In this instructional video, David Brimacombe shares the daily routines he uses to alleviate his post‑concussion syndrome (PCS) symptoms, dividing them into a morning "MOVER" protocol and an evening "DREAM" protocol. The MOVER routine (Maui Habit, Optimized breathing, Visualize gratitude, Exercise, Rehydration) focuses on setting a positive tone, practicing diaphragmatic breathing, reinforcing gratitude, moving the body (especially outdoors in sunlight), and rehydrating with water, electrolytes, and lemon. He emphasizes listening to symptom thresholds and adjusting intensity accordingly. The DREAM routine (Dimming lights, Regulate with breath, Ease the mind, Aim for consistency, Minimize distractions) prepares the body for sleep by reducing blue‑light exposure, using breathwork to signal safety, performing a mental "brain dump" to clear thoughts, maintaining a consistent sleep‑wake window, and eliminating evening distractions. Throughout, David offers practical tips (e.g., using f.lux, adding salt/lemon to water, walking dogs without media) and encourages viewers to personalize the steps while staying within their symptom limits. The video ends with a call to like and subscribe.
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Hi, and welcome back to the channel. Today I want to talk about what I do in the morning, first thing when I get up, and the last thing I do before I go to bed, and how this has helped me resolve my PCS symptoms. Now, if you feel stuck when you get up, you feel tired, lethargic, groggy, I want to give you a bit of a heads up. Some of the stuff you might be feeling is a result of the symptoms from your PCS, but a lot of the things we can help remedy by changing how you start your day. Let's start with my protocol. So I use the acronym MOVER, M-O-V-E-R. The first thing is Maui Habit. Now, as my feet hit the floor, I say these few words: today is going to be a great day. It sets the baseline for my day and creates a positive tone that I live by. Now, you can couple this by walking by the mirror and giving yourself a high five. As strange as it— as that is, that actually helps validate you. The second thing I do is for O. O is for optimized breathing. Most people after a concussion have shallow breath. You breathe too often and too shallow. So I practice diaphragmatic breathing. Long inhales, long exhales. Now the point of this is to push out your diaphragm as you inhale and suck it back in as you exhale. Always elongate your exhale to get yourself into that parasympathetic state. Next is visualize gratitude. One of the greatest things I've ever done is start a gratitude journal. Now, that is kind of one of the trendy things to do, but I think one thing that people are missing is that your gratitude should not end when you finish your gratitude journal. Okay? Your visualization can continue throughout the day. What I like to do is after my gratitude journal, I like to go on a walk with my dogs. Now walking on my dogs, I'm not connected to any music or any podcast. What I'm doing is I'm now replaying those points of gratitude in my mind as I'm walking. It's now cementing those thoughts in my mind. It's changing my subconscious loop from one of negativity to one that's got an attitude of gratitude. I'm feeling what the positive vibes that I put on that paper. The next thing I want to talk about is exercise. I just mentioned it, moving in any capacity. Now I know a lot of people after a concussion, have exercise-induced symptoms. So their threshold for exercise is quite low, but any movement will help and any movement is a start. So by going for a walk in nature, you're not only moving and increasing the blood flow, helping regulate your autonomic nervous system, but you're also getting natural sunlight, which does help your circadian rhythm, which is going to help you sleep later. So morning movement with, with morning sun is a great way to start your day. But remember, use your symptoms as a sign. If you start to feel symptomatic or your symptoms jump mildly, I would slow down or stop. That is your threshold. Continue to work below that threshold to try to push yourself so that you can eventually work beyond that threshold. And lastly, the R, which stands for rehydration. Most adults are chronically dehydrated. This might be why they have headaches, lethargy. They don't feel like they have the energy that they normally would. Okay, when we get up in the morning is when we are most dehydrated. So after you go to the bathroom, your first order of business is to— should be to grab a glass of water. Now, if you can get clean filtered water, even better. And even better so if you can add some nice clean salt and/or freshly squeezed lemon, because both of those have electrolytes in them which will help you absorb that water and help you replenish your electrolytes. And now for my pre-sleep routine, I use what's called the DREAM protocol. D stands for dimming the lights. When you dim the lights, you tell your body it's time to sleep. Now, the problem lies when