Enjoying Movement with Shelley Latendresse
Show Notes:
Finding an enjoyable movement practice whether it's something adventurous or calming can be a challenge when working through post-concussion recovery. Today's guest Shelley Latendresse, has more than 20 years of experience as an occupational therapist in neurology and has spend the past 10 years growing her own private practice while adding yoga certifications, nature therapy, and health coaching to her tool kit. After struggling to get help through traditional medicine after her own concussion incidents Shelley used a combination of her own knowledge to get better.
Join us today to learn about how to find an enjoyable movement practice that you can enjoy and the benefits of finding something you truly love!
Key Points From This Episode:
[00:02:22] Shelley shares what led her to helping concussion survivors
[00:07:12] Shelley explains how to find an enjoyable movement practice post-concussion
[00:09:25] Bella shares a story about finding different movement practices.
[00:10:24] The importance of why you should find a movement practice you enj
[00:14:17] How an enjoyable movement practice can affect your health
[00:18:18] How yoga can help post-concussion survivor
[00:21:09] Bella shares her own experience with yoga
[00:22:53] Shelley shares about her Post Concussion Yoga class now available on Concussion Connect
[00:25:32] Shelley shares her final message
Check out Shelley's website and course: https://www.otshelley.com/
Find Shelley on FB : https://www.facebook.com/OTShelley
Follow Shelley on IG: @ot_shelley
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Introduction
[00:00:00] Bella: Hi everyone. I'm your host Bella Page, and after suffering from post-concussion syndrome for years, it was time to do something about it. So welcome to the Post-concussion podcast where we dig deep into life When it doesn't go back to normal, be sure to share the podcast and join our support network.
Concussion connect. Let's make this 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 concussions and post-concussion syndrome.
Episode Introduction
[00:01:06] Bella: Welcome to episode number 95 of the Post-Concussion Podcast with my myself, Bella Paige and today's guest, Shelley Latendresse known as OT Shelley with more than 20 years experience as an occupational therapist in neurology with children and adults, she spent the past 10 years growing her own private practice, adding yoga certifications, nature therapy and health coaching to her tool kit.
After her own series of adventure related concussions several years ago, Shelley struggled to find, Shelley struggled to find empowering support for concussion. The traditional medical model just did not deliver with her own occupational therapy knowledge, athletic mindset, and yoga practice. She met with her local vestibular physiotherapist and said, Hey, what if I design a yoga based recovery program? You can get access to one of Shelley's yoga classes launched on Concussion Connect just yesterday.
Shelley's goal is to empower people in their own healing her progressive home program is geared to help once active people find their way back to an active lifestyle after concussion.
Welcome to the show, Shelley.
[00:02:17] Shelley: Hello and thank you for having me here today.
Shelley shares what led her to helping concussion survivors
[00:02:22] Bella: So to start, do you wanna tell us a little bit about what created your interest in helping concussion survivors?
[00:02:28] Shelley: Yes, definitely. Well, I'm a neurodevelopmental occupational therapist, as my career, and I've been in the zone of helping people for a, a very long time and, pretty much helping people thrive and not just survive in their daily lives. Cuz that is what really brings me joy, is to help people find therapy in their activities. So that's my career, but then getting into working with people with concussion, relates to my own personal journey. So do you wanna hear a little bit about that?
[00:02:59] Bella: Yes, for sure.
[00:03:01] Shelley: Okay, so it was the summer of 2016 when I first started my, I'll call it my journey with multiple recreational concussions. And the first time I was running at the beach and at Sunset, and I basically clocked myself on a driftwood log. Literally, and I was quite shocked and overwhelmed at the impairments from this, cuz I had no idea you could be that impaired just from hitting your head.
And like, especially the mental slowness for me. I was actually doing a TV show at the time and I couldn't remember my lines. And I just was, I was shocked. I managed to recover, from that first I call them recreational incidents cuz that's pretty much all my concussions were, having fun playing. About six months later I sustained a really serious concussion in a ski crash with no helmet. And so this for me was the worst one that resulted in like slowed thinking brain you know, the days, the clumsiness, the sensitivities, the whole shebang that, you know, well. And I wish I could say that was the end of the story, that bad concussion.
