Learning to Just Flow with Sara Stein
Show Notes:
Once you have experienced a concussion, it’s often hard to plan ahead. You can’t always foresee what will trigger the onset of symptoms and it can leave you feeling out of control. Today’s guest Sara Stein joins us to talk about finding your flow post-concussion. Sara was a very physically active, extroverted mom of two before she suffered her third concussion in a serious car accident and started to feel the effects of post-concussion syndrome. Today she shares her journey and the methods that have helped her deal with her symptoms. Tuning in you’ll hear about the importance of diet in treating a concussion, the impact of medication on Sara’s healing process, and how she restored some balance to her life through physical activity. As a fitness coach, hear her tips for those who want to be active. Sara also explains how she balances being a mom and having a sleep routine and gives tips to other parents who are helping their children understand their condition. Sara believes that we don’t have to sit inside and be afraid that we're going to get hurt again, we can find ways to get out there and do the things that we love, so tune in for this inspirational conversation!
Key Points From This Episode:
• An introduction to today’s guest Sara Stein.
• The story of the car accident that resulted in her third concussion.
• The symptoms she’s experienced and how she is dealing with them.
• The importance of diet in treating a concussion.
• The impact of medication on Sara’s healing process.
• How Sara has found balance with physical activity.
• Tips for those who are struggling with concussion symptoms and want to be active.
• How Sara feels her life has changed since her concussion.
• What ‘flow’ means to Sara and the importance of not planning too much in advance.
• How Sara balances being a mom and having a sleep routine.
• Sara’s tips for parents in a similar situation.
• Thoughts on how wearing a hat can provide a false sense of security.
• Sara’s encouragement to others to get out and do something that you love.
Transcript - Click to Read
[INTRODUCTION]
[0:00:05.3] BP: Hi, I’m your host Bella Paige and welcome to The Post Concussion Podcast. All about life after experiencing a concussion. Help us make the invisible injury become visible.
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 concussion and post-concussion syndrome.
Welcome to today’s episode of The Post Concussion Podcast with myself, Bella Paige and today’s guest, Sara Stein. Sara is a mom of two. About a year after having her son, she realized that she was suffering from postpartum depression. She sought out medical advice and was offered a medication to help. Sara had never been on medication before and really wanted to try a more natural approach to healing so she began her fitness journey.
After about a year of training and working on herself, physically, mentally, and emotionally, things in her life started turning around for the better. She always felt the need to help others and it was through fitness coaching she began to help and support others on their journey, become the healthiest versions of themselves.
Sara finds coaching fulfilling by providing a safe space for clients to be vulnerable about their life and struggles and watching their own success stories evolve. Sara wants to share her story today and inspire others to live their best lives with the help of fitness.
[INTERVIEW]
[0:02:00.8] BP: Welcome to the show, Sara.
[0:02:02.2] SS: Thank you, Bella, thank you for having me.
[0:02:04.8] BP: To start, do you want to tell everyone about your injuries and what occurred?
[0:02:08.2] SS: Okay, I have post-concussion symptoms and whiplash injury, some soft tissue injuries in my neck and shoulders and some minor facet joint narrowing in my cervical spine. I got these injuries from a motor vehicle accident that I was involved in last September where I collided with a drunk driver who ran a red light. I did a couple of 360 spins in my car, well, my car physically did the spins, not me and I sent the other driver into a building, the whipped front window of the building.
I was in my vehicle and I was spinning, I did a couple of 360s and eventually landed on a sidewalk with my vehicle. I was inside of it, I didn’t get ejected from it but I was inside the vehicle. I had come to and I stepped out of the car and noticed there was another vehicle in the front window of a store. At that point, I had no idea what had happened and that’s where everything started.
[0:03:13.7] BP: How did you know that you had a concussion?
[0:03:17.1] SS: Initially, I didn’t know that there was anything wrong with me. In fact, I just had the paramedics check my vitals, make sure I didn’t have any broken bones and I actually had requested that I walked home. I was about 45-second walk from my home. I went home that evening and it wasn’t until about three days later that I was feeling very sick. I was throwing up, I went to the hospital and that’s when I was diagnosed with my concussion.
[0:03:44.1] BP: That was your third concussion, correct?
[0:03:46.5] SS: That is my third diagnosed concussion, yes.
[0:03:49.0] BP: Yeah, did you feel anything in your other two? Like prolonged symptoms or was it just this one?
[0:03:54.6] SS: I felt nothing after my other two, it was just this one.
