Physical or Mental Symptoms? with Bella Paige
Show Notes:
Welcome to the Post Concussion Podcast, with Bella Paige, and it's just her on the show today! We're going to talk about a few things today, including overcoming seasonal depression, Concussion Connect, managing chronic fatigue, and the physical versus the mental aspects of brain injuries; a few things Bella has touched on on social media in the last month.
Don’t miss out as Bella shares some great tips she implements in her own life to help her overcome winter depression and manage her chronic fatigue. So tune in today for all this, and more!
Key Points From This Episode:
• Bella talks about overcoming seasonal depression; tips that can help!
• We talk more about this month’s Concussion Connect: socializing with people.
• We move on to the topic of chronic fatigue and managing your fatigue.
• Which door would you walk through? The physical or the mental?
• The importance of remembering that your physical symptoms are related to your mental symptoms.
• What's coming up, and what we're doing in the next few months.
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Transcript - Click to Read
[INTRO]
[00:00:05] BP: Hi. I'm your host, Bella Paige. Welcome to the Post Concussion Podcast; all about life after experiencing a concussion. Help us make the invisible injury become visible.
[DISCLAIMER]
The Post Concussion Podcast is strictly an information podcast about concussions and post-concussion syndrome. It does not provide, nor substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician, or another qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice, or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on this podcast. The opinions expressed in this podcast are simply intended to spark discussion about concussions and post-concussion syndrome.
[EPISODE]
[00:01:04] BP: Welcome to the Post Concussion Podcast, with myself, Bella Paige, and it's just me today. We're going to talk about a few things today like overcoming winter depression. I know it's not winter, but it seems relevant right now. Concussion Connect, managing fatigue and kind of the physical versus the mental, which I kind of touched on a little bit on social media last month.
Overcoming winter depression is really tough, and it's really tough. Certain winters like this one, for example, that we just had, because it kind of never ended. It really depends where you live, of course. Where I am, winter seem to never end and it lasted forever. We had one warm day and I put all my winter things away, and I know better, then a week later, we got a huge snowstorm and then we had one every week for a month. The snow lasted for so long that I gave up on shovelling a few times, just hoping it would melt away. It just kind of hits you when it's getting brighter outside in the night, but going outside, it's kind of that in between season if you live where there's snow, because you live where you can't go outside because everything's wet or you can't walk on the snow because it's too soft and you sink. Or it's cold, and damp and you don't really want to be outside, but a parka is a little too warm for the weather. It's kind of just that in between season that isn't that great. You feel like you want to be outside more because it's getting nicer, and then it snows, or it gets really cold or it rains a lot depending where you live.
What do you do when you're dealing with winter depression and what helps? Some things that helped me were home projects if you live in a house, and there's things you've always wanted to get done. Even if you're dealing with symptoms, pick one project, even just work on it for 30 minutes a day or an hour can really help you. If you're doing things like painting, I know we all have masks now, so maybe wear one because it might help if you deal with headaches. You could do things like little home projects, or clean, or reorganize clothes or purge a little bit on things that don't need to be in your cupboard. Like the things that are at the very back. If you have a lot of cosmetics, you could go through all the ones that are expired, because I can bet you that you have some that are definitely expired because we all do and we also forget that they expire. Little things like this could help. Indoor hobbies, if you have them.
As I've mentioned before, we know that reading can be a challenge, but if you can read, that's great. Puzzles are great for things like memory and cognitive development. You don't need to get 1000-piece puzzle. You can get one that's a little easier and just set a timer. Don't work on it for so long that you push yourself over the edge with symptoms. Just take it easy, and that's okay to take it easy. Nobody said you have to finish a puzzle in three days. If you have a spot for it, then you could finish it in a few weeks. That's all that matters. Even if you don't finish it, you just spend one night working on a puzzle and then you're done with it. That's totally okay too, depending on your OCD. Indoor hobbies can really help.
You can go for walks. If you don't live with snow, then wear some rain boots. If you live with snow, I highly recommend getting snow shoes. Now, I've never had snow shoes before. This is the first year and what a difference. I don't know what I've been doing all these years going for walks, but snow shoes made my life so much easier. I could just walk on top of everyone's footprints that didn't match my stride, I didn't sink every five minutes. It was wonderful, so strongly recommend those. Try to get fresh air when possible. We know it's usually warmer in the afternoons. Try to get some fresh air after work if you're still working and really let yourself get outside because you've been stuck inside all winter and it's definitely time to get out there.