But after managing to make it through that, which was a bit of a longer recovery and, I don't know if I could say full recovery, probably 80% recovery. But I went on to sustain then a series of accidental and like kind of recreational concussions. And these happened about twice a year after that in the next few years. So this is from 2016 until about 2021. So every time, I would get back on my bike cuz I'm a road cyclist and I would train and, and then I would get knocked down again by a head bonk. At one point I actually was convinced that I must have a voodoo or something out against me because it was just too many times.
And so my concussion story is really a rollercoaster kind of, of being knocked out and picking myself back up again. Now when I look on it, I realize like that is what built resilience in me, and that is what built my drive to help others because it was lonely, right? It takes a lot of mental resilience, I guess you could say, to handle people like not understanding what you're going through, saying the wrong things.
And that happened a lot, as I'm sure you know. Anyway, as a professional, I basically kind of knew some of what I could do to recover, but I did find some professionals trained in concussion, picked up their knowledge. And then mostly I worked on fixing myself from there. Finding knowledge about what was happening to me and needing to feel empowered with a really big deal for me, rather than just doing that therapy, doing the fixes that someone does to me.
So, yeah. So adapting things and using therapeutic activity, that's like what I know from my occupational therapy career. So that really helped. And then luckily as an athlete, I have like that internal drive to get back to sport. That's basically how it happened for me. And that's the kind of key thing I would love to talk about today is how I used my enjoyable movement practice to really get back every single time, get back into activity after concussion
[00:06:32] Bella: Really like that. You mentioned the roller coaster aspect of this, cuz I think a lot of people feel like they're on a roller coaster in the recovery as well and the loneliness aspect is huge.
I think it's often really missed because like you feel lonely even if you are around people. because like you're going through so much that they can't see. And that's why I really love our support community Concussion Connect, cuz it kind of helps take away that loneliness when you're like in the middle of the day, the middle of the night, there's somewhere you can go to reach out to people, you know, talk to people, ask questions, get help.
And I just think that's great. And so I really wanted to ask about that enjoyable movement practice.
Shelley explains how to find an enjoyable movement practice post-concussion
[00:07:12] Bella: How do you find an enjoyable movement practice after a concussion that you can do and enjoy?
[00:07:19] Shelley: That's a great question, Bella. So a lot of people get stuck on what they used to do, the sport that they were in, and if you get stuck on that, then you're not gonna move forward. So I would say be curious, be open-minded, be creative, and be adaptable. And basically kind of try new things. So that's kind of what I did.
So for example, I love to be in the mountains, right? And so I like to say I used to slide down hills cuz I was skied a lot. And now I climb mountains so you can kind of work from where you were. I decided I was gonna do a triathlon, so I learned to do swimming, which really helped my concussion. I was just actually texting the other day with this girl who was, as Olympian and she, has decided not to go back to cycling, but she's taking up surfing. So sometimes you have to be open-minded about finding something that makes you feel safe and makes you feel good. And if it's not the sport that you were doing, then it, it could be something else along the same lines. An enjoyable movement. Practice doesn't have to be a sport. It can be like nature walks. It could be dance, it could be Tai Chi, it could be going to the gym and yoga. And even me, I didn't even like yoga before I loved dance. I like to move fast, that's what I love to do. I think you're the same, right?
[00:08:53] Bella: Mm-hmm, very much so.
[00:08:55] Shelley: Like adrenaline junkie, speed demon. So to do yoga was just like, oh, this is so slow. This is, I can't, but, but I saw how much it was helping me, so I became curious and I tried it. And so that's my advice on how to find , a movement practice. Get out there, be creative, be adaptive, try new things and maybe go back to what you were doing in some way. Like try different types of skiing or a different snowshoeing or, you know.
Bella shares a story about finding different movement practices.
[00:09:25] Bella: Yeah, I love that. I think it's really important. I know I went through a phase, there was, before I started Post-Concussion Inc there was a year that I tried different sports and the first few months were very entertaining and two of my best friends were hilarious and we've all lived in different areas, but they would message me sports to try from like swimming, rock climbing, like just anything they could think of.