[0:03:58.0] BP: Yeah, it seems really common where people have, there’s a few concussions before where they didn’t notice anything, they just carried on with life like they might have felt a little off but not enough to really affect what they were doing. It’s definitely interesting that that can happen. What have you tried to help with your concussion, what kind of symptoms have you dealt with?
[0:04:18.7] SS: In a very beginning stages of my concussion, I did a lot of research. I connected with a few people, read a couple of books and I really started focusing on my diet. I read that it was really important to have a proper diet, proper nutrition, high-fat diet so I really started focusing on that and taking a lot of vitamins and supplements to help heal and repair my brain essentially.
I was dealing just with a lot of pain. I had such intense headache constantly, I was going to bed with it and waking up with it. I started dabbling in some essential oils to help ease the pain, help get some sleep. I had ice packs on my head, heat pads on my head, physio, all of the massage therapy, anything that you could possibly imagine, I was trying to get help just to relieve the pain that I was feeling which at that time was mostly just my head. My head felt heavy, it hurt every day and that was it.
[0:05:22.4] BP: Yeah, was anything specific that you found helped most out of all those?
[0:05:26.9] SS: I definitely found that nutrition was so helpful and my vitamins and my nutrition, I found that if I missed my vitamins that day or I had an off-day with what I was eating, I can definitely feel enhancement in the intensity of my headaches.
[0:05:43.5] BP: It’s amazing how powerful diet can be because a lot of the time before you get injured, you don’t realize how important it can be, you just eat, you eat every day, you don’t overly think about it. Then you get a concussion and all of a sudden, everything you eat effects the way you think that day or how you're doing. It’s amazing how something that you don’t think about all of a sudden becomes so important to your daily life.
[0:06:06.9] SS: So true. I have, still tot his day, if I eat too much sugar or carbs, I’m definitely suffering later that day or the next day for sure. I noticed a difference.
[0:06:16.9] BP: Yeah, well, it’s amazing, sugar for me is a really big thing and a few of my vitamins like you said, if you don’t take t hem, you start to notice that day that I missed something. How are you now? Do you do anything that helps you out?
[0:06:30.7] SS: I am finally on medication that I’ve been for a few months now. There were a lot of trials, and errors leading up to this point. This medication allows me to sleep at night, which is something I was struggling big time with and I’m sure a lot of people know that proper sleep is key in any area of your life if you’re trying to heal.
The medication has been huge for me, it’s regulated my headaches to more tolerable pain level. Every single day, I still have that headache but I’m just so used to this at this point that I just go on with my day. Proper sleep is huge. I have a really serious sleep regime that I go through every night, it’s pretty tough if I miss that point of falling asleep. I have to take my medication at eight, I have to be ready to fall asleep by nine or 9:30 and if I miss that period of time, there’s a chance that I won’t be sleeping that night so sleep is huge for me.
Another thing that helps me a lot right now is just being really patient with myself and learning this new pace in my life. I have to learn to say no to certain things that I would originally have said yes to and then I also say yes to things, even if I know there might be some consequences involved with that. It’s a constant battle, “Should I do this? If I do this, this is what might happen. If I don’t’ do this, this might be better for me.” That is a constant battle I’m going back and forth with every single day.
Then also, I’m really challenging myself to get out and do things that make me feel good and getting out in nature, being on the water, doing light exercise has really helped me find this new version of me and what my new current pace is. I’m just really finding things that make me feel good and it just a little different than it used to be before.
[0:08:25.8] BP: Yeah, I really like that you helped, that you mentioned the balance part because I find that I will still do things that will affect me and it’s hard because people will be like, “Well, you know you're not going to feel good tomorrow” but sometimes it’s worth it, you just have to kind of find what works for you and if you can accept that, maybe tomorrow will be a slower day because those slower days used to really affect me mentally and now I know, “Well, today is a slow day but will be back to normal tomorrow” or whatever my normal is.
It’s just finding a balance that works for you, this work for you or does it not and you don’t want to completely shut out everything, even though it might cause us symptom because your mental health can really struggle when you do that for sure.
Well, something that you and fitness – fitness is really big with you. How is being active after your concussion, because for myself, there are some things I still can’t do just because it increases symptoms way too much. Do you have any tips for others who are struggling with concussion symptoms who want to be active?
