In this instructional YouTube video, David Brimacombe, a long‑term concussion sufferer, shares five practical, science‑backed actions that anyone recovering from a concussion—whether newly injured or months into post‑concussion syndrome—can start using immediately. He begins by emphasizing self‑validation, using a simple “high‑five” habit and tracking small improvements to rebuild self‑image and recognize progress. He then explains breath regulation, recommending elongated exhalations and a “5 × 5” breathwork schedule (five sets of breathwork five times a day) to shift the autonomic nervous system toward a parasympathetic, safe state. The third step addresses diet, urging viewers to replace one food item per week—especially inflammatory foods like dairy—with more natural alternatives, thereby reducing gut inflammation and brain fog. The fourth step introduces gentle, sub‑symptom‑threshold movement, such as short walks or stair climbs, preferably outdoors, to increase cerebral blood flow and improve mood. Finally, Brimacombe advocates building a micro‑habit routine (atomic habits) that pairs a morning breathwork practice with a nightly “brain dump” writing exercise, allowing the brain to clear rumination before sleep. Throughout, he stresses that these actions are low‑burden, symptom‑friendly, and empower individuals to regain agency over their recovery, reinforcing the message that the brain is not broken but can be supported through consistent, simple lifestyle tweaks.
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Welcome to the PCS Resilience Collective channel. My name is David Brimacombe. The goal of this channel is to provide you with science-backed, simple ways to improve your position in your recovery. For me, it took 7 concussions over 20 years to finally figure out what worked, and today I want to go through 5 things that you can implement today regardless of where you are on your journey. You could have just sustained a concussion. You could be a year into it, but these 5 things will help you today to help start resolving your symptoms. Let's start with number 1, validate yourself. Now, this might seem like a strange thing to add to a concussion recovery protocol, but for me, this was huge. I had been sitting in a dark room for weeks before I realized that my self-image and self-perception We're at an all-time low. So what did I do? I went to the mirror and gave myself a high five. Now, this concept comes from Mel Robbins, who calls it the high five habit. Essentially, what you're doing is you are validating your own existence by giving yourself a high five and raising your hand to the mirror and meeting yourself. You are telling yourself that you are worthy of that contact. Now, it doesn't have to be you giving yourself a high five, you can high five a friend, a neighbor, even a stranger, but the concept remains the same. You are validating yourself. You're showing your own true worth. Now, the second thing in terms of validating yourself ties in with the concept of small changes in your recovery. Now, for someone like myself who went through PCS twice, which is post-concussion syndrome for those who don't know, I had really small changes in my recovery for the first few months. Now, if I didn't go and look back to where I was at the beginning, to where I had come, I never would have thought that I was making any progress. So the big thing here is you're actually going to go ahead and you're going to look back at where you came from. Have your symptoms improved even just mildly? That is a sign of progress. Now, progress doesn't always happen as quick as you'd like, But progress is progress. Progress is a sign that your body is making the necessary changes, and that's what matters. Number 2, regulate with breath. One of the most powerful things about breathwork is its power to change your state, to go from one of stress to one of relaxed in a matter of 3 to 5 breaths. It doesn't take much. But it tells your body you're safe. So what can you do today to help improve your position in your recovery? The biggest thing you could do is include elongated exhales in your breath. So let's say, for example, you wanted to do a box breathe, a typical 4 by 4 breathwork. Now, instead of doing the 4 counts on the exhalation, you could make that 6 or 8, meaning you're actually elongating The exhale. The reason why that's so effective is because your heart rate actually slows down on the exhale. So by elongating or adding an extra long exhale, you're slowing that heart rate even more. A slower heart rate drives you into the parasympathetic or the rest and digest state. It tells your body it's safe. It's time to lower the stress, lower the cortisol levels. All those other hormones that are rushing through your body when you're in that highly elevated sympathetic state, which a lot of people post-concussion are. I received a really good piece of feedback from Dr. Mark Hyman. He does what's called the 5x5 breathwork. So 5 times a day, he will do 5 sets of breathwork. Okay. So I think about it this way. If you were to do breathwork when you get up, When you go to bed and before each of your meals, assuming you're eating five meals a day. Sorry, assuming you're eating three meals a day, that would be a five times five. Now, why do we do it at those points? Now, when you get up and when you go to bed, it's super important to make sure your body's regulated to start the day and to finish the day. Before we eat, this might sound strange, but in order to get your body into a state where it's ready to absorb the nutrients, ready to consume the food that you're You're going to put into the body. You have to actually tell it it's time. You're safe. You're okay to take in the food. Now you