Hello i know I haven't been on here for a while. I had a subarachnoid Hemorrhage at the end of November 2018 and started a foundation degree in September 2019.
I have been doing ok for a while but I think studying is now effecting my day to day My fatigue is making everything a chore, I'm now falling asleep at 630pm and sleeping through. Also, I am waking up between 430/5 am each morning which isn't helping with the fatigue. Please can anyone help with any ideas on how to deal with this, I have decided to contact my tutor and try and organize a study plan, but if anyone has any other ideas i would appreciate them. I have also started u[p running but I feel this does not help with the fatigue, I want to exercise to lose a bit of weight so any suggestions would be great.
Many Thanks, Everyone
Chrissy
Written by
chrissycornwall
To view profiles and participate in discussions please or .
Hi Chrissy, I suffered a TBI when I was half way through my Chemical Engineering degree and subsequently completed it, so I have been in a similar situation to yourself. I still suffer from fatigue nearly 9 years later and it is something that you will develop methods to work around it. I suppose that it will vary from person-to-person as to what works best for them personally, but speaking for myself, I find that following some simple principles have helped.
One thing that I can definitely say (that I've posted on here before,) is that, don't be like me and get the idea stuck in your head that just being 'gnarly' and making yourself excessively tired to 'work through' your studies will be worth it. It isn't. Any 'gains' that you will make in doing work with be far outweighed by the fatigue/sleep debt that you will find yourself in.
It sounds like that your a 'lark' like me. As in, you will fall asleep early and rise early. Although you fall asleep earlier than me! I have quite a mechanistic view of the world (due to a predominantly right-hemisphere injury,) and I read as many books about factual things as I can. For sleep in particular; I recommend reading "Why We Sleep" by Mathew Walker. That book is written for average person, but I think that people with brain injuries can take some of the principles from that book and combine it with their additional sleep requirements to optimise the way that they live.
How I live isn't 'optimal'. Yet. But I am working on it and I hope that it will keep improving in the future. Here are some of the things that I have picked up from reading and my own experiences:
Walker says that humans should aim for at least 7-8 hours of sleep a day. Now, taking this as a baseline, I think that people with brain injuries should aim for that as a minimum. There is also the idea of 'cognitive bandwidth', that I try to account for too. By that, I mean that our brains can only process a finite amount of information per finite amount of time. That means that you will probably want to take a break every so often to refresh or reboot your brain. This doesn't necessarily mean going for multiple naps during the day (as this will likely affect the quality of your sleep at night,) but I just mean that having a quiet period by yourself as often as you can. Speaking for myself, this means silence with no distractions. No TV's computers or phones, just quiet. For you it might be different. As you are going to sleep in the late afternoon, you might want to consider adding an afternoon nap or siesta into your day and see if that helps you. People from around the Mediterranean don't do it for no good reason! Walker addresses that we may have actually evolved for biphasal sleep in the book that was aforementioned. Personally. I wouldn't nap for more than half an hour in the day though, as your sleep at night will suffer.
The fact that you can run still is great. I'm hoping that I will be able to run in the next few months too! If I was you, I would run in the late afternoon, eat a meal and then get a warm shower so that your body will be cooling down in the evening (which aids sleep,) and then call it a day.
Hopefully some of that is useful for you. I may write an article or make a pdf document one day as I find myself typing some of the same items on here again and again.
Thank you for the information, I have contacted my tutor to try and sort a study plan for uni, as it is really frustrating dealing with this. I am the sort of person who wants to be back to my normal self, but I know that won't happen as things have changed
Interesting to read your reply. Having a right hemisphere injury must be good for engineering in a weird way. You are conceptual seeing the world in details rather than experience possibly. Did you have depression? Depression is the repetitive cycling of thoughts from the past apparently and anxiety is the repetitive recycling of thoughts about the future. I was the other way around, the working brain got the brunt and I lived an experiential life in the right brain, truely an astonishing phenomenal experience, pretty strange to get used to but amazing later. Have written many posts on visual weirdness including internal visuals, like nirvana as Jill Bolte Taylor describes it. Floating in a timeless black eternity with later geometric patterns and then mythological beings, just like the DMT experiences. That experience is basically an increase of right brain activity as seen from the scans. Not a single thread of depression, plenty of euphoric feelings. Anxiety came later with issues building up but nothing from the past.Had loads of fatigue but seem to have solved that by getting my visual processing corrected in some cases then wearing tinted glasses for other conditions, nothing solves the LED, fluorescent frequency light issue. I did think though that it's such a common problem and many people experiences the flicker and as you are an engineer, that the problem could be solved, maybe, by designing a screen with a transformer that would increase the frequency to over 120hz, very bright yes but the screen could be filtered off screen to lower the brightness. It seems it's the frequency that may be the issue, normal brains can't see the flicker above 50-60 hz but brain injury people can, so increase and filter. I got glasses that work for bright light but they have no effect in frequency lighting. The glasses are so good that there is absolutely no physical or cognitive fatigue.