[0:09:31.2] SS: Yeah, it has been a long journey for me to find that balance, especially in my life. Before my concussion I liked to lift heavy weights, I was always challenging myself in power exercises and strength exercises and I really tried to get back to that after, thinking that, “I’m okay, I can do this.” It really caused this horrible cycle into my relapse of symptoms every few weeks, I would start to feel bad again and I really had to scale back and try to figure out what was going to work for me because lifting was knocking me on my butt for weeks at a time and like you just said, you have to find that balance and being off for three weeks is not a way to live and that is not a cycle that you want to get into.
I really discovered that jogging, a light jog helped me get that physical activity in, it helped me monitor my heart rate because what was happening when I was lifting is I was exerting so much energy, it was spiking my heart rate up so high, which was just on setting symptoms and I had to find that threshold that I can work within but for some reason, I could never do that with lifting weights.
My physical activity has been reduced significantly, which has been a really big mental hit on me but I’m finally getting to a good place of balance so that jogging, biking, I paddle board a lot. I am out hiking almost every weekend, just finding physical activities that challenges me but doesn’t knock me back into this onset of symptoms and then when it comes to exercise, I do really light body weight exercises now. I can’t lift weights like I used to and frankly, I’m pretty scared to do that right now because of that constant cycle that I was in. I found what works for me and that’s getting out in nature and thankfully, it’s nice weather now and that’s what I can do and light exercise at home.
[0:11:41.4] BP: Yeah, well, you need to find what works for you, I can do yoga now but I can’t do – there’s yoga and then there’s like crazy yoga where people are upside down half the time, I can’t do that. I can’t do burpees, I can’t run, well, I run when I’m stressed but I can’t really run. I find it increases my symptoms, it’s not bad now but when I first started, I would try running and up and down motion wasn’t good for me, so a lot of people I know have been liking, as you mentioned, cycling. They really enjoy that because you don’t get so much of that motion and it’s something that they can dot to get their heartrate up and because it’s cold, it’s really helpful. I like paddle boarding but I wouldn’t say I go for that long.
I can never keep it straight so I go left and then I paddle boarding on the right and then I’m like, “I can’t decide” and that’s my paddle boarding experience, I actually went this past weekend and we went out on the water and the waves were huge. I guess, we’re like, “It will be fine, let’s do it where it’s hard to go the way back.” Which is a really bad decision because the waves are approaching us, so you’re trying to paddle and yeah, I really enjoy it. I like being outdoors, it really helps and also with my head, some days, now that it’s summer, I’ll work outside, I’ll do work without my computer and just sit on the deck because the fresh air helps.
Not right now though, the fresh air is smoke where I live because of forest fires, so there’s no pressure but it does help. With that, we’re going to take a break, make sure you stay around to hear our discussion on isolation after concussion.
[0:13:11.0] SS: Okay.
[BREAK]
[0:13:17.1] BP: I just wanted to say thank you. The podcast is just over six months old and I couldn’t be happier with the response. If you truly love the podcast, please consider leaving a tip in our support the podcast tip jar found at the bottom of our episode description. All tips are greatly appreciated and help cover cost of the show.
[INTERVIEW CONTINUED]
[0:13:42.0] BP: Welcome back to The Post Concussion Podcast with myself, Bella Paige and today’s guest, Sara Stein. Something that happens to a lot of us including myself after a concussion or multiple is you start to kind of close out from the world because the world is too loud or too bright and you just can’t really handle it. How do feel that you have changed since your concussion and changed your life because I had to change mine a lot?
[0:14:09.5] SS: Yes, my life has changed in every single aspect over the last 10 months. It has been quite a journey getting here. There has been so many negative changes in my life but I’ve also been able to find a lot of positives.
Some of the negative changes in my life is I used to be an extrovert to the core. I loved being around people, I loved being in group settings, it was literally where I thrived. Now, suffering from things like PTSD and anxiety and living with a headache every single day, I find myself really anxious in group settings. I am always, always nervous that I am going to have an onset of symptoms when I’m engaging in certain activities.
As I mentioned before, I definitely don’t work out like I used to. I can’t lift like I used to, my body physically has changed a lot, which is also a huge emotional barrier that I had to overcome. Mentally and emotionally, I am putting constant work into trying to stay positive and remain a supportive coach for my clients as well.
My life now revolves around taking medication and making sure I go to bed on time and making sure I’m not doing things that are going to onset symptoms but that’s just the path I’m on right now and like I mentioned a few times, that is just the new pace of my life that I’m working with but then on the flipside of things, there has been so many positive things that have come out of it. I now have such a better understanding of things like PTSD and anxiety and chronic pain, things that I never really used to understand or be really that sympathetic towards.