It was like, have you tried that? And a lot of different equipment I don't need, for a lot of sports I don't do. I settled on archery for a bit and that's because it really had to with b eing really calm and I think that really helped me cuz like you couldn't have other things on your mind and do well at it cuz you had to be so still. And so that really helped me. But then eventually, like you mentioned, that adrenaline junkie side came out and that's how the dirt biking came into play. Just because you start something doesn't mean you might not be able to get into something more intense later, but you gotta start somewhere.
The importance of why you should find a movement practice you enjoy
[00:10:24] Bella: And so why do you think having, movement practice is really good for you?
[00:10:30] Shelley: I love what you just said. First of all, you gotta start somewhere and you can change it up. And I think if you see that as an exploration into all the things, your body and brain can do it it's just fantastic. Like you said, archery is like the calm side of an adrenaline junkie. Like we need some balance. And I've learned that from concussion. Find the activity where you feel most confident and safe and you love it. And so yeah, basically here's where we move to why we need a enjoyable movement practice.
And I emphasize the word enjoyable because if you find an activity, you love you're gonna do it and you're gonna do it consistently. And as an athlete, I can tell you that consistency and repetition is what yields results. And so it's the same thing for recovering, from a, a brain injury. Basically, if you love something, you're gonna do it. You're gonna move, you're gonna exercise and that's where you're gonna get the results. You're gonna do it consistently. And also you get the feel good chemicals, right? Released like dopamine and those things fight off depression and improve your mental health. So again, that's loving what you do. And I wanna say this, doing fun stuff makes you after a concussion, makes you feel like a person again, and not just a patient. Because I see so many people, so many clients who get so caught up with their whole lives being therapy appointments and that they forget about the therapeutic benefits of their own enjoyable movement practice. That's huge.
[00:12:09] Bella: Yeah. And it's so important because like I love that feeling after, and I like that like you kind of feel more human and it's true cuz you feel like you've done something. And we talk about that a lot like it doesn't have to be big, and it doesn't have to be for long. You can just do something for 10 minutes. Like nobody said, you had to go run a marathon, uh, to have some enjoyment in what you're doing. So we are gonna take a quick break, Shelley made a course for Concussion Connect, and we're gonna talk about that next.
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[00:13:53] Bella: Welcome back to the Post-Concussion podcast with my myself Bella Paige and today's guest Shelley Latendresse. So we've been talking about enjoyable movement practice and the importance of it and why it, you really should find something that you can do that is physical, even if it is like Shelley said, a walk in the woods.
How an enjoyable movement practice can affect your health
[00:14:17] Bella: So do you wanna talk about other things on why it is more than just like mood and uplifting to have an enjoyable movement practice in your life?
[00:14:27] Shelley: Yes, and this is why, my next emphasis on the word movement. So to recover from concussion, the brain needs large muscle physical movement and aerobic activity, which is cardio.
So knowing that, just knowing that sentence, writing it out for yourself, your brain needs this. Knowing why that's the start. So that's gonna motivate you, right? Because you wanna get healthier and you wanna overcome symptoms and have a life again. So knowing that moving the whole body, what it does is it like wakes up chemical pathways in the brain and then moving through space challenges your visual and vestibular systems. So think of something like swimming where you're turning your head, you know, you're really working on those systems. You're being out of upright and so movement in any way. Think about dance all the ways that you're moving your head, yoga, moving your head through space, moving your eyes in different planes. So you're getting some rehab in there. You're waking up chemical pathways. And then the other part is aerobic exercise, which is. Getting your heart rate up, the cardio and this part promotes blood flow and helps the autonomic system get back to normal. So, and it even also releases all those hormones we've been talking about, the endorphins and dopamine, serotonin or adrenaline, and reduces inflammation.
So that whole about aro aerobic exercise pretty much tells you equals medicine. Aerobic exercise is medicine and so if you write this down for yourself, exercise changes the brain, put it on your fridge because movement and exercise of any type increases neuroplasticity in the brain. And this has been proven study after study.
So we, we went over the enjoyable part. Why you gotta love it, and that is the movement part, why you gotta do it. And so then just to finish with that, the practice part is where repetition, consistency, do it regularly. You use discipline, it becomes part of your routine and maybe it's even social, the practice part.
