The Challenge of Recovering from PCS with Nick Krantz
Show Notes:
Overcoming a concussion injury is a challenge, to put it lightly, and our guest today has overcome 16 paired with two Traumatic Brain Injuries! Nick Krantz is now a holistic brain health coach, and today, he joins us to share his remarkable story of recovery. In this episode, we learn about how Nick’s trying experiences with medical professionals led him to do his own research and discover the brain-gut connection. Nick candidly shares his struggles with depression and suicidal thoughts and explains how they are directly related to brain and gut inflammation. We discover how a seizure turned the course of his life around, sparked his determination and led him to meditation. Nick truly has been through the thick of it and come out the other side. Tune in to discover the role of diet, movement and meditation in the recovery process, as well as some other practical tips and tricks that have helped Nick on his path
Key Points From This Episode:
• How Nick Krantz sustained multiple concussion injuries.
• The connection between the brain and the gut.
• The undeniable challenge of recovering from post-concussion syndrome.
• Nick’s trying journey with medical professionals.
• What led him to start doing his own research.
• Depression as a result of brain and gut inflammation.
• The various health issues Nick developed as a result of his brain injuries.
• The determination his first blackout seizure filled him with.
• The power of the mind-body connection; how Nick began to install new neural circuitry through meditation.
• The advantages of telehealth!
• The importance of diet and movements in post-concussion syndrome recovery.
• Why Nick recommends the Autoimmune Paleo diet for TBI and concussion survivors.
• The importance of daily vagus nerve stimulation exercises.
• How to activate your gag reflex.
• The magic of meditation and the importance of finding the form that works for you.
• The value of connecting with others who are recovering from concussions and brain injuries
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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 today's episode of the Post Concussion Podcast, with myself, Bella Paige, and today's guest, Nick Krantz. Nick is a holistic brain health coach, two times TBI survivor, and 17th-time concussion champ. He ran an online training nutrition coaching business until his second TBI in December 2019 caused his life to take a turn. Nick overcame post-concussion syndrome after two years and is now joining us to share his story. Welcome to the show, Nick.
[00:01:36] NK: Thank you, Bella, I'm looking forward to speaking with you.
[00:01:39] BP: To start, do you want to tell everyone a little bit about your multiple concussion injuries?
[00:01:45] NK: Yeah. They do span over a decade. The first one that really started was in 2010 and that's kind of when concussions weren't talked about as much. That was stemming from college football. Back then, we just had to take a nice little computer test and our coaches always said like, "Just go, take it, yada yada yada." If we failed, we already knew the answers to the test, so we were all kind of in on it. But the one, second game of this season, we were getting ready to go on a 14-hour bus trip up to Michigan Tech, which is like up in like Canada, basically. On a Tuesday practice, I had my first concussion. What I would remember is, I had somebody helmet to helmet with my head down, which is a freak play. It was first time I saw purple. But I went over and told my buddies and they're like, "Hey! You'll be good, man. Just get back in like, just don't say anything." Of course, what do we do as young men, we're not going to tell the coaches. If we do tell the coaches, we're definitely are on the same board of not telling the trainer.
We go on this excursion, a trek up north and it was a two-day trip. We go from like some 40-degree August weather random in Northeast Ohio and then it was 80 degrees up there. I just couldn't figure out why I couldn't get pumped up for this game. I was just basically like a walking zombie. Then, as you see, as the game goes on, the last play I'm on the field, I ended up collapsing because, before that, I had three hits to the head because I play defense and I played very recklessly. I was looking back, had a lot of trauma going on in my life and my outlet was football. My outlet was taking my aggression out on others because it was legal, but I just played recklessly.
That right there ended up being my first TBI due to second impact syndrome. I did not, however, stop playing football then. I tried to come back after some 10-week recovery process. The following year, I ended up having a little bump inside of a juvenile jail while I was working at the time, my senior year, to get back and of course play college football. That effectively ended my career. Along that path, I had a couple bumps along the road, what I would call as, "Okay. Well, I'll rest, I'll walk, I'll work out to see kind of where my body's at and I'll get back to it. No biggie."
