In this video, David Brimacombe of the PCS Resilience Collective explains how a simple linguistic shift—replacing the word “problem” with “puzzle”—can rewire the brain’s perception of post‑concussion syndrome (PCS) symptoms and accelerate recovery. He introduces the reticular activating system (RAS) as the brain’s filter that amplifies whatever it focuses on, showing that framing symptoms as puzzles sparks curiosity and solution‑seeking, whereas labeling them as problems fuels frustration and stagnation. Brimacombe offers concrete actions: consciously rephrase negative symptom language, visualize puzzles, and pair this mindset with practical lifestyle tweaks such as adding creatine to coffee, adjusting sleep timing, and gradually layering these habits. He emphasizes that while the concepts are simple in theory, they require consistent, incremental practice to re‑program dysregulated systems. The overall message is that individuals can become “change agents” in their own recovery by altering language, perception, and daily inputs.
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When you're recovering from PCS, problems can feel impossible. Puzzles, puzzles can be solved. By the end of this video, you'll understand how viewing your symptoms and signs differently can change your recovery trajectory. Hi, my name is David Brimacombe, and I'm the host here at the PCS Resilience Collective. On this channel, I like to give you lifestyle modifications And make you the change agent in your recovery. Thank you for watching. If you haven't already, please like and subscribe below. Let's begin. PCS makes everything bigger— your symptoms, your issues— and the framing that we give our problems can make those things bigger as well. I'm going to give you a simple switch that you can make Taking your problems and turning them into puzzles that can help you reframe and reduce the friction to create those changes. Now, why use a word like puzzles instead of problems? For me, puzzles can leave you curious. Problems can leave you furious. That is my main sticking point. Problems feel heavy. They feel burdensome, whereas puzzles can lead you to a solution. With a puzzle, we know there is a way out. If you've been watching any of the videos on this channel, you know the RAS is a huge part of your recovery. Now, your RAS stands for your reticular activating system. It is your brain's filter. It determines how you view the world. There are millions of stimulus every second. Your brain could not take in that much information. So what it does is it has a filter called your RAS, your reticular activating system. And what that does is it takes apart all those bits of visual, auditory stimuluses that then breaks it into what do I need to actually know. So for example, if someone is constantly thinking about all the symptoms that they might be feeling, the fatigue, The brain fog, the irritability. Now, they're going to see that play out in their life. If, for example, they start to get rage while they're driving, that irritability is another sign that their symptoms have not been resolved from their PCS. Whereas if someone is looking through the lens of their reticular activating system for moments of gratitude, moments of hopefulness, like maybe today, My brain fog is not nearly as bad as it was yesterday or the week before. They are now looking through a lens of hopefulness. The way that we view the world helps determine how our recovery goes. The same goes for phrasing. It might seem simple and trivial to change a word from problems to puzzles, but think about it this way: simple things create big changes. So something simple as making that small word change can help change it in your brain. When I think of a puzzle, just envision one right now. If you close your eyes and think about a puzzle piece, okay, you think of childlike play, you think of something that maybe was a struggle, maybe you had to put it away for a few days and come back to it, but you knew eventually it could be solved. You could look at the back of the box and guess what? There was a solution. You knew the solution was there. By using a word like a problem can over time cause greater issues, cause greater restraint, cause greater inability to make those necessary changes. See, this all comes back to how we view a situation. Here's what I want you to do today as a simple way to change this. Anytime you're about to say the word problem or issue, something that has a more negative connotation, I want you to rephrase it. You don't have to use the word puzzle, but rephrase it so that your brain doesn't see it as a negative. It sees it as a hurdle, something that can be overcome, a puzzle that can be solved. So think about it this way. So in the morning you get up, you have the brain fog, you have the fatigue. Okay? It is not a problem for you today. It is a puzzle you need to solve. What is going to help you solve that puzzle? Is it going to be the inputs that you provide? Maybe it's having creatine with your coffee. Maybe it's going to sleep a little bit earlier. But this is part of the solution. Okay? It is not easy. I always say that a lot of these concepts we talk about on this channel are simple, but not easy. They are simple in theory, but practically not that easy. But I want you to start layering these things, start adding them into your vernacular. Again, I always say that if your systems have been dysregulated like mine were for decades, they're not going to change overnight. But what you can do is you can start changing the wording, start changing the phrasing, which over time changes how you view your own situation. PCS is no longer part of who you are. It is simply something that you're working to fix. I will leave it there. Thank you for watching today. I appreciate your support. Have a great day.