do that with breathwork. So what I typically do before I eat is I do set of three or five breathworks, and all I'm going to do again is I'm going to elongate my exhale, telling my body it's safe, telling my body to send the blood to the gut instead of the extremities. I no longer need to feel. Okay. Number 3. Number 3 is pretty simple, but it is hard to do. Okay. The concept of replacing one food item per week. My biggest challenge post-recovery was taking those food items that were causing me harm and adding in food items that were going to help me heal. Now, the biggest thing I noticed is when I cut out dairy. Now, dairy for a lot of people is an inflammatory food. Not everyone. I don't want to vilify the food itself, but for some people, myself included, it makes a huge difference to cut that out. So what that looked like, okay, for me, it was taking out that dairy and replacing it with a soy milk, replacing it with coconut milk, almond milk, anything as a replacement. And now I eventually just got rid of those altogether and just changed how I ate. Okay, but it took time. Okay. And what I noticed is my irritability, my brain fog slowly started to diminish because that food was causing inflammation in my gut, a gut that was already inflamed. So by reducing that stressor essentially that I was inputting into my body, I was allowing the other parts of my body to heal. So simple, find food that's closer to nature. Instead of an apple fritter, why not eat an apple? Okay. The closer you can get to the way that it was found in nature, the better it is. Number 4, okay, we're talking movement. Now, movement doesn't have to be excessive exercise. It's not running stairs and lifting weights till you can't breathe. That is not what you should be doing post-concussion. What you do need to do is you do need to add some layer of movement. Movement can be as simple as a walk to the mailbox, Climbing one set of stairs, but movement tells your body it's okay to now start sending the blood flow to other parts of your body, increase the blood flow to your brain, which also helps with your autonomic nervous system, the same nervous system that is typically dysregulated after a concussion. So what are some simple things we can do? Now, I would suggest if possible, If you can move outdoors, all the better. The fresh air, the bright lights, all those things, if they're tolerated, will help your healing as well. They'll help your mood. Now, a lot of people might say, well, if I don't feel great, I don't have the motivation. Now, for me, that was the same thing. When I wasn't motivated, I was not moving. I will say this though, movement precedes mood. So if you don't feel like you're in a good mood, that is the time to go ahead and start moving. Once you start moving, you get all those positive hormones surging through your body and you'll start to feel better. Start low and eventually escalate as you're capable. Remember, your symptoms are a sign of where you can, what your threshold is. So if today I can walk for 5 minutes at a moderate pace, I'm going to, without having my symptoms be provoked, I'm going to use that as my benchmark. Okay, again, always do sub-symptom threshold training. Don't start pushing yourself so far that you start to feel nauseous and dizzy and all your symptoms coming back. That is not going to help you. It's going to demotivate you. It's not— you're going to not want to do any kind of exercise after that. So sub-symptom threshold training, but do what you can because that's going to help you resolve your symptoms. And lastly, Create a simple routine. Now, a simple routine, I want you to start as small as you need. I believe in the concept of micro habits or atomic habits. So atomic habits starts with layering those basic things that you're going to do each week. So I'm going to start with one thing in the morning and one thing at night that you're going to add to your, to your day. Now, I would figure out what is the biggest mover for you. Does breathwork help you regulate? Does writing down your thoughts help you get your mind clear? Whatever the case may be, I want you to come up with a protocol that helps you the most. For me, I always do breathwork when I get up. It helps me start the day. It helps me get in a positive tone where I know I'm capable of handling life's stresses. Before I go to bed, the last thing I always do is a brain dump. I always find I would ruminate when I go to sleep. My subconscious would be littered with things I didn't want to think about, all the stresses of the day, all the things I had to do tomorrow. So by doing a brain dump, essentially writing down everything that's currently on my mind, it would allow me to release those thoughts and make sure that they weren't jumbling through my subconscious all night. Okay? So these are 5 things you can do today. I don't want them to be onerous. I don't want them to actually cause creative symptoms. I want them to start giving you a routine and giving you the agency that you have power to change your position. If nothing else, if you learn nothing else from this video, I will tell you the greatest thing I learned was that I had influence on my outcome. There are days when I thought there's nothing that was going to happen that was going to be good in my life. I felt symptomatic. I felt tired. I felt like the world was against me, but Once I understood, including simple lifestyle modifications every day, I was starting to make a difference. I was chipping away at the ice, even though it was going to take a while. It gave me that motivation to move forward. Remember, your brain is not broken. With that, thank you for listening. Please subscribe if you'd like the channel, and I'll see you next time.