Until December 7, 2019 when my second TBI happened and I immediately changed my life because it was nothing like the others. It was the first time I had ever thrown up from a head injury and I'm not easy to make throw up. This is when I knew something was seriously off. All I did was run into the top of my jeep trunk when we were getting the Christmas tree, and like I said, if you've seen Space Jam, it was like the soul was sucked out of me. Immediately after that two-year journey, at the present day, I had so many health issues that I never thought were even possible because I didn't really fully understand how connected the brain and the gut were. The several doctors that I came across in the beginning just thought I was a fool, the more I started to dig in. I was thinking like, "Well, you were a nutrition coach, you should have known this."
But you really don't have to look so holistically until your body is failing you, and then you have all these questions and then these doctors that you invested in and hoping that they were there to basically, as a marriage, they were going to help you as much as you are trying to show them like, "I really want your help," but they don't have the answers. Then, it's okay to say no. But if they're starting to degrade you, and they're starting to say that you're crazy, it's all in your head, then that starts to really put you in a tough position, because you're already sick to begin with. When your brain is not working and you're not thinking well, you are sick and that's just the way it goes.
Really, looking back now, the stats, it's two TBIs and roughly 16 concussions to present day. I had officially graduated from post-concussion syndrome, persisting concussion syndrome, whatever you want to call it. After 796 days, in February that I finally blew through it. I never thought I was going to make it truly, and it only took a lot of trial and error, and very rough days to finally make it through. It's not an easy task. I even get choked up and emotional thinking about just how – as most people know it, it's hell. There's no sugarcoating it.
[00:06:02] BP: Yeah, it really is. It's one way to put it. It's tough because, like you said, a lot of these things that you went through, you didn't believe were possible. It really is common, it's actually something I pre-plan for our community, Concussion Connect. It's something that I'm focusing on in June, is how – we didn't know a lot of the time what was coming up. You didn't know that you were going to get depression, nobody warned you. Nobody warned us that maybe your whole entire life would be derailed from this head injury, or multiple head injuries, things like that. The types of symptoms, like we see the symptom list, but then that's it. Nobody explains that it's a lot more technical and complicated than that one sheet you can get at the ER. It is really tough. I get that you explain it as hell, but I am very glad you're doing better.
It was a long road for sure, but what type of experiences did you have with medical professionals? I know you mentioned thinking it was or being told it was all in your head, which can definitely be challenging to hear.
[00:07:10] NK: Yeah, absolutely. I know I'm definitely not in a lonely boat in that. It's something that is definitely heard a lot, especially these days. But as I figured that I'm like, "Wow! I should definitely really get this looked into," because I all of a sudden can no longer drive a car because I'm extremely dizzy. Now I'm like, "Okay. Somebody drive for me. Now, this is even worse. What is going on? Something is not right."
As I go to my neurologist, you know, get these typical tests, do the little light test and, "Yeah, of course, you look a little off." Get MRIs, MRAs, check out my neck. He's like, "Okay. Well, you're definitely going to need to get referred to this specialty concussion clinic downtown." I'm like, "Perfect! They're going to put me right back to piece, no questions asked." As we started this protocol, of course, this is right before the good old C-word happens early 2020. I was able to get a couple of sessions in, however, the hospital shut down, and basically only extremely, extremely sick cases because I started to improve over three vestibular therapies. Which I'm like, "Wow. This is great, but I still don't feel well but I can just keep doing this." It was just putting a Band-Aid on one symptom as I look back, but they thought that was literally, of course, everything. That's all I needed to do, was do this and take this headache medicine because I couldn't take Tylenol or ibuprofen and off I went.
As I did this protocol until I was able to return two months to show them the progress I'm making, because I didn't want to go back there. I just wanted to show them I was good. I knew something was still of, but I knew that if I went back and showed them basically on their number scale that I didn't feel like a three that day, that I felt like a one that I would pass and they would feel good about it. I went back and of course, I felt better, still not well, but I felt good enough to pass her test and off I went. Lo and behold, two months later, I was putting up a ceiling fan with my brother-in-law and doesn't like the story. He feels awful about it. But it was no small ceiling fan, it was for the master bedroom and it collapsed and hit me in the head, which is just fantastic.
That really began to totally set everything back a million steps. Because one, as I look back, it happened because I knew deep down that I wasn't ready to heal from anything because there were still more that was starting to perpetuate in my body. This was just another sign like, "Yow! You still have a lot to do, recover mentally, physically, emotionally and this was it." As the year went on, I began to get extremely sick and there was no more hiding from, especially my oldest who's 13, who splits time between my house and his mom's. There was no hiding from anybody anymore. I can't pretend not being sick.
