Today I spoke to a couple who shared with me that after the wife’s concussion, she was told that she should feel better in a few months and if not, then she should seek extra help.
She did feel like her symptoms resolved eventually, but then a couple of months after that, she started having new symptoms.
These new symptoms were not things that are typically associated with concussions, as far as they knew.
These were things like irritability, anger outbursts, and anxiety.
Please know that these emotional challenges CAN be concussion-related. And tell all your friends! I would love to see these things become common knowledge.
Let’s talk about irritability really quickly.
When someone has a concussion, their brain ends up expending much more energy than usual on simple tasks, and therefore gets extremely fatigued very quickly.
Because of this, and other factors, such as dealing with all of their other symptoms and associated changes to their routines, their emotional threshold is lowered and they may become more irritable or angry than previously.
We’ve all experienced irritability at one point or another (think of times when you haven’t eaten in a while and you’re hangry, or when your hormones are fluctuating, or you’ve been dealing with a lot of stress and things that would normally not bother you feel suddenly intolerable), so we should have at least a hint as to what it’s like for our friends with concussions.
Here are a couple of ideas for how to handle irritability, whether it’s due to a concussion, or you’re just having one of those days:
1— Take a break. It doesn’t need to be long, but removing yourself from the stressors and giving yourself some time to breathe can make a huge difference.
2— Breathe. Into your belly — the bottom of your ribcage should expand in all directions if you’re doing the diaphragmatic breathing properly. Try breathing in for 4 seconds, out for 6 seconds, and pausing for 1 second before breathing in again. Put your tongue at the top of your palate, just behind your two front teeth, and do your breathing through your nose.
3 — Apologize if you need to, and be patient with yourself. Give yourself some grace. It doesn’t help to layer on the negative emotions of guilt or shame when you’re already struggling— that just makes everything heavier.
4 — Practice Mindfulness. Be present, in the moment. Let go of all the other thoughts clamoring for your attention and focus on what is happening right now.
Cheers,
Bethany