In this video, David Brimacombe explains why many people with post‑concussion syndrome (PCS) continue to experience symptoms long after the injury and how a common habit—constant symptom monitoring—can actually worsen the condition. He introduces the brain’s reticular activating system (RAS) as the filter that decides what information reaches conscious awareness, and shows how hyper‑vigilance after a concussion amplifies perceived threats, turning normal sensations into alarm signals. Brimacombe describes how repeatedly focusing on symptoms strengthens neural pathways, creating deep “ruts” that keep the brain stuck in a negative feedback loop. He uses a child‑temper‑tantrum analogy to illustrate how giving in to symptoms reinforces the loop, making future episodes more intense. The core message is to break this cycle by reducing symptom‑checking, setting exposure thresholds, and deliberately shifting attention to meaningful activities and relationships. He emphasizes neuroplasticity—the brain’s ability to rewire itself—suggesting that small, consistent steps (e.g., staying in a mildly uncomfortable environment without fixating on symptoms) can gradually weaken the maladaptive pathways and support recovery. The video ends with an encouraging call to action, urging viewers to start with one manageable exposure, stay present, and trust that improvement is possible.
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The more you think about your symptoms, the stronger they become, because your brain is learning to pay attention, and what it pays attention to will determine your recovery. Hi and welcome to the PCS Resilience Collective. My name is David Brimacombe, and one of the biggest things I learned about my brain during my recovery is that I had a say in what it saw, what it perceived. My perception became my personal reality. At the beginning of my recovery, I thought the best thing I could do was to check symptoms daily, hourly, by the minute, because I thought that the more I checked in on these things, the better understanding I'd have of my body, of my system, of how my symptoms were progressing or regressing. Now, again, in the moment, this felt right. I was so in tune with my system. I felt like I knew every part of my body. But what if, what if knowing and feeling and thinking about my body and my symptoms was actually keeping me stuck, was actually making my recovery harder than it needed to be? Now, how can that be? How can understanding your body, learning about your body, feeling those symptoms actually make it harder? Now, in this video, I'm going to go through the The reticular activating system. I'm going to go through how your brain is able to focus on things and change its focus and how that's going to determine what you see and how you recover. Your brain focuses on what you think about, what is top of mind, what is playing in that subconscious loop. Now you have what's called the reticular activating system, your RAS. It is a bundle of nerves in your brainstem and its main goal is to focus on attention. Attention, focusing on filtering out all the bits of information in your environment. At any given second, there are around 11 million— 11 million bits of sensory information. Now, your brain possibly couldn't compute and decipher all that bit of information. So it's in the environment, it's in your body, it's in your thoughts. That is a lot. to decipher. Now, on any given second, it can deal with 40 to 50. So 99.9% of that sensory information is gone, is not even relevant to your existence. Okay, your body is blocking it out. It's not relevant. So how does this relate to your recovery? How does this help determine if your body is able to heal or if your body becomes stuck in a rut of recovery? Because what you think about becomes what's top of mind, which actually influences that RAS to determine what it brings in, what it focuses attention on. If you're focusing on your body, if you're focusing on your symptoms like I was at the beginning of my recovery, you'll think more about them, you'll feel more about them, you will ruminate more about them, which will there increase their prevalence. And you'll become hypervigilant. So we're going to go through in this video why you need to avoid that constant thought, that symptom checking, that feeling of I need to see how I feel, and what you can do in its place. Let's begin. Let's talk about the brain. So the brain's main job is to keep you safe. It's to keep you alive. It's indifferent to your level of happiness. Okay, your recovery journey. So it's therefore going to focus on the negatives, anything that it perceives as a threat, a danger to your existence that could possibly kill you. It's going to send off the alarms. Now, you might think, well, my symptoms aren't going to kill me. This anxiety, these— this light sensitivity, this brain fog isn't necessarily going to kill me. But because your brain has become hypervigilant after a concussion, during post-concussion syndrome. It is now hyper-aroused. So what usually would cause a 4 out of 10 in terms of the excitement in the system, now it's maybe a 7 or an 8. Those alarm bells are louder and they're ringing, they're vibrating, they're making you feel like it's a more substantial event. There's more danger involved than there really is. Okay, so this is the first thing. So your brain is actually hypervigilant. It's actually hyper-aroused in that state. So with that in mind, it's going to focus on the negatives. Anything that it feels is a negative, like a symptom, okay, like a thought, it's going to emphasize that. It's going to basically stew in that because it's trying to show you this is a danger, watch out, okay? Is it going to focus on the positives? No. The positives are going to improve your quality of life, help your recovery, All those things, but it doesn't focus on that. We have to hack the brain, hack the mind in order to have it focus on it. So naturally it's going to look for those symptoms. But someone who's stuck in recovery, you can't focus on those symptoms. Those symptoms become your existence. They become who you are. They disallow you from living a life. Okay? The greatest things I learned is that I learned that I had to just live my life. Okay? Those symptoms were going to be present. And the more I thought about them, the more they came to the surface. The more they came to the surface, the bigger effect it had on my life. So I had to just let it go. But that wasn't easy because, again, your brain is going to focus on it. So we needed to come up with hacks. We needed to come up with solutions, okay, on how to do so. Okay, we're going to talk about those later in the video. Now, this spotlight that your brain is putting on these different bits of sensory information, whether it's your symptoms, whether it's the environment— look out, or going into an environment that caused you stress and strain last time we were there— that mall, that shopping center, workplace, whatever it is— okay, look out. Remember that neural pathways that you