Hi, This is one of my first posts. I'm 5 years post concussion but have been skimming through neurotalk for a while now, I've just never posted before. So first things first, I want to thank everyone on this forum, especially the regulars, for the wealth of knowledge they've shared. I've never talked to any of you but you have had a huge positive impact on my experience so far so thank you for that!

The main concerns that I have are light and sound sensitivity, and auditory and visual processing. These triggers cause me to become overstimulated. To deal with these issues I am currently seeing a developmental optometrist and an audiologist.

For the time being I am volunteering in the community several times a week in quiet and calm environments, trying to read more, and doing mild exercise daily. Not in school or working. My hope is to get back to either or both of these things.

What I am currently having trouble doing is increasing my exercise tolerance. From what I've read and heard from physios it's usually best to exercise at a sub-symptoms threshold and then slowly increase. But I assume that most of that advice is gears towards the earlier stages of injury.

My question is: has anyone had greater success with pushing through the exercise symptoms a bit more than that?

I've been taking a conservative approach. I've just been walking for about 45 minutes daily and then doing some strengthening exercises. I will usually hold an exercise for 30 seconds then rest/wait for my heart rate to go down and then repeat the exercise until my muscles are exhausted. I find that it lets me get in a better workout without bringing my heart rate above my current threshold of about 120 bpm. I'm wondering if there is a better way to approach this.