So that is where an enjoyable movement practice, you got all the reasons and it brings your therapy into your life. And that's what I'm all about, that's how I, got myself out of those eight concussions and how I think as an OT. So I hope that gives you guys enough reasons to move and define what you love.
[00:17:11] Bella: I love it and I love like the motivation piece that goes with it. And I like the social aspect that you mentioned. That is really nice as well. That was one of my favorite things. , like being in a sport is not just, it hits my competitive edge side of me and perfectionist side and all these things.
Checks all the boxes, but the social aspect is really nice. Like for myself, I go dirt biking and all these things, and when I'm out there I'll be there for six hours. I'll only ride a dirt bike for one hour of that entire time sometimes. And it's just the social aspect of being with friends, hanging out.
Talking, especially the outside aspect. I really like getting fresh air. Kind of makes you get fresh air some more, and so those things are really great. And something you did mention earlier is yoga. And yoga is something that took me actually a little bit of time to get into, but I used to do it as like a stress reliever at night when I was a competitive.
I wouldn't say I did it like as intensely and didn't get all the benefits out of yoga that I could have at that time, cuz I just was kind of winging it, beside my bed at night because I couldn't
How yoga can help post-concussion survivors
[00:18:18] Bella: sleep. Do you wanna talk about some of the benefits of yoga post-concussion and then how that ties into your course on Concussion Connect?
[00:18:26] Shelley: Yes, I do. , Yoga is a wonderful ancient, actually, practice that includes more than just movement. That includes the whole mind body connection piece, of self-healing and, getting to know a better awareness of ourselves. And so, what I love about yoga is it starts with self-healing, which is really empowering to have something that you do, that you can heal yourself from the inside out. You're not just going to get fixed from, different appointments, but you're actually doing the work. And it also starts with, a lot of groundwork of the at the breathing, the changing mindset cuz yoga has its own kind of really positive calm mindset that comes with it.
And then restoring that, autonomic nervous system, we were talking through breathing, mindfulness meditation. So there's that whole like base piece of concussion recovery, that whole groundwork piece, mindset, breathing, grounding, creating safety for yourself on the mat and healing, and calming the auto autonomic nervous system.
So that that part is something that you don't really find in most other exercise and so that's, I think a piece that I discovered in yoga that was like, whoa, okay. There's a whole piece of recovery here that, you know, no one's taught me, but I'm finding it, it's becoming more known now in the sort of concussion world as something that we need to do.
But it's interesting cuz yoga, this piece has been there all along, right? Yeah. But it takes some time to discover that. So, and then post-concussion yoga, the reason I, I designed this program. is because it also incorporates like the neck rehab, all the neck strengthening, mobility and movement, and then, vestibular and vision rehab because there's a lot of movement through space inversions. It helps you to regain your spatial awareness, right, and get rid of like all the motion sensitivity in those types of things. So it fits nicely for anyone who's doing vestibular rehab in a clinic setting yoga it gives you a daily practice to really follow through with a lot of that stuff. And then cognitively it helps with your focus, memory and sequencing and that. and then anxiety it's a, it's a somatic stress technique, like management technique. So it just is like working on stress through the body and that just, just really is something that you have to feel it by attending yoga classes to really see, but it starts to happen.
Have you experienced any of those things, Bella, in your, in your yoga practice?
Bella shares her own experience with yoga
[00:21:09] Bella: Yeah. So for me, yoga is something that I will do when, like I talk a lot about brain spiraling, on the show and mental health and things like that. And sometimes when I just find I'm really on edge, kinda like all day or for a few days, and it could be about anything.
It could be about health, it could be about anything else going on in my life that's stressful. And I find if I just do yoga, even for 10, a lot of that goes away. I can kind of like wash the tension outta my body and then I just feel better, like my brain feels clear and just that feeling is just something I never thought I could get without getting an adrenaline rush. So yoga is something that also has helped me get a lot of those feelings of kind of like that relief and, you know, like we're good feeling that it's sometimes really hard to find when you're a survivor going through recovery and just trying to find yourself again and kind of just feel good even just for a moment when you feel bad all the time can be a huge difference.