You also have to remind yourself that it is winter depression. If it lasts to the summer, then it might be more than winter depression. If it doesn't feel like it's lightening up when it's getting lighter for longer and you're getting outside more, then it's probably a little bit more than winter depression in my personal opinion. But you have to hold on to the hope that you know, it will get better once you are getting outside, maybe being more active. It doesn't matter how active. Sometimes even just going outside and gardening, or working on your yard, sitting on your patio. Just getting outside and getting fresh air can make a world of a difference for your mental health and I strongly recommend it. I know it's tough, really, depending on where you're at in your recovery.
You might be living in bed, you might have really severe dizziness, and you feel like you're going to fall over when you walk, so go outside and sit in a chair. Do what you would do inside outside. You like to read books, read a book outside. There's lots of different alternatives that you can do. The wonderful thing about spring, other than all the mud is you don't have to deal with the extreme heat. If you suffer from heat regulation and temperature issues, then this can be really beneficial for you to get outside while you can before you have to hide for it.
I just want to touch on the winter depression because it really hit me this year. It's never hit me before like this, and I think that some of it has to do with usually I'm doing some activities by now that I'm not. Well, as I'm recording this, I'd be doing activities. Definitely not when you hear this. The snow better be gone or I'm going to go nuts. But just a reminder to keep your head up when you go through little waves of depression. Because if they're waves, then you it will get better. You just have to ride it out. Don't be afraid to talk to someone. I'm always very pro talking to a therapist, talking to a professional, because they can help you and maybe give you better ideas than mine. Because my home projects might not be the cure, And it likely isn’t!
You just have to remind yourself to keep going and that's the biggest thing with all of this. If you've joined Concussion Connect, then you realize that we've had topics the last few months, and we had communication as a topic. Then we had depression, which is a very touching topic for myself and I know a lot of you, because it's really common with brain injuries and concussion survivors that depression occurs. I know it's touchy, but I'm really glad we had that month to talk about it. If you join now, don't worry, you can still bring up any topic. There are no rules against talking about other things. If there's things you want to talk about still related to past topics, go right ahead or new topics that we haven't even covered.
This month is about socializing, because we don't always realize that – we talked about communication, but there's more to it than that. There's going out to parties, going to a busy restaurant, celebrating holidays with family and friends, kids' birthday parties, your own birthday party, anniversaries, all these types of things wherever socializing with people, depending on your environment, even at work or school as a student, you're socializing with people constantly. Learning how to prepare to socialize with people is really important. Learning how to handle the mental side of it, when to take a break, how to talk to people, adding into that communication part that we talked about, how to tell them when you need a break, or why you need to walk away for a few moments to kind of catch your breath. Definitely important things to talk about.
We'll be talking about that all month in Concussion Connect. Which of course, concussionconnect.com is where you find that or in our show notes, episode description like always. Don't forget, it's $5 a month right now and you get two months free. It's about less than a price of coffee if you shop at the fancy expensive coffee shops. It can really benefit you. There are so many great things on there, like questions and topics. There are downloads that you can download, downloadable files that can help you, equipment platforms and things like that. It's just such a very knit community that's really close and I love it. I'm so happy that it's growing every day and it's a really safe place. It's not overly flashy with ads. It's organized. You don't have to stress when you're on it. You can go on it every day. You can go on it every hour. You can go on it once a week, whatever works for you and there's our support groups within that as well.
The other thing I want to talk about is chronic fatigue, managing fatigue. There are so many things that you can do to help, but it can be really tough. The first thing that I always like to recommend is to get your blood checked, because it's something that we sometimes miss. Maybe there are vitamins, maybe there are things that you're missing that you really need that would help with your energy. If you're dealing with chronic fatigue, any help that you can get is worth it. Talk to your general practitioner, talk to your doctor about getting your blood checked to see if there's something that you're missing, that you could take that safe to take, that doesn't have a lot of symptoms like most vitamins and help you with being so tired all the time.
Another thing that really helps me with this is planning, really kind of planning my day, going to sleep when I say I'm going to, not staying on my phone or watching that extra episode of TV, or working. If you know me personally, I'm kind of a workaholic. Really forcing yourself to take that rest time when you should be taking it. Another thing that really helps is naps. Don't be afraid to nap and set a timer when you nap. Because if you fall asleep, then that nap becomes hours instead of like a reboot, it becomes like you're on a sleep cycle, and it can be really hard and it's not helping you. Something that I like to do is I set a timer for about 30 minutes and I'll fall asleep within those 30 minutes. When the timer goes off, I get up. Even if that's just sitting up and kind of relaxing for a few minutes, kind of relaxing for a few minutes, I get up. Because I needed that 30-minute nap. If I sleep for an hour, then an hour turns into two, into three, and then all of a sudden, I'm in bed for the night.