have created, that association in your brain runs deeper the more it happens. So if you've gone into an environment or had a thought pattern 10, 20, 30, hundreds, thousands of times, okay, that rut, the, the depth of that neural pathways is far greater, and therefore it's going to be far more profound. So again, this is where you see people who are stuck in recovery for months, for years, and sometimes even decades, because they are now in such a deep rut they don't know where to go. Now, I'm not going to say this is going to be easy. It isn't. But it is possible, and that is the greatest thing you'll know. If you know nothing else, Know that the journey to get out to the person you want to be may not be easy. That shouldn't matter. It didn't matter to me. All I wanted to know was it possible? And second to that, could I influence my recovery? Could I make the steps and the lifestyle modifications that would actually change? The answer is yes, and it's a profound yes. So I think of the analogy of a child. having a temper tantrum. Okay, that aligns with your symptoms, those highly symptomatic events. Now, for those who have children, have nieces, nephews, you know, younger siblings, you can relate to this. So you have a child, you're going to a store, maybe they didn't sleep very much, maybe they're hungry, but they decide that they are going to get stuck on a specific item or event. They want that chocolate bar, they want to watch that extra show, And they're going to let you know it. So, you say no, you try to walk away, they start fussing. They ask again, you say no, their response gets louder. Okay? You say no again, a 3rd time, the response gets so loud they start having a temper tantrum. They're screaming, they're yelling, they're kicking, everyone's looking at you. What do you do? You have 2 options. You give in. You give them what they want in the moment. The The crying, the screaming, the yelling, it's gone. So in the moment it feels better, okay? But what happens next time this event occurs? Okay, next time they want something, okay, they know they have you. They know that you gave in, so they're going to yell louder and their kicking is going to be more aggressive, and they're not going to stop because they know that you'll give in eventually. And then you give in. Guess what? They feel better in the moment. But this is a sick cycle. And it directly relates to your symptoms. So if your symptoms, you always give in. I'm going to a store, the first 2 minutes I don't feel right, a little bit of brain fog, nausea, fatigue, I'm leaving. What you're doing is you're giving in. You're giving in to that child, that same instance that occurred for that child having that temper tantrum. Your symptoms are the same thing. So the next time you go in, guess what? Those symptoms, they're going to be louder. They're going to be more aggressive and they're gonna be harder to tame. Every time you give in to your symptoms the moment they arise, so I'm not talking when they've escalated to the point where you can't exist, you can't be in that environment. I'm talking they just rise to the surface. They rise to the surface and you're like, okay, I'm out. This is not good, it's causing me symptoms. Not good, I leave. Guess what? I make that association. That, that environment is always going to cause strain, always going to cause symptoms to provoke. So it does. I am making this harder because I'm making an association. Every time I go, that neural pathway gets deeper, gets stronger, so that it becomes harder to change. Okay, again, I'm not saying this is easy. I'm not saying that this is something that's going to be changed overnight. You have to start small, but you need to to start today. And the first thing you need to understand is that every time you have those symptoms— and again, I think this is why a lot of people leave, or a lot of people avoid symptoms, because they think they're actually making themselves worse, their brains are breaking further, their symptoms are going to be provoked earlier— but you're doing the opposite, okay? By giving in, you're convincing yourself that this is the situation that's always going to occur. Your brain is not broken when those symptoms arise. It is not a sign that you're going to go further into post-concussion. It's not a sign that those symptoms are going to get worse, okay? Because those symptoms are just an alarm bell. It's your nervous system that's been dysregulated. It's a body that is not in tune with itself, okay? But we can get it in tune. But the first thing you need to do is to ignore those symptoms. Because every time I listen to my body, every time I think about those symptoms, okay, I look for them, I feel them in a greater capacity. I'm telling my reticular activating system, this is what I need to see, and what I need to see is going to be more profound each time. Okay, this is not going to be easy. I want you to start small. Okay, so the next time you go into a store, I want you to live with those symptoms. Just live your life. Not easy, okay? But you can do it. So go into the store and you just just keep going, okay? You should have a threshold. Maybe it's a six or a seven out of ten it gets to, and maybe at that point I leave. I leave and remind myself I'm okay. I'm not going to die. This is not a sign that my brain is becoming worse and worse, and I'm never going to recover. Convince yourself. Tell yourself, remind yourself of neuroplasticity, the power to change your brain, that, that neural pathway that was rerouted when you had the concussion can be fixed and rerouted back to where it was. It is possible, okay? And I believe that you can do it because I did it myself. I did not think it was possible at first. I thought there's no way that I can go back to the person I was. I can tell you this, I did not go back to the person I was. I became a better version of myself. I became more— a better understanding of the human body, the condition, the brain, and what actually changes your thoughts, which changes your environment, which changes how you view the world. I believe that you can do this because I did it myself when I thought it was not possible. There's no way, 0% chance I'm going to be the person I want to be. But it starts with one Small step at a day. Choose one environment, go into that environment. Okay? Don't listen to those symptoms. Don't think about those symptoms. Be present. Think about your shopping. Think about your kids that you're with. Thinking about your future. Ignore those symptoms. Just live your life. Because if you provoke them, it doesn't mean they're going to get worse indefinitely. What you're doing by ignoring them is you're taking that spotlight off. You turn the spotlight off. You're putting the spotlight on, you know, your family, your friends, the groceries, being present in the moment. It is astounding how those symptoms will lessen with the focus that you're going to change. Okay, I believe in you. You can do this. Thank you for staying to the end. I hope you have yourself a great day.
