In this solo presentation, David Brimacombe argues that persistent post‑concussion syndrome (PCS)‑related fatigue is often rooted in morning habits rather than nighttime routines. He explains how the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) uses light, movement, food, and social cues to launch the 16‑hour wake cycle, and how snoozing, inconsistent wake times, and lack of a structured morning protocol keep the body stuck in a sleep‑like state. Brimacombe introduces his five‑step "MOVER" protocol—Morning light, Optimize breathing, Visualized gratitude, Exercise, Rehydration—as a practical, repeatable morning routine designed to reset the circadian rhythm, improve sleep onset, and increase daytime alertness. He provides concrete tips such as using a 10,000‑lux light box, tailored breathwork, gratitude visualization, varied exercise, and electrolyte‑rich hydration, emphasizing consistency to align the body’s internal clock and reduce PCS fatigue.
Chapters
If your sleep is broken right now, you have trouble getting to sleep, you have trouble waking up in the morning, this is not a nighttime issue. The problem starts in the morning. Now, understand that the first 30 to 60 minutes after you wake up can either help you fix your brain or keep you stuck. Most people treat nighttime routines as the end-all be-all for for their sleep quality, their sleep quantity. Now, there is some validity to that, okay? What you do before bed helps tell your body and prepare your body for sleep. But what if your body didn't know that it was time to sleep? What if the circadian rhythm that your body follows tells your system that I'm not ready to sleep yet, it is not time to go to sleep? Okay, understand that when you get up Your circadian clock starts, but the problem lies is if you wait in bed, hit the snooze, roll around, don't fully activate your systems, that system really never kicks in. That restart never really happens. To start that 16-hour wake cycle, okay, you need to do a few things. If you are the type— I mean, I used to do this, I sometimes do this on the weekend as well. If you're the type that when the alarm goes, hit snooze, hit snooze, roll around, pick up your phone, scroll, wait, hit snooze, your body doesn't know that we are in wake time. You are still in sleep and slumber. You haven't activated your brain. You haven't activated this system. You have what's called the suprachiasmatic nucleus. Okay, so that is a series of neurons that when it sees light, when it has movement, when you ingest food, guess what? It activates your system. Start the cycle. It tells the body it is now wake time. It is now time to activate our system so that we're ready for the day. If you're the type that doesn't have a strong morning protocol, doesn't have a consistent wake-up, routine, then your body doesn't know that this is wake time. So you might be the type that struggles when you go to bed, when you get up, and if you just feel like you don't have consistency in your life. Now, that nighttime routine that you've been honing— when the lights go off, when you put your phone away, how long you read, your stretches, your breathwork, your gratitude journaling— that all does help. But understanding that cycle Isn't at the point where you're ready for bed, you're just going to get frustrated. I've done all the routines. I have a locked-in nighttime ritual. But that ritual isn't the problem. The problem lies in what you do in that first 60 minutes of waking. Now, as I mentioned before, your sleep is programmed by many things. That suprachiasmatic nucleus is programmed by light. Now, the best thing to do Okay. When I get up, if it's that time of the year, and again, I live in a northerly climate, so most times in the year, and when I'm getting up at 4:30 or 5 in the morning, yes, I know I'm crazy. I get up that early, the sun is not out. Okay. But what I can do is I go in the kitchen, flick on all the lights. I go and sit in front of what's called a 10,000 lux light. It's one of those light boxes. Okay. And you just look at it. Okay. And that light enters your eye and tells your body it's time to start. The cycle, the wake cycle. Okay. Another way you can do this, add some movement, go for a walk, some light exercise, anything that is going to invigorate the system, tell it, I'm awake. Obviously, we know that you're awake because you've started to move. Okay. What about eating? What about social interactions? All these things are significant in telling the body it is now time to wake. Now, this might seem insignificant and you might wonder, What does it matter? What does it matter what I do first thing in the morning that can help determine when I go to bed? Now, your body is based on consistent cycles. So if one day I wake up at 5, and then maybe on the weekends I decide I'm going to sleep in, I deserve it, I have earned the right to sleep in, I'm going to sleep in till 8 o'clock, till 9 o'clock, my body is like, excuse me? 9 o'clock. So, it has no idea that you've now shifted that cycle. Now, when you get up at 9 o'clock, maybe you're a little groggier. Maybe you don't feel like yourself. You roll around in bed, you hit the snooze, whatever. Okay? You finally get up at 10 o'clock. Okay? You lazily walk around the house. Maybe by 10:30, you turn the lights on. And guess