As December came around, I could no longer – when people would come over for Christmas, family, I couldn't be around them. I was feeling like I just needed to isolate. Believe it or not, that doesn't help with any type of anxiety or depression. It only helps worsen it. At that time, I'm like, I know, I need to go back to that concussion clinic as a start, but I know they're not going to be the answers, but I just know that maybe they could help guide me in a different direction. That's when I really started to do my own research of, I don't care how sick I was, I was like, "I need to figure this out."
I started listening to certain podcasts, reading all these books that I could as best as I could more so audible, of course. But started to realize that, okay, well, when you have a brain injury or extreme trauma to the head over and over that your gut can become permeable within 30 minutes. If I'm getting all this damage and trauma to my brain, that if it's affecting my gut, that's starting to explain now why I'm not able to eat ice cream at night, and all of a sudden, I'm feeling like I'm hungover for the next three days. I definitely was no longer drinking alcohol since the injury. There was no desire. I'm like, "Okay." All of a sudden, these oats that I'm eating, these are making me feel extremely – like my tongue is all thrush and I'm like, "Okay. This is all starting to tie into what's going on here."
As I prepared all these questions for the doctor I was going to see, he's extremely highly ranked so I was hoping he'd have some answers for me. The moment I asked him about any type of brain-gut connection, he just had looked at me and said, "I think I'm going to go check the printer real quick" and just totally shut off my question, came back. As he came back, I was like, "Did this dude just really pretend like he didn't hear me." As I reiterated the question, he's like, "Hmm. Yeah, I don't know. No, that's not it" and just basically kept on. I said, "Okay. I'm going to show them that I'm going to still go through with the therapy, but I'm going to show them, there's so much more to this." I ended up getting worse as I went through this vestibular therapy, the practitioners and medical team had the answer to bring me in and said, "Look, I really think this is all in your head. I think that you should definitely see a therapist."
Well, the good thing is, I was already going to therapy two months before my injury. I decided to go back to therapy. That's a win for them, whatever and basically saying that, "You should just come back for maybe a re-eval in six months and go from there." Basically, wash their hands and off I went. After that, I was extremely furious and upset and angry, wanting to prove to them that there's more to it. A couple of days and weeks later, I started to just get really worse, and depression really set in because what I didn't know at the time was all of the inflammation and the infections going on inside my brain was not allowing me to think well, was not allowing me to feel any better. At that point, I said that I'm not sure if I want to be on this earth anymore, because I'm just a hassle to my family. I'm a hassle to everybody around me. I started to wake up, didn't know who I was. The next day I woke up, I didn't know where I was. Then the final day that I really planned to take my own life was, I woke up and I didn't know where I was or who I was or if I was still dreaming It was like I was literally like on drugs. I'm like, "I can't do this anymore."
I saw a sign that day that I needed to go downstairs and read this book, as you know, whatever woo-woo, hippie weird stuff some people want to think that is. When you're in desperation mode for your life, you'll believe anything and then things start to really come to fruition of why certain things happen. Went down, I started reading Concussion Rescue, and it said to go check my hormones. I'm like, "Why didn't I know this already?" I have to go try and go to my primary. My primary thinks I'm young and healthy, so I have to go somewhere else. Okay. Well, my testosterone checks out at 350 or 370. Of course, it's in a range from 200 to 1100. My testosterone is really low, which is helping mitigate my hormones. Well, I started to go to a different place, another doctor that prescribed me testosterone replacement. All of a sudden, I started to get better again. It's like these peaks and valleys.
As I get better, starts to decline again. All right. I ended up going to Dr. Titus Chiu, which I'm like, "I need to go see the top post-concussion doctor in the country. I don't know where he is, but I'll find him." He's based in California, so we just did everything via telehealth, and he ran a GI map and I started to unpack a whole slew of things. I started to discover that I have, SIBO I have encephalitis in the brain, I have developed celiac disease, I now have a bacterial meningitis infection in my brain. Not to mention, of course, the dysautonomia. Now, it starts to make sense of, I'm starting to be able to piece everything together because I was fighting this unknown gasp of I can't – I don't know what it is, but I was trying to fight and fix something I couldn't see.