And that's why I'm so excited for all these courses on Concussion Connect as they come out, because helping people at home is so important. So many people are in isolated areas, or even if they're not just getting out the door is hard. And so I just love that we're trying to create a place and we are creating a place that people can kind of get it's a one-stop shop for so many different things. And of course we keep everything as affordable as possible cuz that's the right way to do it because I know so many people as survivors are not working. And that's why I just love the community that's created and all the members, and I just wanted to thank you here for creating that course to help all of our survivors.
Shelley shares about her Post Concussion Yoga class now available on Concussion Connect
[00:22:53] Shelley: Yes I do a coaching 12 week intensive, post-concussion recovery yoga program but I have put together a little intro to post-concussion yoga class for you so that you can sort of see the benefits, maybe try it a few times and start to learn what yoga has to offer for post-concussion because, , it really is a way for you to, make those lifestyle and mindset changes that you need to do every single day, to incorporate like that movement and mindful practice and meditation and I love that you said it's interesting that a calming, grounding, creating safety practice is having positive benefits on you the way an adrenaline junkie exercise practice, and who would've known the yin yang yang? But that's just proof that your nervous system needs to learn both sides of the coin and how to move between them, and that's how it gets back to normal is learning how to go in between them. We can't spend our lives in that high state, which we, a lot of us post concussions stay way too much in fight or flight, as you know. And so we have to learn to come down to, a more parasympathetic state, but also to change between. And that's why my yoga classes, I tend to, you know, we practice moving between, something that takes more energy and more balance and like inversions a little bit of dance or cardio, and I mix it up because I want people to then be able to breathe and ground themselves.
So that's awesome, Bella, that you're, that you've learned so much about yoga already and, um, I think it can be, it can be tricky when you have a concussion, when you have post-concussion symptoms because there's often dizziness and fear of the neck and those types of things can really scare people off if they go to a typical yoga class. Yes. That's why I, I design my classes so that I'm really normalizing those symptoms and helping people, move through the class in a, in a more prepared progressive pace so that, you know, they can work up to handling more and more movement.
[00:25:06] Bella: For sure. Yeah, it's really important to get that like adaptive side of yoga. It is not impossible to find, but harder to get people to understand that, you know, you don't look dizzy but like you don't feel good or all these things. So you can kind of take it at your own pace, which is also the best thing about online courses cuz you can kind of take a break when you need it, try again. Do it from start to finish in one round or 10, whatever works for you.
Shelley shares her final message
[00:25:32] Bella: And so is there anything else you would like to add before ending today's episode?
[00:25:39] Shelley: Well, I just loved talking about this, so I'd like to thank you first of all, because, this is my life enjoyable movement practice. If you ask my friends, they're like, oh yeah, that basically describes Shelley because, I like to play I think that play heals, and I don't just say this from an occupational therapy and yoga instructor point of view, but I also say this from a concussion survivor point of view, and that's why I adapt my yoga classes and design my program. Also, from a perspective of knowing what you truly are feeling, because I think having a provider, having a healthcare provider who has had concussion, who has gone through this, is huge because I know when you're gonna feel dizzy.
I know what might throw you into fight or flight because I've been there and sometimes it's something that, I mean, if you haven't had concussion, you just can't quite understand like why a loud sound bang would, you know, raise my heart rate or whatever it, it could be or why turning my head a certain way might make me dizzy.
So these are the things that I think having the experience, I felt compelled to share my knowledge. and, and put it into coaching. So I'm excited to share this class with you. And if people want to, dive further into the Yogi way of post-concussion recovery, doing a coach program from home, they can certainly find me, and see if that might be the thing for them.
[00:27:09] Bella: Yeah, I think it's great. Which is why I think I love, we have the introduction course, love it. Love Shelley. And then you can continue on with the larger course that she offers. And I just wanna thank you so much. It's really important to understand and that these things don't have to be hard.
Nobody said you have to go get on a dirt bike like I do. There's steps to it. You can take your time and find something that you love. And so thank you so much for joining us today and sharing your experience with movement.
[00:27:38] Shelley: Thank you. It was so lovely to be here.
Need more than just this podcast. Be sure to check out our website, post-concussion inc.com to see how we can help you in your post-concussion life. From a support network to one-on-one coaching, I believe life can get better because I've lived through it. Make sure you take it one day at a time.
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