How To Soothe a Battered Brain and Body
From Burnout and Beyond: Five at-home remedies to calm your nervous system!
Hello Friends,
I’d been living in my new home in Ypsilanti, Michigan for about six months, when my health terrifyingly crashed in the aftermath of head and brain injury. And I do mean, terrifyingly. Friends and family later shared that they were scared I might die. But they were holding these fears steady when interacting with me — for which I am deeply grateful.
Before we go further, Side Note: One of the reasons I’ve not written extensively about my health is because the span of it is enormous with myriad ups and downs and symptoms clearing and new ones arising or ones I thought I’d never see again coming back and others just plodding on and on and on. It’s been a lot. Each time I sit down to write about a particular window of time, I feel like I need to include all the windows that preceded it and then before I even get to the actual point I want to make, I’ve written a few thousand words…and still left out mountains of backstory.
So: I’m going to experiment with just leaping into the moment I need for what I want to share and I’m hoping you’ll understand there’s a lot of back story surrounding this moment — and it will still miraculously make sense.
With that in our hearts, let’s go!
Some the symptoms I was living through when I collapsed include: Debilitating, nonstop head pain (went to bed with it, woke up with it) that lasted a year (my fourth round of this), daily flipping and spinning vertigo (I couldn’t drive and had to lie in bed each night and not move my head an inch) that lasted three years, severe memory loss (couldn’t find my way home from the next street), and heaps more.
But what I want to focus on here is my staggering insomnia. In the beginning, I was staying awake for days on end despite popping every sleeping aid (with great trepidation) doctors offered me. Eventually, I was able to manage two or three hours a night, sometimes four. This went on for years.
Additionally, I had red hot adrenaline and cortisol shooting through my body. I could feel it course through me. My eighty-year-old dad, who had temporarily moved in with me to help, would run around the kitchen table and up and down the stairs with me in an attempt to move it out of my body. It didn’t. But the love and support of my dad sure did help!
The head injury, all those years ago, had knocked my head into improper alignment, which jammed my occiput, and impeded the flow of oxygen to my brain. And because I hadn’t received proper care for two years, things were very entrenched. It also really messed with my endocrine and nervous systems.
I share this because I learned a lot about the nervous and endocrine systems and how to nourish, calm, and befriend them. Also how to tend to our adrenals—which are tiny glands that live atop our kidneys and amongst myriad other things, help keep us out of fight, flight, or freeze.
So many people are facing burnout these days. What I experienced was well beyond burnout — but there is crossover with things that can help. As we move further into the holidays, followed by a new year, and a new administration I thought we might all benefit from some loving care to our tuckered out bodies.
Of course, during this time I was seeing my doctor regularly, and also receiving acupuncture, cupping, massage, and cranio sacral work. I was in a dangerous place. But I want to share some of the at-home things I did that helped me tremendously. In fact, they are all still part of my life.
Stinging Nettles Infusions (tea that is steeped for at least four hours!)
Nettles are a subtle and sometimes slow-to-build miracle. They nourish the adrenals like nothing else, which helps calm the entire body. They’re packed with vitamins, minerals, amino acids, polyphenols and have more chlorophyll than any other plant. They help build strong bones and provide energy, even offer relief from hay fever. And, over time, they help provide deep, healing sleep.
I followed Susun Weed’s recipe for nettles infusion (infusions are superior to capsules or tinctures when it comes to using nettles to nourish the adrenals). I can’t find the video I learned from but this is a sweet one with the same basic info. I have a jar about triple that size so I make a lot at once. In those early years, I drank gallons of this. It tastes like swamp water (you can add honey!) but I didn’t care, my body knew I needed it and that was all that mattered. (I now love the taste!)
Nettles are still a potent part of my life and probably always will be. I start daily infusions a month or so before hay fever season and whilst I largely sleep quite well now, if I ever go off, I’ll start up with some fresh batches. I consider nettles infusions one of the kindest, most wildly nourishing things I can do for my body and mind. I get mine from Mountain Rose Herbs but there are many good sources out there. Or you can grow your own!
Also: Susun Weed wrote this phenomenal book on menopause. When menopause kicked in on top of all the head and brain injury challenges, this book saved me!
