Rehabilitation on Sunnaas Hospital
Week 5 at Sunnaas: Ready for round 2. Learning to fly (again)
02 January 2025
Then I was back at Sunnaas for part two of my stay here.
We start with a new round about Brain Fatigue, It affects 50 to 70% of those who have had a stroke or traumatic brain injury, It is characterised by a lack of energy and exhaustion, and it takes little physical or mental effort before you become exhausted.
We gained a deeper insight into what it is and which factors trigger brain fatigue and what you can do in your everyday life to live with it.
Hearing and learning about how the brain has lost capacity after an injury, means that I better can understand how it affects me in my everyday life, and why I quickly get tired and exhausted when I do the same things as before, and that I must learn to reduce and distribute what I have to do over a longer period of time than before. It is not easy when you are basically an impatient soul as me😳.
Link to information about Fatigue from Sunnaas
Some good advice that can help when you have brain fatigue.
- Take fatigue into account when planning work and leisure activities. Adapt activities to the energy level you have today, and assume that this is your new energy level.
- Prioritise the activities that are most important, and make sure that you adjust how much you will participate according to your energy level. For many, energy saving is absolutely necessary in everyday life. What must be prioritised today? What tasks can wait?
- Organise your day so that you set aside time to rest before or after demanding activities. Mark in the calendar when you are going to rest, and stick to this.
- Avoid situations you know are particularly demanding if they are not important to you. Learn to say no when necessary.
- Tell those around you why you occasionally need to take a break to do what you have planned to do.
- Physical activity and exercise can be useful and can provide better sleep quality. Feel free to choose an activity you know from the past that you think was pleasurable, but start at a low level and adapt accordingly. If you become exhausted and tired, you have gone too hard. End exercise and activity well in advance of going to bed.
- Establish regular sleep habits. Go to bed and get up at about the same time every day. Arrange the bedroom so that it is dark and properly tempered. Do not use the room for TV, PC and mobile.
A short week here, but again a very educational week, the focus has been brain fatigue, now I understand better why I get tired all the time.
I imagine a semi-empty battery that is only charged 40% at night, and that getting up, eating, showering, getting dressed, cleaning a bit, shopping for food, is what uses up this 40%
So what about all the other things that have to be done, be social, work...., so yes here there must be prioritised and planned on a different level than before🤔