well, guess what? You are now consciously aware of that situation. To be conscious is step one. You are now learning to actually divert yourself away from a situation that is going to cause greater distress and dysregulation if you keep going. That is a great step. That is a great move in the right direction. Okay? Acknowledge it. If you can flip it, so instead of being angry and frustrated, think, why do I care? Why is— why am I getting so upset over such a simple issue. Okay, so you're reframing it, and then you'll be able to move on a lot quicker. The second sign that you're actually healing your nervous system is that you're no longer stuck in that adrenaline-filled phase. You're no longer stuck constantly moving from here to there and constantly feeling like you're redlining your system. Now, I think of the analogy of the car. If you ever have looked at the RPMs of the car, You're going to notice that as you rev the gas pedal, you press the gas pedal, that line is going to go up to 3,000, 4,000, 5,000, 6,000 RPM. Now, if someone with PCS who's constantly putting their foot on the gas, okay, you're revving the engine, okay? And when you rev the engine, you're causing a great strain on the system. The same is true with your nervous system. People who are in that high adrenaline, high cortisol state where they're constantly stimulating themselves. Okay, they're on their phone, they're at work, they're listening to a podcast at 2x speed on the way home. Their body is just constantly in it. Okay, they haven't had time to relax. So once they actually do settle down, sit down, they completely shut down. They become that complete emotional mess because again, their body hasn't had time to kind of downregulate yet. So, once you get out of that high adrenaline, high cortisol state, it will take time, okay, for your body to adjust and understand that, yes, this is normal to be sitting still. Yes, this is normal to listen to someone on a podcast at 1x speed. Or yes, this is normal to take a bath without also doing your taxes or writing a paper. It is normal to relax and for the sake of relaxing, okay? So, once you get out of that high adrenaline state, Okay. Another sign is that your body actually feels maybe more tense, maybe more insecure because you're not used to it. You're not used to just relaxing, being calm, being present. Now, the most effective way to work with this is to go outside without your phone, be present, stand in nature, touch a tree, walk through the wilderness. Okay. But again, that's allowing you to focus on the present, Okay, instead of what's in front of you and your phone or the situation that you left at work, but you're focusing yourself on being present. You're getting out of that high cortisol, high adrenaline state. Again, it'll take some time for your body to adjust, to calm down, but once you do, after a few weeks, you'll notice a significant difference. The 3rd sign that your nervous system is actually improving is that you're going to feel the desire to be alone more, to be in more quieter Spaces. Now, for me, this looked like avoiding a lot of social interactions, excessive social interactions. This meant that I was protecting my emotional and my energy bandwidth. When I started to feel a little bit of a dip, like I started to feel like I was just— that cognitive awareness was dropping, my ability to withstand high levels of sound and lights and all those stimuluses that could cause me to go into a Kind of a downward spiral into a setback. I knew that as soon as I started to drop a level, I needed to find some alone time. Okay? So your desire to actually go into alone time is a great understanding that you're, you know, your system, you know who you are. Okay? You have that internal understanding that your body is saying, we need a step. We need to step away. We need some space and time alone. I need to get out of the light, out of the sound. And find some time where I can downregulate. Now, again, this is not you trying to avoid everything. It is you being smart with your bandwidth. We have an understanding that we only have so much tolerance for stimuluses. Okay? So you have to use it wisely. So again, the best thing to do is find a space, whether it's in an open room, whether it's outside, but it's away from all of the Noises, all this, all the lights, all the distractions that were causing those symptoms to potentially set back. And again, once your body feels safe, feel free to go back into those environments, but understand that that understanding, that intrinsic belief and knowledge that yes, I love being with my friends and my family, but in this moment I need a break. Okay? So understanding that you need to take more breaks, more alone time is a great sign. Because you're understanding your system and what your tolerances are. One of the things that threw me for a loop was that when I was healing, I actually felt worse for the first little bit. So I was getting up at odd times in the night. I was not being able to go to sleep. I was having trouble with the food that I was eating that I could normally digest. I was just having some stomach issues. Now, this seems like, well, this is not your nervous system working ideally. No. What's happening is This isn't going to be a huge change for your body. Again, dysregulated or regulated, whatever your body was at, that is that homeostatic level. That's what it's used to. So if your body is used to being dysregulated and then you become slowly more and more regulated, it's not used to that new rhythm of life. So it might have issues, hormonal issues, it might have behavioral problems that come from this because your body is not used to it. Okay, so expect that, again, if you get up at 3 AM and wonder, why am I up and I can't go back to bed? Okay, don't think of this, again, as a setback. Think of it as a sign that your body is trying to normalize this new behavior, this new understanding that, yes, your nervous system is starting to become more regulated. You're starting to have a better understanding of the concept of safety versus fear. I'm feeling more safe in my body, but my body is not used to that feeling quite yet. So again, the fact that you feel like you're getting worse isn't necessarily a sign that you're setting back. Sometimes your body needs time to adjust to the new inputs that you're providing, okay, this new positive energy that you're creating with this regulation that you're starting. A simple thing you could have is at the end of the night, you could remind yourself with a simple mantra, my body is healing even when I don't feel it, or something to that extent. Again, reminding yourself of this. Because again, you're going to get into that subconscious loop when you start to feel tired and fatigued. And I feel worse. This is like the beginning of my PCS recovery. Why am I doing this? Because you're playing the long game. Remind yourself, okay? Don't let those subconscious thoughts ruin your progress, okay? Your body is normalizing this behavior. You are safe. You are fine. You are healing, okay? It may take some time though. And the 5th sign that you're actually healing when maybe it doesn't necessarily feel like it is that instead of frantically trying to fix every situation, you're able to use some calm and some discern and stop and think. So the times that you start to feel irritable, the times that you start to feel like you're just an emotional mess, instead of just running off the deep end, it's back, my PCS is getting worse, You have the emotional wherewithal to say, "It's okay. I don't need to frantically try to make a switch here. I know I have some tools in my toolbox that I can use to try to downregulate and get back to the space where I feel like myself again." Again, being frantic is not going to help you because being frantic is actually going to increase that sympathetic drive, which is going to then stir all those symptoms to come back. So, having a tool or a Or tools in your toolbox that can help you. So, think of something simple when you start to feel out of place. My simplest plan is something called the physiological sigh. So, all I'm going to do is go— So, I'm going to take a double inhale and then an elongated exhale. Again, that opens up the airways, and then I'm going to push out all that stress, all that strain goes out. When I exhale. You can remind yourself that you're safe. You can remind yourself that you're healing as well. This is all part of the journey. So just remember, healing isn't linear. It's not gonna just— you're not gonna wake up one day and magically you are now regulated. That's not happening, okay? This is not a movie. This is not some story. This is real life, and real life is messy, okay? Unfortunately. And these are the 5 messy signs that you're actually healing. Even when you don't think so. If you got some value from this video, if you like what I'm putting out there, please like and subscribe below. If you want to learn more about how the mind can help you or hurt you, okay, I want you to watch the video that I'm going to post up here about making your thoughts automatic. I appreciate you. Thank you for listening. Until next time, we'll see you later. Bye.
