Do deep breathing exercises and meditation help with PCS?
 

I am approaching 8 months of post concussion syndrome. I am slowly starting to heal again, but i definitely still have some time left to recover. Aside from resting, I started vestibular and occupational therapy two weeks ago and it is going pretty well. The only thing i am really struggling with now is anxiety. From what I have heard, anxiety makes post concussion syndrome worse. I have had anxiety and hypochondria my whole life and it is certainly starting to kick in again now.

For example, ten years ago I got the stomach flu and for no apparent reason I got this obsession with throwing up. I convinced myself that i had a stomach flu for three years and i got a CT scan and my stomach was completely fine. However, psychologically i couldn't get the obsession out of my head. I am over it now though haha.

Anyway, do deep breathing exercises and meditation help get rid of the anxiety I am having with the PCS and will it help me recover?

Meditation helps me to reduce stress and anxiety in my life. It did before the head injury I sustained. It seems a lot more difficult for me to meditate these days than it was for me before the accident. But, I am hopeful that it will get easier and easier as I continue to improve.

I also benefit from stretching and I'm looking forward to being able to do yoga again. That used to help reduce tension in my body and anxiety in my mind a great deal before the accident I was in. If you are able to try to learn doing yoga symptom-free I recommend it.

I'm trying to learn Qi Gong right now because it's my understanding that it's easier and less taxing than yoga is. But it's so far been difficult for me to learn it.

Meditation can definitely be helpful in recovery--at the very least, it can cut down on stress and help you to settle down after overstimulation. But it takes a lot of time, patience, and effort to get good at it.

As for relieving your anxiety, don't expect meditation to work any wonders. It sounds like you have an anxiety disorder--possibly OCD--and while meditation is an important part of dealing with any anxiety disorder, it is very unlikely that you will be able to manage such a disorder with meditation alone.

Are you getting any treatment for your anxiety? Are you on any medications? Have you tried Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Exposure/Response Prevention? These are the most effective treatments for OCD, bar none...and they can be effective with other anxiety disorders as well.

If you're able to get some treatment for your anxiety, then meditation would be an excellent way to supplement that treatment. But it's not a substitute for treatment. So, if you go into meditation hoping that it will help you to cope with and manage your PCS better, that would be a realistic attitude. If you go into it hoping to completely get rid of your anxiety, that would be an unrealistic attitude.

There is also a good thread in the archives here, started by greenfrog, titled "Article on Brain Benefits of Daily Meditation." So you can find it more easily, the most recent post on it was 2/10/12.

penguinsfan,

As I have said before and xanadu has also just suggested, you need to get treated for your anxiety/OCD. It is destroying your life as much if not more than your PCS.

It appears you are way beyond the CBT and exposure/response therapies for now. The proper meds and professional support may be able to get you to a point where meditation and other therapies will help.

You may need to move out of your current environment to be free of the anxiety/OCD triggers. You will not be able to heal your PCS until you get control of your anxieties. It is like you are standing in a mud puddle and trying to wash your feet. Every time you put one foot down to wash the next, it gets dirty again. Your OCD/anxiety is doing this to your brain.

I hope you can find a way to get the professional help you need.

My best to you.