Challenges to consider
Returning to doing what you enjoy doing in your free time after a mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) or concussion is an important part of the recovery process, one that helps get you back to who you are, doing the activities that matter most to you.
After an injury, leisure is sometimes the last thing people focus on, since medical concerns may require attention first. However, what a person chooses to do in their free time can support recovery and well-being by providing opportunities to stay active, apply skills learned in therapy, connect with their community, cope with stress, and find purpose and meaning in daily life.
Symptoms of mTBI can sometimes affect a person’s leisure by impacting their ability to:
- Plan or organize activities
- Feel confident or comfortable while participating in activities
- Transport themselves to and from activities, if symptoms interfere with driving ability
- Initiate social contact
- Obtain and/or manage finances
- Tolerate busy, crowded settings
Certain activities require more attention to safety, physical abilities, and thinking skills to protect yourself from reinjury or longer recovery.
- High-impact sports, such as wrestling, basketball, football, water-skiing, or horseback riding
- High-intensity sports or workouts, such as running or high-intensity interval training
- Driving any vehicle, including golf carts, jet skis, ATVs, and boats
- Activities involving specialized equipment, such as power tools, shooting, hunting, and archery
- Activities in intense environments that can be hard on the body or brain, such as busy, noisy concerts, or high-pressure scuba diving)
Consult your healthcare providers to learn how best to return to these activities and to receive strategies to build your confidence, endurance, and ability to manage symptoms.
Activities to consider
Recreation can provide valuable opportunities to support overall health, but it is important to pace yourself and tune into your symptoms and energy levels as you gradually increase activity. Here are some of the options to increase leisure activity at home and in the community.
- Arts: Painting, drawing, pottery, photography, woodworking, dancing, drama, knitting and crocheting, creative writing, scrapbooking, singing, and playing a musical instrument
- Community: Restaurants, movies, sporting events, museums, theaters, shopping malls, religious services, volunteering, groups and clubs, recreation leagues, and therapeutic camps and retreats
- Horticulture: Indoor and outdoor gardening, flower arranging, helping with lawn care, and landscaping
- Indoors: Board games, computers, video games, cards, reading, cooking,
models, crossword puzzles, movies, and trivia
- Outdoors: Canoeing, kayaking, fishing, camping, bird watching, walking and hiking, swimming
- Sports and fitness: Bowling, golf, aerobics classes, ping pong, billiards, yard games, weightlifting, home exercise, volleyball, and soccer
- Water-based: Swimming, water aerobics or water exercises
Pursue active recovery
Most mild traumatic brain injuries (mTBI) and concussions resolve quickly, and people fully recover. For some, symptoms may last a little longer. Research shows that using strategies to stay active from the beginning of the process promotes optimal recovery.
Here’s more information about the active recovery approach, why it works, and helpful tips to use during the process of getting better following mTBI and concussion
What is active recovery?
Active recovery means staying engaged in daily activities and letting how you feel drive how much you do, and how much you don’t do.
People’s brains and bodies need to rest for a short period after injury (just a few days) and then activity can gradually increase. It is critical to avoid activities which could result in another injury, but light activity is recommended.
During active recovery, your goal should be to slowly increase the length of time and intensity of activities, depending on your comfort levels. Be sure to stick with activities you’ve been cleared to do by your healthcare provider.
Research shows that people recover faster when they remain active and stay engaged with their social connections.
After concussion or mTBI, it is common to be more sensitive to different sights, sounds, movements, and environments. Your brain may need practice processing this incoming information to reduce its sensitivity, which can lead to overall symptom reduction.
While it may be helpful to temporarily avoid or reduce activities or time in environments that increase symptoms, avoiding things altogether or stopping things that are only very minimally bothersome may increase sensitivities, worsen symptoms, and prolong recovery times.
Why active recovery works
Active recovery works because it allows you to find a comfortable level of activity to make it easier to manage common symptoms of concussion and mTBI. The level of activity is gradually increased so you can get back to all of the things that are important to you faster and in a healthy way.
The Four P’s Strategy
To manage symptoms and pursue active recovery, try the Four P’s Strategy — plan, prioritize, position, pace — to find ways to modify participation in things like social activities, sporting events, school, and work. As you increase participation, monitor how you are doing. Consider what is working well, and what you might try to do differently.
- Plan by thinking about what you need to do in advance.
- If you know an activity may bother you, it may help to plan out breaks ahead of time or generally limit the amount of time you spend doing that activity.
- Using scheduling tools like a phone app or day planner can help you feel less overwhelmed and in better control of your recovery. Writing your plan down and setting reminders can help you stay organized and reduce the load on your brain.
- Prioritize based on what is important and on how you feel.
- Consider scheduling important things to do when you have the most energy and feel the best.
- Important activities may be tasks with deadlines, tasks someone else is counting on you to finish, or tasks that have higher importance.
- Position yourself and your environment for success.
- Environments that are noisy, bright, or busy can require more brain effort and energy. This can increase your symptoms.
- Small changes, like asking to sit in a quieter area of a restaurant, can have a big impact on how you feel.
- Pace yourself during activities that take more energy and focus.
- Plan to take regular breaks during activities and when symptoms increase.
- Doing relaxing activities like going for a short walk, stretching, taking deep relaxing breaths, meditating, listening to soft music, or spending time with a pet are active ways to rest for short periods between activities that may increase common symptoms.
