newbie,

Please read the Vitamins sticky at the top. It has the do's and don'ts and some good links. The YouTube video series "You Look Great" is good.

If driving is a trigger, you may need to avoid driving during busy times. Traffic can be a huge cause of over-stimulation. There are just too many things around you to keep track of. The result can be severely degraded driving skills as your brain overloads. Fortunately, you were able to pull over before anything happened. I've been through the same situation but during a driving evaluation. I do very little driving. I have had too many close calls.

The term is over-attending. Your brain is trying to attend to many different things. It is also trying to attend/pay attention to things that it should be ignoring but can't because of your concussion.

It will likely help if you have no music or other distractions in the car.

You really need to avoid those trigger situations. Each one causes a cascade of stress chemistry that you need to spend hours and even days recovering from. You may need to develop a strong spine to stand up to friends and family for the next few weeks or more. Christmas is the worst time to try to recover. There is just so much happening and needing to be done.

As you noticed, no caffeine, plus, no alcohol, no msg, no artificial sweeteners. NO energy drinks, even if they are caffeine free. I should have mentioned these issues first. Sorry I missed that.

If you are struggling with driving, it sounds like you are far more symptomatic that your post suggested. You should consider seriously cutting back on your daily activities until you are virtually symptoms free then start slowly introducing your activities back into your day.

Hope you have a better day tomorrow, especially without the caffeine.

Mark