• Home
  • About
  • Blog
  • Archives
  • Directory
  • Subscribe
  • Contact Us
The Brain Health Magazine
  • Home
  • About
  • Blog
  • Archives
  • Directory
  • Subscribe
  • Contact Us
No Result
View All Result
The Brain Health Magazine
No Result
View All Result

Resilience After a Brain Injury

How TBIs impact perseverance

in Healthy Living, Mental Health, Resilience
June 2, 2023
0
Resilience After a Brain Injury

By Dr. Shane Steadman, DC, DACNB, DCBCN, CNS

Recovery after a brain injury can be a long journey. Working hard and hoping to get back to baseline often can be frustrating, and for some, unattainable. With the many doctor visits, exercises, rehab appointments, medications, and supplements, goals can become lost. However, amid recovering from a brain injury, one needs to consider resilience, the ability to recover from difficulties. Bouncing back or having resiliency from a brain injury can be extremely difficult.

There are many ways to look at resiliency or ways to make oneself more resistant to stressors. Most individuals with brain injuries find their threshold to do simple tasks very low. This includes reading, engaging with others, cleaning the house, or driving. Others find they cannot be around chemicals or even eat certain foods. Being resilient can look different for many with different approaches. Let’s discuss a few examples and their approaches.

Many find exercise a difficult activity. People will even avoid engaging in any type of exercise due to their injury. With this scenario, starting any type of exercise is very important – even if the exercise starts slow for five minutes, using low resistance exercise bands or doing isometrics or simple stretches. The goal for increasing resiliency is to start low and build up over time. Being able to build up endurance, strength, and stamina over time allows for resiliency of activities of daily living. This might allow someone to engage more with friends and family. Important for recovery, slowly increasing activities over time aids brain function and builds more endurance for brain activities such as rehab.

Immune resilience improves resiliency to one’s environment, and can be as simple as replacing toxic chemicals in the home to more natural safe products. Replacing products such as detergence, deodorant, soap, toothpaste, and cleaning supplies can be an easy step to reducing agents causing inflammation in the body. When a person constantly needs to deal with toxins, mold, allergens, and chemicals, it creates consistent immune activation causing global inflammation.

Recovering from a brain injury grows more difficult when the body, more importantly the brain, deals with external stressors resulting in inflammation. Inflammation in the body can lead to inflammation in the brain. Resiliency can begin slowly with evaluating one’s environment and identifying what can be changed. In addition to one’s environment, making healthy food choices can be a challenging area, but a necessary adaptation. Consuming neurotoxic or allergenic products creates immune reactions making us less resilient with time.

Psychological resilience is probably the most difficult for people to overcome. A traumatic brain injury impacts so many facets of our lives. It is very hard to understand what others go through daily. With an invisible brain injury, it is tough to see the emotional and psychological impact on mental health. Many experts and research articles discuss the importance of a positive attitude and the role it plays on physical and mental health. The chemical changes in the body are well researched with how negative and positive emotions play a role.

It makes sense that this might be the most difficult area to improve, but when it comes to becoming more resilient, it could be the most important. Like exercise, a person can start with working on small moments throughout the day or week. For others, working with a professional counselor might be the best option to make these small changes. Building resilience in this scenario means being able to handle the daily stress of life as well as life’s challenges.

Finally, there are two ways to look at resiliency. The first is to become proactive and make the changes needed to keep the body strong both physically and mentally. Such changes include exercising, self-care, removing toxins, and eating healthy. The major goal of being proactive, a person can bounce back from major events such as an injury or infection by adopting these practices.

The second way to look at resiliency is how well a person comes back from an injury, stressful event, or infection. Recovery looks different for each person. When a person goes through the recovery process, areas of their daily life can be improved. Some situations we cannot control, but some areas of life we can, such as allergens, toxins, and our thoughts. Starting with the little things and increasing them over time builds resiliency. Some days will be easier than others, but when someone is able to do a little more, then they become more resilient. It can be a tough journey but doing a little over time can have a big impact.

Dr. Shane Steadman, DC, DACNB, DCBCN, CNS, is the owner and clinic director of Integrated Brain Centers. To learn more about how they can help with concussions, stroke, and TBIs, please visit www.integratedbraincenters.com. For a free consultation, please call 303-781-5617.

Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare Via EmailPinterest
Next Post
Yoga: Seated Cobra Pose

Yoga: Seated Cobra Pose

SIGN UP

BLOG

Yoga: Seated Cobra Pose

Yoga: Seated Cobra Pose

By Amy Zellmer, Editor-in-chief Yoga is a powerful tool for neuroplasticity. Contrary to some beliefs, everyone can do yoga — you don’t need to be super flexible, be able to balance, or even be able to stand up. The beauty of yoga is every pose can be modified to accommodate anyone. An important aspect of […]

Read more
The Resiliency of the Human Brain and Body

The Resiliency of the Human Brain and Body

By James A. Heuer, PA As a personal injury attorney for over 45 years, I have witnessed many of my clients successfully recover from a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). Whether the TBI occurs from a car crash, a slip and fall, or blow to the head, the resiliency of the human body and brain is […]

Read more
Resiliency: Is It Just Personal or Part of Brain Chemistry?

Resiliency: Is It Just Personal or Part of Brain Chemistry?

By Deborah Zelinsky, O.D. The term resiliency encompasses “the range of personal protective factors, environmental supports, and resources, as well as self-regulatory processes, engaged in response to adversity,” according to investigators writing about recovery from traumatic brain injury (TBI) for the publication Disability and Rehabilitation. Indeed, author Mike Norton  said it best when he wrote, […]

Read more
Stress Away Essential Oil

Stress Away Essential Oil

By Amy Zellmer, Editor-in-chief A complementary tool that can help you achieve a healthy lifestyle, essential oils are easy to use and smell great, with a variety of uses. All oils are not created equal. I personally only trust the Young Living brand because I know they maintain complete control over their product from seed […]

Read more
Resiliency and the Courtroom

Resiliency and the Courtroom

By Jeff Heller Resiliency is one of the greatest attributes anyone can have. From an early age, parents teach their children, “if you get knocked down, you get back up.” Coaches teach their players, “when the going gets tough, the tough get going.” And one of the cornerstones of the underdog mentality is to “never […]

Read more
The Quality of Resilience

The Quality of Resilience

by Shauna Hahn Sometime in 2019, in the weekly “Healing and Recovery” therapy group I lead, we discussed the topic of the quality of “resilience.” When it came time for a patient to contribute, he said, “I don’t want to be resilient. I get tired of being resilient all the f**king time.” And I heard […]

Read more
Peanut Butter Protein Fluff

Peanut Butter Protein Fluff

By Amy Zellmer, Editor-in-chief What You Need: 1 cup (250g) full-fat Greek yogurt 2 tbsp. peanut butter or almond butter 2 tsp. stevia Favorite garnish (banana, granola, blueberries) Add the yogurt, nut butter and stevia into a small mixing bowl and whisk together using a hand mixer, until fluffy. Transfer the mix into a bowl […]

Read more
Arizona Man Overcomes Three Traumatic Brain Injuries and Gives Back By Building Adaptive Recreation & Socialization Program for Survivors

Arizona Man Overcomes Three Traumatic Brain Injuries and Gives Back By Building Adaptive Recreation & Socialization Program for Survivors

By Ed Roth Randy Elston is finally living his best life, which may be an odd thing to say about a Marine Corps veteran with three traumatic brain injuries (TBIs). Recently named as the Brain Injury Alliance of Arizona’s new Adaptive Recreation & Activities Coordinator, Randy’s tours of duty in Iraq left him with a […]

Read more
Caregiver Corner: Reflecting at the Eight Year Mark

Caregiver Corner: Reflecting at the Eight Year Mark

By Ian Hebeisen As of October, my family officially passed the eight-year anniversary of the car accident causing my mom’s traumatic brain injury. That’s eight years of doctor’s appointments, chiropractic care, restless nights, back exercises, visual therapies, and legal battles. It’s been eight years of trial and error, bouncing from treatment to treatment, trying to […]

Read more

INSTAGRAM

Follow Us!

    The Instagram Access Token is expired, Go to the Customizer > JNews : Social, Like & View > Instagram Feed Setting, to refresh it.

© Copyright 2019 | The Brain Health Magazine

  • Advertise With Us
  • Submission Guidelines
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms
  • Contact Us

DISCLAIMER: THIS MAGAZINE DOES NOT PROVIDE MEDICAL ADVICE - View PDF

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • About
  • Blog
  • Archives
  • Directory
  • Subscribe
  • Contact Us
This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this website you are giving consent to cookies being used.