What I learned from my concussion last Friday

17d • Lobby

Some of you may have noticed my absence last week. On Friday April 3rd at about 2:00 am I got up out of bed too fast and passed out from the lack of blood flow to my brain.

I have always had a history of falling when I get up too fast, but it's never made me pass out.

This condition is known as orthostatic hypotension.

It was especially bad before I started lifting. I hadn't had this problem for years now and didn't think it was an issue until that Friday.

On the way to the ground I hit the left side of my head and the base of my neck, almost tearing my ear in half in the process.

The result? A concussion and four stitches. As well as a major red flag that my thyroid medication is underdosed.

This is the first concussion I've ever had. I'm hoping it's the last as well. But it has taught me some valuable lessons that I needed this year. So here is what I've learned:

Your brain needs idle time

We spend a tremendous amount of time over consuming information. I realize now that I constantly bombard my brain with inputs. From podcasts to books there are very few of those precious moments where my brain can sit still. For some of you this might sound like a kind of hell. For me it took a bit more adjustment than I would have liked.

I spent hours staring at my boring, white ceiling. I couldn't read, I couldn't listen to anything, I couldn't get up. It was just me and my brain. It was quality time with the only person in I should know best: me.

It's amazing what staring at a ceiling or taking a walk without a podcast can do when your brain is already healthy. When you're concussed, it's mandatory.

I realized that this idle time is what allows your brain to reconnect with the world around it.

So many of us buy into woo woo nonsense like "grounding", or "chakras" when the answer is staring us in the face. The whole time it was just sitting with the silence that brings you back to the world around you.

There is no need to live forever when there is an eternity in every moment if you'd stop to find it. That, by the way, is me getting a little woo woo.

2. This can happen to anyone at any time

My insurance shut down about one week before this incident. So if I were to tell you this was a bad time to be going to an ER, you'd better believe me.

All this happened when I had already liquidated an emergency fund. The worst possible moments can bring lessons you really need.

This whole week I've been sitting with a looming $10,000 bill at the back of my mind which I can't afford.

This whole time I've had no ability to do anything about it until the 13th. Why? Because big brain hurty, that's why!

I'm 31 and healthy, but imagine if I weren't.

In fact, my metrics were so healthy, they spent more time trying to find out why I fell rather than teach me how to recover.

But it had me thinking, what if I was 55 and overweight? What if I was in my 80s when this happened? Would I even be writing this today?

I've seen what happens to strong people who fall and those who never made health a priority.

I've seen and experienced first-hand how fast recovery can be at any age, and how slow it can be for the unhealthy. I'm not a cautionary tale, but I've witnessed many. I'm lucky.

But this year I have had far more close calls than I've ever noticed before. It can happen any time.

Being strong can be a shield against it. But it can't stop everything. Being prepared for life's little oopsies is the real lesson here.

3. ChatGPT is more helpful than an ER doctor

The ER doctor was sleep deprived and scatterbrained.

Worried about why a 31 year old collapsed, he didn't think to give me advice on what to do next.

He was a good doctor. The stitches he gave me were fantastic.

But I left thinking "I might be able to go to work today," When doing so could have dragged out my symptoms for a month or longer.

I didn't know that until I had sought out a second opinion, from something that doesn't sleep:

After reading my discharge papers ChatGPT

Explained my recovery windows.

Within minutes I knew how long I should expect to feel symptoms. I knew how severe they might be, what ones I was most likely to experience and when.

It showed me how to mitigate my symptoms.

It said profound things that stuck with me, the "your brain needs idle time" line? I stole that from Chat GPT.

It told me that right now my job is not toughness, but making sure I don't drag this out for weeks.

But it also gave me practical advice I could use immediately: Not to worry about sleep, what exercise I could and couldn't do. All of it in simple terms.

It taught me how to avoid another ER visit, whether or not I should check my vision, and the likelihood of brain damage I sustained.

In short, if I hadn't asked Chat GPT what to do, I might not have known I for sure had a concussion.

I want you to understand, these tools are phenomenal.

They can be wrong, but so can a doctor or that yoga instructor you know.

What these tools can do is find an answer far closer to the truth much faster than a person can.

And that may have saved the entire month of April for Bjorn Fitness. I'll explain in a bit.

4. Everything depends on your brain

Almost nothing will actually keep you from the gym, but a brain injury does.

You can work out with low sleep, with a broken leg, with muscle spasms up your back. I've seen paraplegics out bench 25 year olds. I've seen pregnant women do heavy squats. I've heard so many excuses about these things that sound sooo convincing. And they're all nonsense.

Not sorry about that. I make excuses too.

With a concussion or limited mental function, you can't. You actually cannot.

If you do, your symptoms can last months or longer. But you also physically can't. Your strength is gone as your brain steals all your energy to focus on recovery.

You don't "push through" a concussion

Having a concussion is like playing a modern video game on a CPU with 4 gigabytes of RAM. It slows down so much it's alarming...

Maybe we need a better metaphor...

Having a concussion is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. With a full bladder. While you're covered in very angry bees.

You have other problems, Tim.

I got Bjorn Fitness to where we are through a tremendous amount of pushing through when I didn't feel like it. We're talking a real grind: up at 5 am closing at 11 pm and doing it again tomorrow kind of grind.

But you can't push through a concussion. It won't let you. Every time you try risks adding days or weeks to your recovery.