Another thing that can really help is not napping in your bed, nap on the couch, if you can, because it's a separate place from where you're sleeping. Especially if you're still in your street clothes, it's really nice to take a nap and then wake up. Because if you're in a less comfy position, maybe you won't nap for as long and maybe that reboot will really help you. I know for myself, I know if I want to function a lot that night, any time after seven or eight if I haven't had a nap, I notice. I start to crash. I'll be sitting on my computer, or talking with friends, and I'm fading out and missing what they're talking about, all those communication aspects we've talked about. I have no idea what they're saying, I forget what they're saying, I forget what I'm saying, forget what I'm doing. It's really important to give yourself that chance to reboot.
If you have kids and a busy life, it is okay to go for a nap too if you can, Maybe convince your kid to go for a nap, maybe give your kid a TV episode and nap during that, depending on their age. There are ways that you can get around it if possible, depending on your kid's age, but it might help you to kind of get a reset. Or if you pick up your kids from school and you're not working, then nap before you pick them up. Because you're forced to get up because you have to go pick up your children and it might really help you, so that helps.
Another thing that can help is your eating and your diet. Instead of doing really large meals all the time, I find smaller meals more frequently help. Things like snacks are your best friend. A granola bar, a smoothie, those little things that you can have, a bowl of fruit. Having a snack, instead of having this giant meal can really help you. Instead of having a huge lunch, maybe break it into two halves or instead of having a huge breakfast, maybe eat right when you get up and then wait a few hours and then eat again. Kind of break up your day into snacks instead of giant meals. It really helped me because eating really large amounts of food because when you digest, a lot of time you get really tired, so that wouldn't help me. Then eating smaller meals more frequently helps my meds and it also helped me keep my energy up throughout the day, because I was getting nutrition throughout the day more frequently than just three times a day. That can really help.
Like I mentioned that routine can help you so much if you can find one. I get up at this time, I go to sleep at this time, really beneficial. Another thing I've learned is if your body wakes up before your alarm, 10 minutes, half an hour, get up then, because sometimes going back to sleep for that extra 10 minutes, 20 minutes makes it so much harder to get up. I haven't done the research behind why this is, but it's certainly a thing of a lot of people. I know for myself, if my alarm is at 8:00 AM and I wake up at 7:45. If I go back to sleep, that 8:00 AM alarm is way harder to get up at. I feel way more tired than I did at 7:45. It's just a thought. It's important to think about.
Talk about your fatigue with your medical professionals. Sometimes we forget about all these different symptoms we're dealing with, but it is a really important one. If you're tired all the time, and it really ties into depression that we talked about and mental health. Because if your mental health is suffering, a lot of the time, a really common coping mechanism is to just go to sleep. You don't know what to do, you can't think right, you're overwhelmed, so you sleep. So you sleep, and so you sleep and you can get in this cycle where you're sleeping all day, every day. It's really not good for you. I've done it and it's really hard to get out of the habit of sleeping all the time and sleeping all day.
Just finding little things that you can do to stay awake can be really helpful around your house, like a lot of those winter activities I came up with or just going outside and getting fresh air for 10 minutes can really help just wake you up sometimes. Little things like that can help with your fatigue. But remember, fatigue is often tied into your mental health. Don't let your fatigue overrun you or your mental health over run you. Sometimes we think we're just tired all the time because our symptoms, but maybe it's more than that. Maybe it's our brain going, "Let's just go to sleep, we can handle this." I know that's what mine would do. I think about riding or things I'd rather be doing, and then I get overwhelmed and then I tell myself, "We'll just go sleep, Bella. We might as well just sleep. What else is there to do? You can't do anything. You're not doing anything you want to do, so go to sleep." It's a bad habit and I know it is. Just a reminder to try not to do that.
The other thing I want to talk about today was what door would you walk through, the physical symptoms or the mental? Now, physical symptoms for me looked a lot like headaches, and headaches and headaches. What happened was those headaches clouded all of my other symptoms. I would go to the doctor and tell them I have a headache and I wouldn't list anything else, because the headache just overpowered everything. I started to learn that a lot of the other symptoms I had that I was ignoring were causing the headaches. But things like headaches, dizziness. I used to stand up and everything would go black. That was not fun.