Cognitive bandwidth is a good way to put it, attentional space is how I see it, it's the same thing. Only so much info can come in and get processed at a time so lowering the input and processing is a good idea. My conceptual world collapsed including my auto functions. I made up a program of making new auto functions through meditation and mindful repetitive actions, not just that but building a whole structural platform to build off. And amazingly it all worked. I'm currently in Uni doing a masters in mindfulness based approaches. My version is nothing like the current 'standard' clinical models, they have tried these on brain injury patients but have got nowhere so far in their published papers. I think I know why and that's what I'm working on.
Ah seemed to have rambled on, was interested in the hemispheral aspect of your BI.
Pinkvision, there was quite a lot to go at in your post. In general, right-hemisphere lesions or damage tend to mean that you will be less susceptible to depression and that is true for me. Sure, I will have times where I feel 'down' or not great, but not depressed. Yes, I was probably always considered to be more 'left-brained' anyway, but my injury has really exaggerated some of my traits post-TBI. The right-hemisphere is known for seeing 'the big picture' or 'the whole' whereas the left hemisphere is typically acknowledged for observing things 'close-up' or mechanistically.
. If you are interested in the differences of the two hemisphere's, Ian McGilchrist's "Master & His Emissary" is an absolute masterpiece. I've recommended it on here before. Be warned though, it can be quite heavy going at some points, but it's a very rewarding book that covers neuroscience, general science, psychiatry, philosophy, literature and the arts. Any posts that I make on here will never do the book the justice it deserves. It did take him 14 years to write it!
It is interesting to read some of your comments on fatigue, to do with the 'brightness' of light and their frequencies. I would need to read more of the science behind light "frequencies" effects on cognition.
I have a 'larger' idea or theory that maybe I will write about one day, but that is probably too big a project for me to take on right now. Your Masters sounds like it would have some interesting ideas in it. I agree that there are a lot of misconceptions about treatment for brain injuries and I have some ideas/theories about potentially more effective treatments from my own experiences. I may write these 'hacks' into something coherent one day. These would be based on me rationalising science that I have read and then experimenting on myself for what works. "Mindfulness" has been around for millennia, but I have a simple idea about how that works.
I did a full-time degree as a mature student before my TBI - so I get the pressures on you.
Have you asked for formal accommodations to be made for you, so that you can have longer for completing assignments and exams? Plus do you need anything to support you with note taking in lectures, to take some of the pressure off you? Check your student handbook for your best point of contact, or talk to your tutor?
Be aware that cognitive fatigue and physical fatigue are often bi-directional - physical fatigue can impact your cognition - and also trigger the wretched post exertional malaise over the following days. So while physical activity stops you de-conditioning and so getting more tired, it can also knock you out for a day or so - I'm still trying to balance this myself, it's tricky.
So go gently on your runs - or perhaps start by walking for short periods, and gradually build up, and work out what's ideal for you?
I found when I was studying that getting out for a ten - twenty minute walk during the day was really helpful for me.
As Guppygould mentions, try to break up your study time by taking 10-15 breaks at least once an hour. I lay flat on the floor and use a meditation app to zone out.
Hope this helps a little - and try and have a really good break over the Christmas (that's pretty difficult though) so that your fatigue is on the low side when you start your new term / semester.
(The trick with fatigue is to try and take a break before you need it)
Just to second Jen's suggestions about reaching out to the university for support or provision's to be put in place for you. Mine were very supportive of me when I returned after my TBI.
Have you applied for disabled students allowance (DSA)? With DSA you can get help from a specialist study skills mentor & also a specialist mentor. Alongside this you get access to special equipment which can make studying easier (speech to text, mind map software etc) & you get special adjustments put in place (deadline extensions, longer to complete exams & in non Covid times a room to yourself).
Maybe back off the running for a while? Could you do a gentler form of exercise instead? Something that might help with fatigue? I find regular exercise really helps my fatigue. It balances out the mental fatigue.
Content on HealthUnlocked does not replace the relationship between you and doctors or other healthcare professionals nor the advice you receive from them.
Never delay seeking advice or dialling emergency services because of something that you have read on HealthUnlocked.
Brain Fatigue...Again.
Fatigue management course
Fatigue getting worse..
Fatigue - boom or bust?
Managing fatigue - any tips?