All of a sudden, I'm starting to piece all these things together. It's like, "Oh my gosh! No wonder I couldn't think well. No wonder I was extremely depressed." Depression isn't just some made-up thing. When your body is inflamed, especially your brain and your gut. Of course, when your gut is full 90%, 95% of your serotonin supply. If your gut is inflamed, your brain is going to be on fire and you're not going to be able to think well. Your thoughts are going to be miscued and you are going to have depression and anxiety increased to the max.
I started to just really, as the year went on, I'm making all this ground, but I'm still having these setbacks with little bumps here, little bumps there and really started to just say, "Okay. Well, I need to piece everything together." I went to another holistic naturopath around here. She began to just add a little bit more acupuncture, and still with the brain-gut connection working on, of course, diet and just fixing the gut again, because it still wasn't totally improving. Then, finally, as this January rolled around, it was –I felt like I was losing it again. I started to think like, "Man, I have still not made the turn. I don't know how much longer I'm going to be able to do this."
I started to have these zaps in my head, I think we had discussed before, and I just started to think like, "Okay. Well, if I've had multiple TBIs, I'm probably going to have a seizure at some point." I start to tell myself like, "Here it comes." For about a month, I was just getting ready for it. Even if I was going to vestibular therapy still, I knew that there was something going on in the back of my head that was running through my head and I was just bracing for it.
Early February, I had my first blackout of random, like I was electrocuted. It was real quick, but I went to just shut the door. My body just soon as I shut the door, it was like same thing, like my soul was sucked. I just shut the door and I collapsed to hit the ground, woke right back up, but I was so confused. At that moment, I knew that I needed to go somewhere, I guess go to the ER. But when we go to the ER as concussions or brain injuries, they're not highly trained. They're just looking for something on the macro level. But I just needed to make sure there was nothing going on, like a split or something. As we went there, and basically said that – as I laid there, I said, "There's no way that this is going to be my life, there has to be something else. I am done with the sick Nick. I am done with everything. It's going on for two and a half years. I'm just deteriorating mentally, physically, emotionally."
I had been reading the You Are the Placebo by Joe Dispenza, who had gone through something similar. But what he really taps into is just how powerful the mind-body connection really is. As soon as I got home the next day after they told me to just drink more water and follow up with my neurologist, thank you so much. I had just started these 54-minute meditation practices. He even says, like, "Within four days, you can rewire these circuitries in your brain to really begin to install this new hardware." Because what I've been thinking for the last few years is, if I'm having roughly 50,000 thoughts a day, and 90%, 95% of those thoughts are from the previous day, what am I learning? What is wired inside of my thoughts in my brain after over and over and over bullying myself and saying, I'm never going to heal?"
When your brain can't like understand, are you talking about the future or are you talking about a previous movie that was your past? Because when I'm in the present moment, I'm already predicting what was going to happen in the future. As I began to really dive into meditation, and become more present, by the fourth day of doing these practices and installing these, what we'd say is, new neural circuitry. By Friday, I had gone a full day without having post-concussion syndrome symptoms, and I didn't say anything to anybody, because I'm like, "I'm going to jinx it. I don't know. I don't even know if this is real." By a week later, I'm like, "Was this the final piece to the puzzle."
As I said, as woo-woo hippie as that is, I didn't want to believe it. Because if I were to tell any of my good buddies, they'd be like, "Okay. Weirdo, hippie, whatever." But it literally changed my thinking, my brain, my physiology. It was the final piece of the puzzle that allowed me to never look back, because I had been searching for myself of how can I ever get healthy again, like I need to find Nick. I was never told that you need to be able to create the healthy Nick until your brain inside that this is who you're going to be and you need to start picking which characteristics that you want to be. Instead of looking for this Nick that was already dead. The only Nick I was going to find was the old sick Nick or the one that was hanging on to me for like, "I need to stay comfortable. I need to stay sick because this is all I know" and just the whole negative Nancy. But it was really just creating who I wanted to be and then being so present in the moment as time went on, practicing that officially put me over the top.
