In this video, concussion survivor David Brimacombe warns that feeling symptom‑free on a “good day” does not mean a person with post‑concussion syndrome (PCS) can resume full activity. He explains that the brain has a physiological threshold: pushing beyond the point where symptoms begin will set back recovery. Brimacombe advocates sub‑threshold exposure training—working at roughly 70‑80% of the known symptom tolerance (e.g., if headache starts after 20 minutes of a mall visit, limit activity to 10‑12 minutes). He stresses the importance of consistency, using each good day as a win rather than a cue to over‑exert, and recommends regularly retesting tolerance to track gradual improvement. He uses analogies (energy “paycheck”) to illustrate why over‑doing on a good day exhausts the nervous system and leads to later setbacks. The overall message is that PCS recovery is a long‑term, incremental process that requires pacing, monitoring, and patience, not sporadic bursts of activity.
Chapters
Have you ever woken up and felt like, man, I feel amazing today, I'm gonna do everything I've been putting off, I'm gonna clean the house, I'm gonna go ahead and go to the mall, I'm gonna hang out with my friends, I'm gonna work out, and then you feel worse thereafter? Today I want to talk about this common PCS trap where pushing too hard on good days can actually derail Your recovery. Welcome to the PCS Resilience Collective. My name is David Brimacombe, and after 7 concussions over 20 years, I learned a lot about when to push and when to pull back. In this video, we're going to talk about this common PCS trap and what to do about it. Let's begin. Now, the biggest thing we need to understand is that your body has a threshold. So when I wake up Those days, and it feels like, ah, the sun is shining, the birds are chirping, I feel like myself again. This isn't necessarily an invitation to push harder. What this is, it's a great day. Enjoy the great day. But don't think that just because you woke up with less symptoms, without that brain fog, without that cognitive delay, that it means that you are healed, that it means that you can do whatever you want. Now, understand that exposure training is a huge part of your recovery, exposing yourself to the things that are causing your symptoms to flare. But understand that you have to work subthreshold. So, um, if I know that it takes me— after 20 minutes of going to the mall, I can feel my head start to ache, my brain fog start to kick in, I start to feel That mental lethargy. I can't push beyond that. Now, just because I had a great sleep, it doesn't mean I have 30 minutes, 40 minutes, endless amount of time to do whatever I want. And this is the trap that people fall into. Just because you feel good, it doesn't mean that your tolerance has now increased. Your ability to do whatever you want whenever you want has now changed. So What you need to do. This is universal. When you get up, if you feel terrible, if you feel great, be consistent. Consistency is the key to recovery. Understand what you can tolerate and work 70 to 80% below that. So if I know it takes me 15 minutes for my symptoms to start to escalate after walking outside, I'm going to walk for 10 to 12 minutes at most. Because that is what my body will tolerate. Now, over time, you can retest yourself. You can go back and see, has my tolerance increased? And it will with time. But as soon as you start pushing beyond those because you feel better today, you're actually causing greater harm. You're stressing the system beyond its capacity. Okay, so understand this, that just because you get up and feel fantastic It doesn't give you carte blanche to do whatever you want. It's like the person on payday who spends their entire paycheck. You've now, by going out and having that day where you do any and everything you've held back on, you've now spent your entire energy paycheck. You've exhausted yourself to the point where now you're gonna probably feel worse for the next few days thereafter. Your body isn't ready. PCS recovery is a long game. It's about looking at the long picture, making a roadmap, having a plan, knowing that I can only do X, Y, and Z, and doing that consistently. It's not easy, I get it. You get up, you want to move on, you want to be better, but you have to understand your body has limits, especially with PCS. So if you want to maintain that nervous system resilience, if you want to maintain feeling good the next day and thereafter. Okay, don't push yourself beyond your capacity. Take that amazing day when you get up and, you know, your symptoms aren't there. Just take that as the win on its own. That is amazing. Again, you will recover. These small steps will turn into big gains later on, but you can't skip the process. You can't go ahead and jump 3 steps ahead and think that's going to be okay. Okay, I really appreciate you listening and watching these videos. I hope these are helpful. For me, these made huge gains. These helped me make huge gains in my recovery. I learned so many things on my own that I wish I could— someone could have told me. And that's the point of this channel. The point of this channel is to give you the information that I wish I had 5 years ago, because it's not easy. But it is possible. Your brain is not broken. You will recover, but it will take time. Until next time, have yourself a great day. Bye.
