Maybe you are reading this because you have a concussion. Or perhaps a loved one or a client has a concussion.
Or maybe you are here because you have a different chronic condition that would benefit from mindfulness. I welcome all of you here, but I am writing this blog as though you yourself have a concussion.
This is a lot of text. You may not have the capacity to read these words all at once. As you can see, I am bolding the main bits as this tends to help concussed brains track information more easily. You might want to increase the font as that may make it easier on your brain.
I hope you will slowly incorporate the lessons that are relevant and useful into your life. Just take in what you can, even just skim-reading if that is all you can manage right now. Come back to certain posts later when you have more capacity.
The medical community tends to use the term traumatic brain injury (TBI) instead of concussion, but I will use the terms concussion and brain injury interchangeably. Most people recover fully within months, but a small percentage of us have on-going symptoms. This is called ‘post-concussion syndrome.’
I am in way better shape than I was in the first few years after my accident, but at some point the resolution of symptoms kinda plateaued. These days my symptoms have more to do with what is going on in my life and how well I am following my own mindful concussion advice.
That said, in many ways I am actually much healthier than I was before my accident. Mindfulness and somatic experience therapy (which I’ll get into later) are paying off in so many ways! I want all of this for you too.
Since so often the event that caused our concussion was traumatizing, you may also be a trauma survivor. Truth be told, sometimes it’s hard to tease out trauma symptoms and concussion symptoms as there is a lot of overlap. Mindfulness, with modifications, is the ticket in any event!
Keep in mind that no two concussions are alike. What works for me may or may not work for you. Concussion care is one Grand Experiment; your body is your laboratory and you have to figure out by trial and error what works for you on any given day. I hope what I have learned along the way will help you in your own journey of discovery.
I want to share everything I have learned with you immediately. But you probably don’t have the capacity to take so much in all at once, and I certainly don’t have the capacity to write it all right away. Putting these ideas into bite-sized blog posts feels right for our injured brains!
I suggest you start your Mindful Concussion journey by checking out these three videos:
The next ten posts delve further into the core elements of my Mindful Concussion approach:
- What is mindfulness?
- Mindfulness: A balm for our injured brains
- Why modify mindfulness for concussion?
- How to modify mindfulness for concussion
- Go for a walk in nature (my mindful journey started with a flower)
- Seek trauma support (mindfulness on its own is often not enough)
- Take up yin and restorative yoga (because our issues are in our tissues and we need to rest and digest)
- Just Breathe (Long, slow, and deep may calm you right down)
- Cultivate self-compassion (it’s the secret sauce that allows us to lean into the difficult more easily)
- Learn to lean into the difficult (because what we fight stays tight, but what we feel we can heal)
Future posts will delve deeper into these themes (mindfulness, mindful modifications, and resources to help us find calm clarity) and take up new concussion-related topics.
I look forward to hearing from you in the comments section so we can learn from each other. Do you have any tips to share?
Mindfully and Kindfully yours,
Jessie