When Concussion Collides with Menopause

When a brain Injury, menopause, and trauma intersect, it can be a nervous system train wreck.

In my solo episode, perfectly timed with Brain Injury/Brain Health Awareness Month this March, I humbly share how a mild injury while recently vacationing in Mexico reactivated old symptoms and emotions connected to a previous traumatic brain injury in 2015. 

This story highlights how brain injury, hormonal shifts, and stored trauma can amplify nervous system dysregulation. But this retelling of a mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) goes beyond fatigue, fog, headaches, and heightened emotional sensitivity. It's a story of community and navigating self-compassion. Ironically, three comunities I have benefitted from and deeply invested in to promote their work suddenly became more meaningful. Those communities include Love Your Brain Foundation, Broken Squirrel Wellness, located in the Comox Valley, BC, Canada, and the Brainnovation Network.

If you are experiencing brain injury, nervous system dysregulation, psycological symptoms associated with menopause, or all of this above, this episode is for you. You will learn about cutting-edge innovative tools and strategies for support and healing, and how to access a variety of resources no matter where you live in the world.

Resources (not affiliate links)

• Donate to LYB and make brain injury support more accessible
• Broken Squirrel Neurolounge
• Join the Brainnovation Network Community
• Symphony Brain Performance
• The Concussion Nerds Podcast 
• Episode 67: Yoga Nidra

Transcript

Welcome back, my listeners to a solo podcast. 

This is an important, albeit brief light on information and heavy on meaning and emotion Podcast episode.

And I'm bringing this to you at the tail end of March. How apropos, because March is widely recognized as Brain injury Awareness month sometimes recognized as Brain Health Awareness month. And honestly, I didn't expect to be personally initiated into that awareness this year, but here we are. Life has a way of doing that, doesn't it?

Of bringing you exactly what you didn't ask for or maybe what you're meant to understand more deeply. Literally like boning you on the head saying, pay attention, and that's what happened. Here's the truth. Recently on a vacation with some dear friends down in Mexico, I hit my head. Not a dramatic cinematic kind of way.

Just enough, though, enough to remind my body of something it has never forgotten, because in 2015, I sustained a more severe traumatic brain injury, and in an instant that hit on that head, sent me right back, right back to 2015. Not physically in the same way, but neurologically, emotionally, and somatically.

The body remembers. It was like my nervous system said, oh, I know this place. And here's where it gets layered, because this isn't just about brain injury. This is about midlife. This is about the menopause journey per to post. This is about trauma that lives in the body, waiting for the right or wrong moment to resurface.

 And this is the overlap that no one talks about. We tend to silo things. Brain injury is this, and menopause is that. And trauma is something entirely different, but the body doesn't work that way and the brain doesn't work that way. And the nervous system definitely doesn't work that way.

When estrogen fluctuates and eventually declines during perimenopause and menopause, it impacts our cognitive function, our mood regulation, our sleep architecture, and neuroprotection and inflammation in the body and the brain. And when you layer that on top of a brain that has already experienced injury, you don't just get symptoms, you get amplification, you get sensitivity, you get unpredictability, and you get a nervous system that can move into dysregulation much faster and take a lot longer 

To recover and then add trauma on top of that because trauma isn't just a memory, it's a psychological imprint. So when something happens, like another hit to the head, your body doesn't just respond to the present moment. It's actually responding to the past. And so that's what I've been navigating recently.

Not just physical recovery, but a whole system, recalibration. I almost feel like I have to go back to square one and start the work all over again, but this time is different. My nervous system, she speaks. There's a certain humility that comes with this because no matter how much you know, no matter how much you teach, no matter how much you preach, no matter how much you've worked on yourself, the nervous system will always tell the truth.

And mine has been really loud in these past days. Maybe it has been all along, and the hit on the head was a wake up call. Who knows? and what comes with it. There's fatigue, overwhelm, moments of fog, several moments of tightness around my scalp. And then there's emotional sensitivity that feels disproportionate, but it's probably not disproportionate. It's just being protective.

And this is where compassion becomes more than a concept. It becomes a practice. We've heard it before. Surround yourself in community. Community is healing. I get it. One of the powerful things of community that I have found is the Love Your Brain Foundation community. And here's where the timing feels almost poetic.

Because this month also marks the first summit hosted by Love Your Brain Foundation, an organization dedicated to helping people with brain injuries, build resilience through science-backed programs, and most certainly community. And I'm registered in the summit. I'm also a registered facilitator When I went through the Love Your Brain Yoga teacher training, something inside me stirred.

I was led into the teacher training from a friend who sustained a fairly traumatic brain injury. She put me on to Love Your Brain, I loved it so much. I took my second level teacher training and became a facilitator, and from time to time I co-facilitate a program offered by the Love Your Brain 

and I'm sharing the teaching with my fellow Canadian Forces vets.

And, of course, I too am one of the people with a brain injury.  

Life in its irony has placed me right in the intersection of learning and living this work. But what I love about the Love Your Brain approach is this, they don't just focus on recovery as an outcome. They focus on resilience as a process through mindfulness, through yoga. And through shared experience, because healing doesn't happen in isolation, it happens in connection.

And then there's another community that became deeply personal for me very quickly and surrounded me immediately when I shared what had happened. Because they get it too. And that is Broken Squirrel Wellness, located in my community here in the Comox Valley on Vancouver Island. This is also where I teach a menopause strength class.