Magnesium
Magnesium is an essential nutrient and mineral that a lot of us are lacking. It helps with everything from bone health to digestion to relaxing muscles. But the reason I love it so much is it helps with sleep. Because of this, I take it right before bed. There are a few forms of magnesium and they help with different things. I’ve been using this brand for years now; it’s geared toward relaxation and sleep. But you might want to check around to see if there’s a type you prefer. Be mindful with dosing, as too much magnesium can lead to diarrhea.
Passionflower
Because I rarely slept more than three hours a night for seven or eight years, I became terrified of going to bed (I’ve self-diagnosed myself with sleep trauma!). Passionflower is known for reducing anxiety and over time I discovered if I could quiet my anxiety around falling asleep, I could usually fall asleep! It also helped me fall back asleep if I woke in the middle of the night. These days, I largely sleep well. But I can still, at times, experience some of that old bedtime fear. So I keep a bottle in the house. This is the tincture I use. You can also use a dropperful during the day if you’re facing stressful situations.
⭐️ Of course, before taking any herbs or supplements, please check with your doctor — especially if you’re taking medications.⭐️
Saying my name
I’ve never shared this with anyone before, but in the early months when things were still very bad, I started saying my name out loud at random times: Jane Gwendolyn Ratcliffe. Washing the dishes, walking in the back garden, making my bed. I was never doing so intentionally. My name would just pop out! But I felt the healing power of my name. It felt weighty and revelatory.
After doing this daily for about a year, I happened to be watching a special by financial advisor Suze Orman and she encouraged the women in the audience to stand up and say their names aloud. She said it was the first step in owning your power and being proud of who you are. This rang true for me. I felt I was also honoring my lineage. Maybe try it and see what it stirs in you!
EFT
Emotional Freedom Techniques aka tapping. There’s so much to say about EFT and not enough space. Many of you will already be familiar with it. If you’re not, it’s basically tapping on the start point of the body’s twelve meridians to release negative emotions and experiences. This isn’t as woo-woo as it may sound. There’s mountains of research to show this technique can help with anxiety, depression, trauma, sleep, and much more. The VA has approved it for help with war veterans.
I was lucky enough to start working with the highly gifted Amy B Scher back when she was doing one-on-one sessions and I haven’t the words for how much it helped calm my mind, my heart, my nervous system. These days Amy is offering group sessions that involve more than EFT and I find these monthly tune ups help keep my nervous system calm and healthy. And Amy is one of the kindest, most generous, down-to-earth people I know. Her own healing journey is remarkable — for one thing, she healed herself from severe late-stage Lyme disease. (She wrote this incredible book about her journey, which Elizabeth Gilbert blurbed!) And she wrote this beautiful essay for Beyond back in the early days!
You can also do EFT yourself without a practitioner guiding you. That’s one of the beauties of it! I do it whenever I’m feeling particularly stuck and I always feel better afterwards. There’s lots of material available online or in books. (Here’s Amy teaching the basics!) It’s simple and potent.
There’s more I could add, and perhaps one day I shall, but sometimes lists can be overwhelming — and I want this one to be helpful, not exhausting.
If these helped pulled me out of the extreme place I’d landed, I’ve no doubt they can help with burnout. I’ve recommended them to friends and they always feel the difference. I’m amazed at how often these days people comment on what a calm person I am. My nervous and endocrine systems and I have been on quite a journey. It’s good for me to remember that the body can heal!
I hope this may be of some help to you, friends! Wishing us all happy, healthy, calm holidays full of at least some of the things, if not all, that we’re dreaming of. And that the new year is kind to all of us as well as to the planet and her animals.
xJane
If you enjoyed this post, you might also enjoy this essay about how walking my neighbor’s dog helped me heal from head and brain injury that originally ran in The Sun Magazine:
Thank you for being here, dear Beyonders! ❤️ Your comments (and hearts) mean so much to me. I read each and every one. What’s helped you get into a more loving relationship with your body?
My journey of chronic illness is a drop of discomfort to your ocean of pain, Jane, but your experience resonates with me. I especially appreciate the reminder about EFT, which I've tried before and will now try more enthusiastically, and the stinging nettles infusion, which I have not tried. Thank you for sharing (a snippet of) your complicated, difficult story so others like me may benefit.
Thank you for sharing this. All the struggle is unfair but I personally found so much meaning in being able to pass onto others what helped me. And I'm so glad some of that is what helped you, too! Love you.