Hi Tom, welcome to neurotalk.

I'm a little confused about the details you've posted about... has it been a year since your first concussion?

If that's the case, you still have a lot of time to heal to a feeling "normal" point.

But in order to do so, you really need to rest as much as possible. When I say rest, I mean rest your brain, not necessarily sit in a dark room.

Resting will give your brain the energy it needs to continue to heal.

It's very important that you eat nutritious food and take all your vitamins and minerals, including the omega 3-6-9 oils. You should avoid alcohol, caffeine, MSG, processed foods with little nutritious value, refined sugar, etc.

Other than time, there's little Doctors can give to people like us, who are recovering from mild traumatic brain injuries. So, making sure your brain has all the right "food" to give it the best kind of energy to heal is essential. The cells in your brain are working hard to repair themselves and it takes extra energy for them to be able to do so. And that's why you don't do so well after you haven't slept well.

As you've noticed, exercising can exacerbate your symptoms. You should probably avoid it. I'll bet your doctors are not concussion experts... but I'm still a little surprised that they've told you the only thing your brain can get worse from is more jostling to your head. My own PCP keeps reminding me to take it easy and pace myself and to gradually increase activity as my brain can handle it and concussion experts seem to agree with that kind of thinking and advice.

But, it's still important to provide your brain with lots of oxygen to help it to heal, which you can get from very minimal exercise. (Not the kind of exercise people who are used to exercising would really call "exercise", but gentle walks and stuff like that...) until you can build up to something more strenuous. Personally, I miss the endorphins my brain used to give me after exercising a good deal. But I'd rather have my brain working to its full potential again, and I'm hoping that I'll get to experience a lot of endorphins again in the future.

Your brain is working hard to repair itself. It's best for your recovery if you try not to force it to do things that it has trouble doing.

Overstimulation can fatigue the brain and take all that energy it's trying to use to heal itself too. Loud places, fast-paced television, (or even any television at all, depending on the injury), reading too much, conversation, drinking caffeine or taking another stimulant - all of these things and more can potentially overstimulate the healing brain. Only you will be able to tell when your brain is overstimulated. If you pay attention to what your body and brain are telling you with the signs and symptoms you experience, you'll eventually be able to recognize when you're brain is getting overstimulated early on, when the signs are very subtle. Then you can cease whatever it is you are doing and that will allow your brain the energy it needs to heal. Fighting it, overdoing it and pushing through those signs can cause set backs and prolong your recovery.

Pacing yourself, eating well, resting as much as possible and accepting your current limitations are going to help your brain to heal a great deal.

So, to try to answer your question, I believe that those symptoms are signs your brain is trying to tell you that it needs you to rest. So, avoiding the things that trigger those symptoms might not actually "help" your condition (there's really no way to know) but it will probably make your recovery go faster. Prolonging your recovery is what you will most likely end up doing if you don't avoid those things.