[00:19:35] BP: Yeah. Oh! It's quite the story and journey that you went through. It's tough like you said that first therapy that they said that, "This is all you need." That is really common, but as we continue to learn, and the more that you are in this world, you start to realize that it's a lot more complex than one therapy, than one treatment, than one type of focus. You kind of have to focus on everything, but it's also important to kind of focus on one thing at a time because it takes a lot of effort to focus on your eyes, and this and that. The list gets really long. I like that you mentioned that the fan story of how you got hurt, and how your brother doesn't want to hear you talk about it. Because actually, one of my hits to the head was during a baseball game, and I was at bat, yeah. I ducked into the ball that was coming at me, instead of – I wasn't, I'm not really – I'm good at certain sports like showjumping professional level, very good. Put me in a baseball game and it's like a terrible idea.
My parents always make jokes that they used to come to my sporting events in elementary school, because they thought I was entertaining to watch. Then it's kind of true because I just don't – my body doesn't work that way.
[00:20:56] NK: Thanks, mom and dad.
[00:20:57] BP: Yeah. I remember what I had to – after that. I was like, "Whoa!" Because I got hit in the head with a baseball from a 6'4" four pitcher. He's like, "If you just didn't duck, like you ducked into it. The ball was coming." He's like, "If you just stayed where you were, you would have been fine." But my reaction was like to move and I moved into the ball. I just know – I don't even know if I've shared that one on the podcast yet.
[00:21:22] NK: There you go. Why we should wear helmets all the time.
[00:21:24] BP: Yeah. I remember his face because I was dealing with a lot of concussion. That was the first, two, three years where my headaches were really bad. I sat there and he was like, "Oh, no! What did I do?" Yeah, that was really funny. You also mentioned Audible, and I really love Audible. Listeners, if you haven't checked it out, I highly recommend it. You get to listen to so many books and podcasts on there as well. But if you can speed up how fast they talk, they find – sometimes they talk really slow, sometimes they talk too fast. You can slow it down. There are so many little features that can really help you. If you are listening with a brain injury or concussion injury, that is really important.
You mentioned the suicidal and the depression and all those thoughts. We talk about this a lot on the podcast and it can be really hard. Then you mentioned that we get into that desperation mode and it's true. As I've talked on the podcast before as my crazy witch doctors, as I call them that I've went to. You get desperate and that's when people just start trying anything they can find. I know my parents felt that way too and family members get that feeling where they just wanted me to get better. I remember my dad likes articles, so he like prints things out for me to read. And all of a sudden, every time I visit him, he'd like be, "Here. Here you go.” It’ll be like a new stack. It still happens until this day. I got one the other day. "Have you read this research on concussions? Have you read this?" and I like get another one. I think it's just; you get desperate because you're trying to get better with something that's invisible, others can't see it and it can be really tough.
We briefly touched on telehealth, and I always like to recommend it because a lot of survivors, I think a lot of people realize that they're maybe isolated. Concussion specialists are not across the globe in the way that we hope they are. They're not next door a lot of the time, especially the good ones. It is okay to do things like that and call a facility and ask if they'll offer. Especially with COVID, a lot of facilities are now set up for it properly on how to do telehealth and things like that. Definitely worth a try, but we are going to get a little bit more into the positives of Nick’s recovery. But with that, we'll take a quick break.
[BREAK]
[00:23:58] BP: It has now been over two months since Concussion Connect has launched and it is continuing to grow every day. Just like last month, we have a new topic. This month's topic is depression. Though a very sensitive topic, I believe it is so important for us to talk, be open about our mental health. If you have questions about your mental health, or need someone to talk to, join concussionconnect.com today or find the link in our episode description.
[INTERVIEW CONTINUES]
[00:24:32] BP: Welcome back to the Post Concussion Podcast with myself, Bella Paige and today's guest, Nick Krantz. You've mentioned your meditation and a few things that have brought you to where you are now. What do you believe really helped the most in your recovery?
[00:24:48] NK: It really came down to a lot of pieces to the puzzle implemented over time. I mean, it was a lot of trial and error. But number one of course is diet, because I said, when your brain that you know is inflamed, your gut is inflamed and vice versa. If we're continuing to eat, as we call the SAD diet of the Standard American Diet of highly processed foods, you may have developed gut permeability or any type of bacteria going on inside. That if you don't know, you're not aware and you're still feeding it, processed foods that's going to be causing even more inflammation. Now, you're just adding to the fire on the freeway going from your brain to your gut.