It’s just one of those things that unless you’ve experienced it, you don’t really know what it feels like and so from a coaching aspect, I have connected on a deeper level with myself and that allows me to connect deeper with my clients, so that’s definitely a positive thing that has come out of this. I’m just a way more patient person than I ever used to be. I have really had to take a step back and learn a higher level of patience. This concussion has really forced me to slow down in all aspects of my life.
[0:16:30.5] BP: I really get that slowing down part. People say that I’m such a calm patient person on the outside. I wouldn’t say I am on the inside but I think it’s just because of what I’ve been dealing with for so long. I just don’t get overly upset, I don’t get overly – I don’t – I go, “It will work out” you know? People will be like, “You’re not freaking out?” I’m like, “No” because I am not freaking out or even I’ll plan in the future but I don’t overly plan now.
I know that I want to do this in the next few months and right now as we are recording this, I am working on my books because I’m crazy and I’m writing more than one at a time and people are like, “What are you doing in three weeks?” I’m like, “I’m possibly doing this but I am not promising you this because my mood can…” I could just change. Sometimes I just change my mind and I’m like, “This isn’t what I want to do this weekend.”
[0:17:23.0] SS: Yeah.
[0:17:23.4] BP: I need a break, so you just have to kind of flow through it and I’m really glad that you mentioned that you noticed positive changes because even though your whole entire life may have done a 180, there is positive things as well that are a part of it. It takes some time to realize them usually at the start but it’s good to accept that there is, that’s not all bad, right?
[0:17:46.5] SS: Absolutely and I love that you used the word flow because the word ‘flow' is my life now. I can’t plan ahead anymore. It is just something you have to accept and just allow this flow. You can’t get upset about things you used to stress, it causes symptoms. You have to be really careful about the type of stress you’re allowing into your life and, for me, that’s allowing absolutely no stress into my life. Everything works out the way it’s supposed to and just flowing is the way that I live day to day.
That’s how it works now and I have let go of all control of what tomorrow might look like and absolutely, what three weeks might look like that’s not even a thought in my mind anymore.
[0:18:28.0] BP: I have a calendar and I couldn’t tell you like, “What are you doing tomorrow?” I’m like, “Give me a second, I have to look because I couldn’t tell you” until I look at it and I look at it when I wake up in the morning and that’s all I know what I’m doing that day. That’s how I do my day and it is really important because it helps me and I’m glad that it helps you because you have to figure out what works for you.
Something that we mentioned at the very start was that you’re a mom and something else you mentioned is that you have a sleep routine. How does being a mom and having a sleep routine work together?
[0:19:03.9] SS: Well, I can tell you that my 12-year-old daughter is typically tucking me in at night, that’s for sure.
[0:19:12.0] BP: Yeah.
[0:19:13.1] SS: As far as the little one goes, we go to bed at the same time. My five-year-old and myself, we are in bed at the same time. It was really, really hard to get into that and it was also really hard for my older daughter to understand that because after my son would go to bed, that was the time that we would spend together and we’d watch a show or a movie and now, she’s just very patient and understanding with me but it took a while to get to this place.
It’s been a lot of work changing our lives and helping my kids understand what I’m going through and how I’m feeling but that sleep routine, my life revolves around it and they’ve learned to understand that for sure.
[0:19:51.7] BP: Do you have any other tips for parents in a similar situation?
[0:19:55.3] SS: My kids are so far apart in age, so I can speak to my 12-year-old and she really understands me when I tell her how I’m feeling and what’s going on but with my five-year-old, I don’t have a neck brace on or a cast on my arm or my legs. You can’t see what is going on and for us and my family, I’m an active person and I was go-go-go all the time and for a toddler and a four and a five-year-old, that’s great. They love that, they thrive off of that type of energy, so it has been challenging with my youngest ones but we’re almost nearing a year here and he is really understanding and he knows that if his mommy doesn’t go to bed on time and get a good sleep, our next day isn’t going to be very exciting and you know, with COVID especially, they’ve been home with me for almost a year and a half and that type of energy for any parent is a lot different than it used to be.
It’s just time and patience and constant reminders and helping them understand how you’re feeling and really learning, for me, how to express how I’m feeling and in a way that a five-year-old can understand and in a way that a 12-year-old can understand and it might be very repetitive but that’s okay. Sometimes, you just need to be reminded so we just flow now.