I used to have huge noise sensitivity, it's way better now, sensitivity to smells and the list of symptoms can go on and on, but those are definitely some my biggest ones. And memory, brutal memory. Even right now, I am going on a trip as some of you knew or I went on a trip. I couldn't remember what day we were doing things. I think I've asked my one sister multiple times because I keep forgetting and I should really just write it down.
It's important to realize that we have all these physical symptoms, but what about the mental symptoms? The mental symptoms for me were things like inability to control emotions. I was really angry at the world. I was very severely depressed. I didn't want to live, very suicidal. I would vibrate when I'd get upset. I would sit there and my arms would be shaking, my body would be shaking, and I couldn't breathe and I wouldn't know what to do. I had hyperventilated, so I would literally get panic attacks from my mental health. I would get panic attacks from my mental health. What a good combination? Which ones? I always sometimes wonder which ones that I want to deal with, because they definitely connected, they brought each other on.
When I got really stressed out about things, even to this day, if I'm starting to get stressed out about things or I'm getting overwhelmed, those headaches tend to come back really fast and other symptoms start to come back like my inability to remember things, which has certainly gotten better. The mental thoughts and things like that affected my physical symptoms, but the mental thoughts like the severe ones, like the severe depression, and suicidal thoughts, and things like that continued. All those came from the pain, the pain that I had in my head.
It's interesting to think about, because I don't think you could have one without the other. If you are one of those few people that do have the physical symptoms, and not the mental, I'm so happy for you, even though I'm sure you're struggling, because they are exhausting. It's just a thought, you definitely don't have to choose. I just think it's important to realize how related your symptoms to your mental thoughts are. Sometimes we don't put them together, we're not realizing that they're very connected. We sometimes think, "Oh! We're just really depressed because we're isolated." Well, that may be true, but I'm sure there's more to it than that, so it's important to think about.
I want to tell you all of what's coming up, and what we're doing in the next few months. This month, as I mentioned is socializing on Concussion Connect. We also have been active coming up in the next few months as well. We have our new book coming out in July and I am so excited. It is 101 Tips for Post-Concussion or post brain injury life. It answers a ton of different questions you might have. It talks about lots of things I wish I knew before this. As advice for partners and family members as well, because I think we all need that support or that awareness that we didn't have. It will be available as an eBook, as a physical book, and also an audio book, but the audio book will be coming out later.
If you are on Concussion Connect, you will get access to the book a week earlier than everyone else and a discount. But it's really important to understand that there's so many different factors to a concussion or brain injury. Like all the people that are surrounded you that are affected, thoughts about your future that might affect you, so many aspects. Recovery, nutrition, all these things. Speaking of nutrition, another exciting thing that we have coming up is a cookbook. Now, myself making a cookbook, I can honestly say I never thought I would ever be making a cookbook in my life. It isn't something that was ever on my list of goals. Then again, Post Concussion, Inc wasn't on my goals either. Sometimes life takes quite the curve and throws a lot of things that you that you don't expect.
This September, we will be launching a Kickstarter campaign for our cookbook. Lots of recipes that are good for your brain, but it also has things when to take breaks while cooking, reminders to set timers, all those things to help you when you're tired, when you're dizzy. And recipes for when standing up for a long time doesn't go well or your memory isn't great. All those types of things are covered, so I hope you don't miss out on that. I will, of course talk about it more in the future, but I am very excited for it coming up. I think it will be wonderful. Keep an eye out.
Remember, if you really love the podcast, you can donate to the podcast, very simply by clicking our support the podcast link. It really helps cover things like fees of editing, and hosting, and website hosting, and book developing and all sorts of things that go on in the background that you luckily do not see because it's a lot and that's okay. I hope you all have a wonderful start to the warmer months that are starting at least where I am. I really hope you just kind of take it one day at a time as I always like to say, because if you don't take it one day at a time, it can be way tougher to manage all this. Take it one day at a time, keep your head up and I hope to see you on Concussion Connect and really get to know you.
[END OF EPISODE]
[00:24:31] BP: Has your life been affected by concussions? Join our podcast by getting in touch. Thank you so much for listening to the Post Concussion Podcast and be sure to help us educate the world about the reality of concussions by giving us a share. To learn more, don't forget to subscribe.
[END]
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