Especially as you have that brain injury, as I struggled with early on, as I didn't want to eat, because I felt so nauseous. If my brain is requiring 20% to 30% of the calories that I consume, and I'm barely giving it any fuel to recover, well now, I'm just basically nose to nose in just a bad situation. But what it came down to was, I need to eat, but I also need to figure out. Over time, of course, I started to get into an anti-inflammatory diet. Wouldn't say keto, and I wouldn't recommend keto for anybody. Because even with regular nutrition clients, that's a huge jump to just totally cut out a whole macronutrient of carbohydrates. I ended up doing the AIP diet, which is the autoimmune paleo diet because I developed celiac disease. I have to make sure that I'm definitely staying far, far, far, far away from gluten because I have had a couple of exposures. I literally thought I was like, poisoned. Don't recommend, but that was huge. Taking away gluten has helped tremendously.
One other big thing is, of course, just movement, even on the days that I don't feel well that I know that if I still need to walk, I still need to make sure that I'm getting enough blood flow to my brain and my body. Because the more you sit around, then just allow the toxins just sit in your body, you're not helping yourself and doing yourself a favour. If anybody is, of course, you've gone over it, but the exercise tolerance, because when you do have the dysautonomia, and trying to kind of recalibrate your body and getting it all back on the same symphony, understanding where your heart rate is and what's kind of that threshold. When I do the Buffalo concussion test, I'm getting an idea of, where are my symptoms really starting? Is it 150? Is it 160? Then I'm able to go 10% to 15% below that and kind of monitor it while I'm working out. Because for a while, working out was very far, far, far in between.
But of course, just any type of movement and getting out in nature is enormous. I can't express it enough that how much it's changed just like going outside, ditching the phone, ditching even –talking about grounding, your socks, and just literally just standing there, and getting some deep belly breaths and just moving. Those are one and two. I mean, I can't argue those. Of course, add the little pieces of the puzzle, continuing to work on my vision and my vestibular by myself every time I brush my teeth. Daily vagus nerve stimulation exercises. Especially when you have any type of gut issues that you're still feeling like things are off. As weird as it sounds, when you brush your teeth, you do your eye exercises, but also like gargling water. Like I said, as weird as it sounds, starting to activate your gag reflex. No, it's not comfortable, but it's also a tool to really help work on it. You can only do it once, then you start with once. But it's just like, if you're working out your biceps, you don't just do it once and then stop. It's just a continual muscle to do.
Same with showering, going to that cold water, getting the cold exposure, really getting your body to say, "I need to run. I need to go; I need to get out of here." But then, still just allowing yourself to breathe. Stay in the moment, stay present. Yes, it's cold. I'm not saying do it 5, 10 minutes. You start with one and really allowing yourself to be engulfed in that coldness. Like I said, the biggest thing I never thought was the meditations, especially with – all of his books are on audible, which is basically when I would rest with my eye mask. It was just, put it next to me and allow myself to listen.
But yeah, the meditations of really being mindful of my thoughts in the present moment, because as we discussed before we started recording is, when you do have a bump, or as I've gotten a lot better with this as time has passed over the last two and a half years. But when I have a bump, and I immediately put myself in an enraged mode, a mode of that, "I'm just going to be sick, here comes the inflammation. I'm not going to be able to do anything else today, my day is over, probably the next day" and start to just rambling all these negative thoughts, and literally put myself into this predictable future down this path of, this is how I'm going to be. I'm already basically putting myself in my physiology in a bad spot and making it two times, three times as worse than what it could be instead of – and this takes practice. There's no like snap of a finger, "I'm just going to be fully present, fully able to control my body" because your mind is very powerful.
But when you're able to take yourself out and pause, and be present and feel sense things, think clearly before you act, then you're able to put yourself into a new path down this. Like I talked about before, you can start to rewire how you really want to live and go down the path by just doing it. But you have to be present to be able to have the new thoughts, have the new beliefs, have the new actions and experiences rather than going down what you've continued to do. Meditation isn't just more of, "Okay. I'll just do it for 10 minutes in the morning. It's a full –it affects more than your life will ever know because being present is allowing you to not act on your emotions. Especially when all of a sudden, our emotion regulation is already not working very well. It's very difficult to regulate them anyways. Being able to take a step back, pause, and then react, because then you're allowing your brain, your mind to work tandemly together, so that you can create what you actually want it to do, rather than responding so quickly.