[0:21:15.4] BP: Well, that’s some great advice. We talked about, something that I do and something that I wrote about a little bit was I always wear a hat and I don’t like leaving the house without it. This is the first year where I’ve actually started to leave the house without wearing a hat and I think you thought it was really funny when we had talked before that I wore a hat all the time. You’re like, “Wow” and I was like, “Yeah, it’s really weird” because if you’re someone who has not had a head injury, you just sound crazy kind of but you’re not crazy. It’s like this false sense of security, right?
[0:21:44.6] SS: Exactly and it’s so funny because Bella, when we spoke about that, I have been not wearing a hat as often.
[0:21:54.3] BP: Good for you.
[0:21:56.0] SS: The ways that you know, it’s a false sense of security, that was an “aha moment” for me and so, I take it off when I’m inside now. I typically just wear it when I’m going to be in the sun and when I’m outside but even when it’s like a rainy day and there isn’t any brightness, I have not been wearing a hat because when you said that to me, I really was like, “Okay, I think I might give this a try. Maybe this is a little bit of a false sense of security and it is getting a little overdone here. Let’s take a break from the hat” and it’s so true, you know?
It’s like wearing a helmet, you want to make sure your head is protected. You don’t want anything to touch you and even with a five-year-old playing anything with him like I’m always so scared that when they get hit with a ball in the head or he’s going to jump on me on a certain way and yes, so it was really funny when we talked about that hat situation and I have actually made a little bit of a change to that since we last spoke.
[0:22:54.5] BP: Well, I’m so glad because I always – I wear mine way less now than I ever did before, before like you said, I wore it in the house. I didn’t really take it off. It’s like, I put it on when I got up in the morning and got dressed. I always had a hood on in the house, like I’d put my hood up and I always just sat with that at the kitchen table I’d have my hood up or I’d walk out of the house and I’d have a hood and a hat sometimes like real protected.
I actually like that was me for a long time, it took me a while to get over that. Now I wear a hat because of the sun like you said but it’s amazing how things like that get into your life and you adapt to them and then you don’t realize how it’s become a fixture in your life and I’m glad that it was something that you realized, “Oh, I don’t need to wear this everyday all day.”
[0:23:44.4] SS: Thanks to you. Thank you so much. You know, I just thrive off of learning and growing from other people and when you said those words to me, “false sense of security,” you know those aren’t words that I like to live by and so I just thought I’d live on the edge and take that hat off while I was inside.
[0:24:02.2] BP: For sure. Is there anything else you would like to add before ending today’s episode?
[0:24:07.6] SS: I think the only thing that I would like to add is just that I want to encourage everyone who is suffering to continue to do things in their lives that bring them joy. It is so easy, like you said, to isolate and be afraid but you just can’t do that. It’s a downward spiral that nobody wants to get into and if you can’t do the things that made you happy before because there is a risk, a higher risk that your concussion symptoms might come back, then I just want to encourage people to find something that does make them happy.
I’ll never forget one visit that I had with one of my many doctors and he – it’s when everything changed for me. He told me to get outside, plant my feet in the ground, jog, ride a bike, play golf, throw frisbee, get on the water, really challenging me to work my vestibular system in my brain and retrain it to show that it’s okay to do these things again. That’s kind of when everything changed for me. I was like, “All right, I’m going to do it, I’m going to get out there and I’m going to do these things.” Ever since I heard those words, it was just – that encouragement, hearing that from a medical professional that you don’t have to sit inside and be afraid that you're going to get hurt again.
The way that I look at it is it’s just like when you work out, you’re working out a certain muscle, that muscle’s going to hurt for a little bit a few days after. You're going to get sore, you’re going to recover and then you're going to do it again and it’s going to get easier and easier every time and I really think that coincides with a head injury, your brain in your vestibular system operate the same way. I just want to encourage people not to be afraid to get out and do the things that they love.
[0:25:53.3] BP: Well, thank you, that’s some great advice, and thank you so much for joining and sharing your story of post-concussion.
[0:25:59.5] SS: Thanks, Bella.
[END OF INTERVIEW]
[0:24:35.0] BP: I just wanted to say thank you. The podcast is just over six months old and I couldn’t be happier with the response. If you truly love the podcast, please consider leaving a tip in our support the podcast tip jar found at the bottom of our episode description. All tips are greatly appreciated and help cover the cost of the show.
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 and to learn more, don’t forget to subscribe.
[END]
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