what? Click. There's your circadian rhythm. It's now clicked in. But now, 10:30 is the start of that cycle, not 5. So now you're not going to be ready to go to bed. Maybe this is Sunday night, you're like, ah, I always get the Sunday night scares, I can't go to bed until 11:30. It's not necessarily that you have anxiety, maybe that is part of it, but it's not necessarily— it's because your circadian rhythm was set later because you've changed that consistency, that pattern that your body is used to. Okay, your routines, what you do first thing in the morning, predicate That time that you are awake and how your body prepares and readies itself for sleep. So, I want to provide for you simple way of getting that circadian rhythm started. Okay? So, here's a simple, simple protocol. I'm going to go with 5 things you need to do. Okay? I call it my MOVER protocol. It's my morning protocol. It's what I've been doing for 6 years. It's what I've included In the PCS Resilience Collective. Now, if you want to join the waitlist, if you want to learn more, links to my website and to the waitlist are below. But it's a really simple concept, but it has had profound impacts on my sleep consistency. It is now at around 9:30, between 9 and 9:30. I am starting to feel tired. I'm yawning. I can feel my body readying for sleep, and that's when I want to go to bed. It's because I'm getting up at the same time every morning. And I'm doing the same thing. And that consistency is telling my body I'm preparing for sleep between 9:00 and 9:30, which is fantastic. Okay? That's what I want. So, here we go. Here is your MOVER protocol. We're going to start with the M. M stands for morning light. Again, morning light could be anything. It could be from your lights in your house. Ideally, it's from the sun. But if it's not from there, it's from anything that is bright enough to activate that circadian rhythm. So again, if you don't have access to a light box, a 10,000 lux light, which is fairly cheap, I would suggest anyone buying them. Okay, if the sun is not out, maybe that's a time of the year or you're getting up too early, all you need to do, turn on as many lights as you can. Okay, and then Again, you don't have to stare into those lights, but just have that overhead light coming down, okay, mimicking the light of the sun. The next thing you're going to do, optimize breathing. What I do in front of that light box, or sitting in the sun if I'm in the summertime, is that I'm going to do some breathwork, okay, with that light there. So I'm now stacking those 2 things that are going to help with my circadian rhythm. Now, what does optimized breathwork look like? For you. It's going to look different than it does for me. Okay, I love some kind of hyperventilation breathing, like a Wim Hof breathing, but you might do something that's more relaxed, maybe a 4-4 breath where you're just getting a good cycle for your breath. You're calming yourself. Okay, whatever it is, but you're doing some breathwork. And again, breathwork is going to tell this system that you are safe. Okay, you can provide some of those cues, you can use some mantras, but whatever you're doing, again, I'm looking at the light and I'm now providing some safety in the system. So I've stacked those 2 things. The next thing I'm going to do is some visualized gratitude. Now I write in a gratitude journal. I've been doing so for over 5 years. I like to write in it, and then what I do is I sit and I think about it. I'll sit for 3 minutes and I'll visualize those concepts. If it's something that has been substantial in my life Maybe it's, you know, a proud accomplishment of my children or myself or something that has happened that has, you know, been historic or something I've been working towards. I'm going to visualize how that's going to impact my life, or I'm going to recreate that moment, okay, in my mind. I'm going to sit with it, and what I'm doing is I'm just letting that positivity linger, okay? My E is my exercise. Exercise can be any movement. It's taking my dogs for a walk, it's going downstairs and, and doing some kind of resistance training. But again, it's alerting the system, it's providing that necessary cortisol spike that's going to sustain me throughout the day. The last thing is rehydration. It's one of the first things I do, but one of the most important. Okay, R for rehydration. Now, rehydration is great— grab a glass or 2 of water. Okay, but if you can stack it with some rehydration with electrolytes, put Put a little squirt of lemon, maybe some salt, and what you're doing is you're now replenishing those electrolytes in a natural way and rehydrating. Okay, I hope this video hit and helped. Okay, understand that helping your sleep at night doesn't start an hour before bed. It starts the moment you get up, because at that moment you are telling your system that this is my wake time, and in 16 hours or so, it is going to be my sleep time. If you do it consistently, your body will thank you. It'll thank you with being alert when you get up. It'll thank you with having that energy that you require. Okay? And it starts simply by getting up, by getting up and doing the same thing every morning. Okay? I hope this helped. I hope this landed. And thank you for listening to the end. I hope you have yourself a great day.
