Concussion Recovery: Thoughts Now That I Can Think

I had a headache of an experience, so to speak, when I hit my forehead on my car’s trunk and sustained my first concussion. This doesn’t represent an experience I would choose to repeat, but it did provide some instructive experiences on how the level of mental intensity of various tasks.

While going through the 20-day long period of healing, the brain can only be spoon fed stimulation. After the first 24 hours of an incessant headache, you start to recognize that certain tasks require more mental bandwidth than you can muster up at that particular time or for a duration of any reasonable length. The activities from most intense to lease intense in my experience were:

Screen time: TV, Computer & Phone

Driving

Reading on a Kindle

Reading a physical book

Thinking through complex problems

Writing

Podcasts (no headphones)

Walking & Talking to people

Thinking through light problem-solving

Counting or coloring

Meditating

For the first few days, anything more than just counting to myself or doing some light thinking would bring waves of headaches, nausea, and disequilibrium. As the first week rounded out, I was able to better talk to those around me and knock out some podcasts as long as they kept it light i.e. no string theory discussion requiring all of my brain so most Lex Fridman interviews were out.

As the second week began, I was able to write, do some higher-level thinking, listen to more involved podcasts, and read some newspaper articles. It wasn’t until the 18th day that I was back to comfortably cruising in the car and knocking out emails without having to push through headaches and cascading tingles.

This experience colored my perspective on the fragility of the brain as a data processing tool that has to be properly handled lest overstimulation or burnout can occur, even when one is not aware that one is doing something affecting their sleep hygiene or ability to unwind before a day begin or after it ends.

For many years, I would read low-light kindles before going to bed only to continue to have difficulty sleeping compared to flipping the pages of a physical book. Once I recognized that even this low-light kindle was being processed by my brain as a screen like any other, I switched to paperback books to truly give my brain a break at the end of the day.

Even when we sleep our brain isn’t truly off, rather, just operating in a hibernation mode that still has our eyes darting all over while we take in the night’s dreams as we process what happened that day and processing various parts of our life that were favorably or negatively noteworthy. That said, any opportunities we can take to give our overworked brains a break is well worth the investment.

The burnout culture that is the residue of unsustainable hours and poor work-life balancing requires that we care for our brains and ourselves to combat its insidious effects. This starts with giving one’s brain a break after giving it 10 hours of screens and variable problem-solving. So many work cultures overwork their employees with an assumed high turnover that represents a preferential way to squeeze twice the output out of workers while investing heavily in do-it-yourself training so the next hire can get up to speed swiftly to maximize output before they, themselves, also burnout.

If you’re in consulting, coding, investment banking, law, and a host of other industries that do offer top-tier pay, but do so with the workload meant for two union workers who get to enjoy a decent mental health experience, it’s up to you to fight against your body’s natural aversion to intense overwork. Your body will reject too much stimulation so it’s an imperative that you meditate, read physical books, or listen to a podcast, without your earbuds, to give your brain a break that will allow you to build your frontal cortex and processing centers that can aid in your ability to work well into the day without mentally crashing or hitting the wall.

I’ve radically changed my lifestyle to put away my kindle in favor of a physical book, listen to a podcast to unwind with rather than binge a Netflix series, and plan my next day in my physical notebook rather than pouring over Google Calendar.

Allowing your brain to rest for these 15 minute chunks may not seem like much but they combine to a sizable amount of rest that keeps your brain agile enough to beat out your competition simply by attrition, allowing them to fall victim to their poorly-considered habits or of the short-sized work culture that has the squeeze on them.

Be a friend to yourself and give your brain a break. The residue of which is a brain more willing and able to return the favor with superior-grade output and a built-in burnout buffer.