And, as a Canadian Armed Forces veteran, I was receiving much of their care and treatment for my post-traumatic growth journey. So I know their work deeply. I respect it. I needed it, but I hadn't needed it this badly until now or so I thought. So in that moment that I shared what happened, the owners, Tanja and Dawn, they didn't hesitate. There was no delay, there was no over analysis, just immediate care, support and presence.

It's one thing to understand the importance of brain health is an entirely different thing to be held by people who live and breathe that work when you are most vulnerable. Their approach is cutting edge and innovative. Yes, but more than that, it's deeply human and that matters, especially when your brain and your sense of self feel a little wobbly and unsteady.

Let me tell you something about their recently curated high tech healing space, their Neuro lounge. It is a high tech healing space that blends neuroscience, bioenergetics and innovative wellness tools that support your brain, your body and your nervous system literally from the inside out.

This is next level nervous system care designed for the injured, designed for those navigating burnout. Managing chronic stress and pain or simply wanting to feel sharper, calmer, more energized, and more in control of themselves.

They use wellness tools such as the shift wave, a full body sensory experience. The Beamer, which is a pulsed electromagnetic field to boost microcirculation and support cellular repair. They have the neuron photobiomodulation light therapyIt's a red light therapy that sends wavelengths to stimulate brain cell metabolism to support cognitive clarity and promote deep cellular healing. 

 It sounds incredible. It sounds all so very interesting, and it sounds like this is where western medicine is finally taking a lead and getting away from pharmaceuticals, and getting back into the body's own ability to heal. 

There's another layer though I wanna add to all this, and that's the work of Brainnovation Network 

Whose mission it is to create access to better Brain health solutions. Taking the approach that brain health is a whole body health approach. And this is an online care network that supports chronic conditions and managing pain to improving everyday wellness and vitality and performance while treating the brain and the body together to optimize health, accelerate healing, and improve overall quality of life.

I've been involved in developing their perimenopause and brain health pathway, which is a program designed to help women understand what's happening in the brain during perimenopause. Why clarity, mood, and sleep shift during this tumultuous transition in our lives. And what practical habits can support long-term brain health.

And now after my recent hit on the head, this work feels different, more embodied, more urgent, and more real. Because I'm not just teaching it, I'm living it. And there's something surreal about all of this converging in the month of March, brain injury awareness month. A new injury, a summit focused on healing, and community showing up in ways I didn't expect.

That work now suddenly feels like it's speaking directly to me. And it's so ironic, but it's also very clarifying and humbling to say the very least. Because what this has opened up for me more than anything is this, I have a deeper well of empathy and a wider capacity for compassion.

And this doesn't stem just to others, it's stemming toward myself. There's a version of me that would've pushed through this. Minimized it, dismissed it. Even tried to stay productive to avoid it. But that's not the version of me that exists anymore.

This version listens, pauses, and honors the signals, and maybe that's the real work of midlife. not becoming someone new, but learning how to be with yourself in a completely different way. So if you're navigating brain fog or hormonal shifts, old wounds resurfacing in new ways, please hear this.

You are not broken. You're certainly not alone, and your body and nervous system. They're responding and support matters. Community matters. Compassion, especially self-compassion matters most of all.

And if you're listening to this and recognizing yourself in any part of it, the fatigue, the fog, and the emotional upheaval, there is support available if you live in the Comox Valley. Go check out Broken squirrel. The link is in the description below. See all their offerings, including their neural lounge.

And just for anyone listening, support is also available through the Love Your Brain Foundation. They offer free six week mindfulness programs for individuals with brain injuries and even their caregivers. There's also a program for vets and for PTSD.

It's a beautiful structured way to begin reconnecting with your nervous system in a safe and supportive environment. And these programs are free because of fundraising and donations.

So whether you feel called to participate or to support, you're part of making this work accessible and you can find more information in the show notes, including my fundraising page. I am currently fundraising for the Love Your Brain Retreat coming up this May in Oregon. Every donation helps make these experiences accessible to someone who truly needs them. 

I would love for you to support.

But there's one thing I wanna offer you right now. If your nervous system is feeling tender or overwhelmed or just tired. I recorded a yoga Nidra practice last March, episode 67 on this podcast, which honestly feels a little poetic now because even then I was speaking to this deeper need for rest regulation and reconnection.

Yoga Nidra is a guided practice that allows the body to rest deeply while the mind stays gently aware. It's one of the most supportive tools for nervous system regulation, brain recovery, and emotional integration. I took a deep dive into the practice and the training on my Facilitator training, and now it's become a regular staple in My restorative yoga class that I provide weekly in my hometown. I invite you to go back and take a listen to that episode, Episode 67. The link is in the show description.

Thank you for being here and for listening not just to this, but to yourself. Midlife is not a hormonal transition entirely altogether. It is a neurological reckoning, and when a brain injury and trauma and hormonal shifts intersect, what you may experience isn't dysfunction. It's a deeply intelligent nervous system asking for support. Time we stop seeing our bodies as problems to fix and start seeing them as systems asking to be understood, to recognize what feels like too much, might actually be information. That dysregulation is not dysfunction, that dysregulation is actually communication.

And being the true Gemini, that I am a communicator at heart. I needed to communicate with you my story 'cause I know there are so many others going through this and for me to share it with you It's been my healing the first step 'cause the first step is always trying to make some sense of it all, while also giving yourself forgiveness and compassion.

So if this resonated with you, I invite you to share it with someone who might also need it. And as always, take care of your brain, take care of your body, and take care of your nervous system.