really rough week
 

Last Saturday, when boarding the bus home, I stepped on only to realize someone else was trying to get off the bus so I quickly strafed to the side to clear the path and hit my head on the slanted part of the ceiling.

Not looking for 'this is just anxiety you need to calm down'. That's been on my mind the whole week since, and all I know is that I went from feeling the best I've felt in months, to the absolute worst.

Whether or not there's any true damage, it is what it is. Just wanted to blow off some steam; have felt so damn strange ever since the incident, and I really hope that I'm at least a bit better off in the week to come. My visual snow is completely overpowering, and to top it off the tinnitus in my right ear is at an absurdly high level; while I think it's due to earwax bulidup, I can't get it cleaned until next week so I can only hope that that will reduce the intensity.
How are you fine people holding up?:grouphug:

These knocks to the head can cause symptoms. I have learned what this is and how to get on with life with them.

Your brain is trying to heal, and bumps that previous to your brain injury would not cause any significant issues can because your brain is more vulnerable.

Knowledge can be a double-edged sword.

I've personally found when I eat clean, do treatments that help my brain heal, my brain is more resilient and bumps phase me little or not at all. And vis versa. When I lose discipline, my brain is more vulnerable and I function worse overall.

I believe this may be due to a number of physiological effects:

inflammation
oxidative stress
the brain's overall connectivity being scrambled ("cellular tensegrity" is a more scienctific phrase)
imbalanced (lack of or too much) blood flow, oxygen, and other nutrients
dormant neurons
potential neurotoxins (heavy metals, endotoxins, bacterial, fungal, parasitic, and/or viral)

That's the body based side of things.

The mind is huge in controlling the response of the body post head hit. I used to be terribly, terribly anxious because my brain was physically super sensitive to these bumps. Over time, with lots of work on healing my brain and it becoming less sensitive, I learned not to focus on my symptoms especially in response to these bumps. Cognitve Behavioral Therapy - control your response by regulating your nervous system. Breathing is huge for me. If you breathe calm, your thoughts calm. If you breathe stressful, your thoughts and body gets stressed and you are no longer in a healing state.

In sum, the brain takes time to heal. To speed up the process, do things that heal it. Your brain needs care and nurturing. But keep in mind, that the brain can heal amazingly well given the right support.

I also see your profile name. I also play guitar. Great instrument.

Insightful!

Last weekend was still pretty tough- couldn't really get into the zone for anything social, or mental for that matter. This week things started to turn around though. I had resumed laser treatment, which may have an effect, and overall as I got over that anxious hump I started to take care of myself a bit more, creating sort of a feedback loop, and now going into this weekend I actually feel motivated to take care of errands and see people; my eyes also seem to be working more effectively and are less overwhelmed.

Good to hear that you're bouncing back!

What type of laser therapy?

Low-level laser therapy with a $40 light for me is massively helpful. If I use it consistently, some of my brain functions are right up there.

nice

I might get a home unit at some point. Currently I go to a place that has the MLS robotic laser, which uses a specific sort of pulsed light and gets up to 25W. $150 for each treatment though, which is a limiting factor. Been living with my folks which is a blessing in my situation; otherwise I probably couldn't shell that out.

For a while I was reading up on the studies which were saying that cold laser devices in the mW range dont have enough penetration, but supposedly the intranasal route can deliver sufficient energy to the brain. For maintenance, I'll probably get the vielight device at some point which would hopefully eliminate to continuously pay for treatments

What sort of style do you play? as much as a bumpy ride this has all been, I think it has given me sort of a clarity that guitar/music is my calling in a way that was perhaps muddy before. i can be feeling super weird and out of my head for a month straight but then if i get in the right situation playing music with people it feels like all of that confusion melts away in the moment...

This is about the same as a vielight - like $5 on alibaba - or $27+ on amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/HailiCare-Ant...xpY2s9dHJ1ZQ==

The light I use was this guys recommendation. He said that it was as good as the $$$$$ BioFlex he used at an office. Sad to see though that he took down the recommendation.

It's this one:
https://www.amazon.com/Illuminators-...sr=1-4-catcorr

There are other vendors selling it.

Musicwise, writing guitar songs during the worst of my moments was a literally a life-saver. I'm at a point where it is definitely a serious future for me. I play it at work, on the streets on occasion, and I'm practicing most days now. Music is truly medicine and not just to the mind. Sound waves alter our cell membranes (like many things do) and alter our physiology in serious ways. It can make us dance, happy, sad, laugh, process trials and traumas, on so forth.

My style is primarily acoustic if I would say anything. I really enjoy fingerstyle play, but I do covers as well and am starting to delve into writing lyrical songs. In the past, I have only written instrumental.

How about yourself?

oh wow! the illuminator seems to have all the specs you'd want and benefits price-wise from not being marketed as a medical device, quite a bargain. The allergy reliever seems like it could work, although there is no indication of power rating (it says 7uC, the hell is that? not any power unit i've heard of unless i missed that day in class)

I grew up playing heavy metal but at one point caught the jazz bug, now I try to play everything but progressive rock/fusion is my jam- this is my current band:

Dodgy Boat (covered by Austin Loman Group) - YouTube

I think music is a full-body workout for the brain; at first I felt super discouraged when I would play; usually I like to stretch harmony when working on jazz standards and go for sophisticated substitutions, but the first couple months all of that felt super scrambled. Since though, it's been pretty therapeutic to rebuild that intuition, feels like it relies on a certain sort of problem-solving adjacent skill set, but in a more on-the-fly, gut-feeling sort of way compared with full on math-y analytical thinking

Nice performance, man!

"Since though, it's been pretty therapeutic to rebuild that intuition, feels like it relies on a certain sort of problem-solving adjacent skill set, but in a more on-the-fly, gut-feeling sort of way compared with full on math-y analytical thinking"

That's where I have gotten with music. I've tried to get away from the script of a song and "feel" it, which in turn leads me to enjoy and put out better vibrations.

No idea on the intranasal. I don't use it much. For me, I have so much stuff that helps the brain, but to get to basics, certain things are a better bang for their buck: the lllt light, exercise, diet, certain supplements, meditation.

I have challenges for sure with trying to do too much. So simplicity leads to better long term results for me almost always.

How Your Brain Turns Off Your Inner Critic

Title of the article:

"What Time Feels Like When You’re Improvising
The neurology of flow states."