Good days rapidly become bad days, symptoms may not be the same two days in a row. There is no "grit" that can help you through this.

You need to shut down for a while, and let your brain recover on its own.

5. Recovery comes down to three surprising things:

food

This surprised me. At first I noticed that the doctor said to eat as normal. I thought that was interesting that they bothered to mention this.

But then I noticed symptoms would reduce after a full meal. I noticed if I was feeling unwell, sugar would reverse some of the discomfort. Combine that with chicken or meat? Bam! Symptomless for 2 hours or longer.

Why is this?

Turns out during the first 72 hours after a concussion or during its symptoms your brain is on overdrive.

The cells in your brain are firing at a rapid pace and using up a ton of energy. They are trying to repair the damage or even compensate for it. This means you are spending quite a bit more Calories than you usually do.

The result? You need energy! Almost every meal I had since my concussion reversed many symptoms within half an hour. It was astonishing.

sleep

I was more surprised by the dreams than by the idea that sleep would improve my recovery rate.

To me this is an obvious thing at this point, but it may not be to you. So let me mansplain it!

Sleep is how your brain cleans itself.

It doesn't just help you feel good and rested, it's mandatory maintenance on your system. Ignore at your peril kinda stuff.

During sleep your brain cleans up useless information and unwanted chemicals. It is sweeping through your memories and the materials that gunk up the process.

After a concussion, your brain is trying to do this even while you're awake. It wants to get rid of everything that got jumbled around in there.

The crazy thing is that since the brain is hyper active during a concussion, it makes you SO tired.

The brain and the heart never stop working, so sleep is never lost time from their perspective.

And this makes for a hell of a show to watch. This past week I was on adventures through mountains. I was negotiating with aliens. I was slaying goblins! I had so many wild and terrible dreams. Nightmares and wonders filled my rest. And after what is likely an extra 30 hours of sleep, I'm... honestly still tired over a week later!

water-- well actually copious amounts of gatorade

We all need to be hydrated. And it is possible that mild dehydration may have caused me to fall in the first place. But after a concussion the thirst feels unquenchable! I was chugging anything I drank. Have you ever chugged coffee? Yuck!

The reason seems to be a resource issue for the brain.

Since it's spending so much energy on repairing the damage, it uses a ton of salts in the process. And since sodium ions are vital to the function of brain cells, you'll need a ton of salt and water when you're healing!

Cue gatorade! This wonderful concoction of sugar and electrolytes at times reversed my symptoms. Without needing a meal! That's awesome in itself.

And if for some nonsensical reason you're part of the anti-gatorade crowd, stop. Think about this for more than ten seconds: Take orange juice, dilute it, add some salt and a bit more sugar and wallah! You have the basic ingredients for gatorade.

Scary chemistry words does not make something poison. Please do not give me another concussion because you're afraid of chemistry. There is no conspiracy to poison you with a million chemicals. Any company trying to do that would get sued and go out of business faster than a tree grows in the forest. The whole point of chemical labelling is to inform youabout what is safe to eat. Let the fear mongering nonsense go, please. I am so sick of it.

6. We all underestimate our abilities

In only 4 hours of work, how much could you do?

For the average day this week the most I could work was about 4 hours. At a limited capacity, I had to make tough decisions about what needed my focus and what could wait.

As a business owner I'm always in a state of needing to choose between priorities.

But what we managed in 4 hours each day was a bit more than we manage on most normal days through the year. When I tapped out for the first two days the team came in on overdrive and picked up where I couldn't operate.

Normally when I'm out for an extended period we lose clients faster than we can add them. Systems held together with duct tape and sticks collapse. Sure, the whole team manages to skate by until I'm back, but I usually have so much to pick up. Not so this week.

For the first time, we thrived under this pressure.

I want to thank each one of the Bjorn Fitness team members for coming through and taking care of our adventurers when I couldn't. You guys are all freaking amazing.

I still can't believe how much we managed to get done. We updated our nutrition materials, made some big changes, found and filled gaps, prevented a payroll crisis, set up tracking systems, didn't cancel a single consultation, and we updated our onboarding procedure.

Each with only about 4 hours of available daily focus time. All completed with two family medical scares. I know this is getting a little too transparent on the business side of the gym you go to, but it is vital to making sure you continue to have the best possible gym experience we can offer.

I hope that as the months add on you will find more and more things that make Bjorn the best place for your goals. And I hope when you do you'll think of that one time in April that made so much of it possible.

Wow, that was a long one! I'm so thankful to anyone who took the time to read this long post about something as simple as a bonk on the head. Skool doesn't let me format these in a super readable manner so I hope this turns out okay.

I hope this was useful to you and that you gained something from it. I also hope that you never, ever get a concussion. Let me tell you, a hangover felt better than this past week has. It took me 4 days to write the first draft of this post alone! I probably won't be symptom free for another 7 or so days, if I'm lucky. But at least now the symptoms are mild.

Quick reminder that next Sunday at 8:30 am we will begin our hike up Mt. Arab! All are welcome to join, and if you want to catch a ride with me, I'll be leaving from the gym at 7:00 am to get to the trail by 8:00. I plan to begin the hike at 8:30 to allow for any stragglers to catch up. So we will wait at the trail entrance until then.

I do not suggest carpooling with me if you are allergic to cats, dogs, Toyota Rav 4s, or music in foreign languages.

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