[00:31:00] BP: Yeah. I think that's all really great and I really like your comment on movement. Because, as we mentioned, and I've mentioned before, it's kind of a conundrum how PCS works, how you don't want to get depressed, and you already have a lot of things causing emotional instability and depression. But then, if you're not moving, and you're isolating, then all those things just heighten to an extreme level. Getting up and moving can really help that depression, and depression is actually the topic of the month on Concussion Connect right now. And just realizing, understanding why we're depressed, how we can get through it, what we can improve, things like meditation and things like that.
I think it's really important to realize that meditation is a lot more. I liked that you said that it can be incorporated into your daily life. The ability to control our actions and the words we speak is really important. I know it's something a lot of listeners are working towards because they don't want to lash out on loved ones and things like that, just because they react quickly, way more quickly than they are hoping. But I think it's really important and we don't want to create that isolation. If you can allow yourself to use meditation to get out there more in the world, then it is a wonderful tool to use.
Of course, there's a lot of different types of meditation out there. I think a lot of people don't realize that. You really got to keep trying. It's like therapists and doctors. I always say, "Keep trying. Try a different one. Try a different form of meditation." One app or one book that you read might not be the right type of meditation for you, because it might not work with how you think, so try another one. It doesn't hurt. You've given a lot of good insights. You've shared a lot so far. Is there anything else you would like to add before we end today's episode?
[00:33:01] NK: No, I think you hit the nail on the head there as I tried to think back in my mind if that was the right thing, like hit the nail on the head. That you really just have to find what works best for you. When people said like, "What was the secret to getting past PCS?" I'm like, "Oh my God! It was hell. I had to fight and crawl every single day. And for most days, not even knowing if I wanted to even make it to the next day. It was a battle of myself, and my body and my mind every single day, but it was the only thing that kept me going."
The only way you quit is if – there's no failing. You only quit if you fail. It was continuing to dig for answers, continuing to find out what works best for me, continuing to realize that, "Okay. Well, if this food isn't working for me, then I'm not going to eat that" or "If this different type of meditation –" like you said, I was using Decameth for a while, but I wasn't understanding what it was about. There was no teaching of a skill. I knew the positive impacts that meditation has on the brain, but that wasn't teaching me anything. I was just doing it to check it off on the list, but it wasn't helping. I wasn't getting anything out of it.
Once you're really able to, I'm telling you, put every single piece of the puzzle together with your nutrition, your lifestyle, your movement, and really be able to take control of your mind when you decide how you want to act and how you want to literally grow into who you want to create yourself to be, your brain will begin to believe it. I think one of the biggest things I heard when I was talking to somebody when I was really trying to find myself because I was so lost, it was, nobody likes a bully even if that bully is yourself. As I looked back, I was like, "Man, I bullied myself for two-plus years. I don't even know how much mental and physical damage I did to myself making my symptoms worse."
You have to be kind to your mind. You have to be kind to yourself because as I said, everybody's journey is different and everybody's journey is difficult, but you have to be kind to yourself and know that there's others out there, who have been through what you've been through, and you will get through it, but you have to believe it and definitely get around those that have been in it or are in it. Because you're not alone, and it's not fun, it's not easy. But connecting with others is so so important.
[00:35:20] BP: It really is just communicating with others that understand what you're going through. It's actually why Concussion Connect exists. It's something I needed. I needed to talk to others more for the not feeling crazy part because I kind of felt like I was going crazy a lot of the time. It really would have helped me and I like that you mentioned the secret thing, and get that message probably at least a few times a day through different social media networks. What worked? What led you to be here today? I always just say, "It's so many things. It's really complicated. I could probably write a few books on it, maybe more than a few. A month could be a book if I really wanted to detail of all the things I went through." I just wanted to thank you so much for joining and sharing some of your life post-concussion.
[00:36:13] NK: Yes, thank you so much for having me on. I just said, I hope this helps just one person, find some type of inspiration or any type of tools that can help them out because as I said, this is not fun but it's not forever. You said you have to believe but you also have to take action every single day.
[END OF EPISODE]
[00:36:32] 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.
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