we're constantly stimulating our body with blue light. So it's on our screens, it's in our— the lights above our heads. All those things tell your body it's not time to go to sleep. It could be 9:30, 10, Maybe you're supposed to go to bed in 20 minutes, but your body doesn't feel that way. Your body isn't able to understand that nighttime is here when there's constant light around. So, first thing you need to do is dim the lights. Now, if you don't want to spend the money to go ahead and buy different tones of lights, so red and amber tones that you can use at nighttime, all you need to do is lower the lights. Use— if you want to use lamps instead of overhead lights, if you want to just kind of not use very many lights at all, that would even be beneficial. You can use an app on your computer called f.lux, which will help take away some of the blue-emitting wavelengths of the light. And you can also just put the phone away. What I try to do is an hour before bed, the phone goes away, and I try to read, I try to think, I go for a walk, I talk with my kids. But that's a huge part of my protocol, is dimming the lights. Telling your body it's time to regulate, it's time to get ready for bed. Speaking of regulating, R is for regulate with breath. Now, why do we regulate with breath before bed? It might seem counterintuitive. We're going to bed, we should be relaxing. Now, if we go to bed and we're still strung out, so we still are thinking about all the things that we went through in that day, the stresses, the tension, what's going to happen is our body isn't able to get into a fully Deep sleep. And with that, our body isn't able to go— isn't going to be able to heal properly. So what we need to do is we need to regulate with breath. A lot of times I'll regulate with breath. At the same time, I will tell myself it is safe. While I'm inhaling, I'm telling myself I am safe. On the exhale, I am loved, I am healed, anything else on the exhale. What I'm doing is I'm reiterating those positive thoughts. I'm telling my body it is safe to go to bed now. It is okay to go to bed now. And that way I'm able to calm myself down before I go to sleep. E is for ease the mind. Okay. Much like regulating with breath, you have to get rid of any and everything negative that's been floating around in your mind and put it to bed before you go to bed. So I like to do what's called a brain dump. So a lot of times I will either get rid of those things in my mind. I will write them down. I will say them out loud. I will basically say that I am done with all the work that came throughout the day. It is now time for bed. So I might wash away all those thoughts, all those negative thoughts, that negative tension, that negative stress. Okay? Now is the time for bed. Now is the time for sleep and restoration. So I have to get rid of those thoughts. So when you ease the mind, you brain dump, you're able to downregulate and not have to think about those things throughout the night. It allows you to sleep through the night and sleep soundly and deeply. A stands for aim for consistency. Now, when you aim for consistency, you want to stay within a 30-minute window when you go to bed and when you get up every single day. This isn't just 5 days a week. This isn't when you go to work. This is 7 days a week, including weekends. So if you're the type that wants to sleep in on a weekend but get up at 5 on a weekday, that is not going to be great for your circadian rhythm. Your body's not going to know that it is time to get up at 10 or time to get up at 5. It'll be out of whack and out of sorts. So Find a time that you can consistently get up and go to bed and keep a 30-minute tolerance for that. And that will help with your consistency of sleep. You'll start to feel tired half an hour before you want to go to bed. Consistency is the answer. M is for minimizing distractions. Again, I live in a busy house, 3 kids, 2 dogs, lots of stuff going on. I need to find a way to lower down my sympathetic drive. Increase my parasympathetic drive by minimizing distractions, minimizing the stressors. So, I have a bit of a routine. Half an hour before bed, I go unload the dishwasher. For me, it might seem counterintuitive, but that is when I calm down. I'm slowly putting the dishes away. The dishes are warm. It helps me regulate, and I put it away. I then go upstairs, read, do some breathwork, and get ready for bed. I have a routine. I have a way to minimize my distractions. Okay, what is your way? That's up to you, but you need to find a routine for the last 30 to 45 minutes where you can consistently lower those distractions. Again, if you get a phone call 5 minutes before you go to bed and the phone call is a negative phone call, guess what? You're going to ruminate for the rest of the night. You're not going to be able to sleep. You're going to think about it all the next day. You need to find a way to minimize your distractions. Lastly, if you are finding these videos informative, please like and subscribe. Hope to see you back soon.
