Half a Mind to ..

Life after brain injury – one small victory at a time.

Tag: health

  • The “Palliative Label (Insight 034)

    The “Palliative Label (Insight 034)

    One of my hospital consultants once explained my condition to me in a way that, although difficult to hear, turned out to be unexpectedly helpful. That was in 2008.

    He told me that from that point onwards, all my care would technically be palliative. At first hearing, that sounds extraordinarily stark. The word carries enormous emotional weight. Many people hear it and understandably think it means that death is imminent, or that medicine has somehow “given up”.

    What he carefully explained, however, was something rather different.

    (more…)
  • Mind Pops, a challenge I didn’t expect (challenge 049)

    Mind Pops, a challenge I didn’t expect (challenge 049)

    In a previous post, I described a counting-based strategy I use to get to sleep. When that approach began to lose its effectiveness, I tried something different.

    Instead of numbers, I silently generated random, unconnected words, taking care not to repeat any of them. It felt lighter and less effortful than counting, and I wasn’t surprised to find that I could do it easily.

    That ease had a history.

    (more…)
  • A Simple Counting Strategy for Getting to Sleep (strategy 078)

    A Simple Counting Strategy for Getting to Sleep (strategy 078)

    For a long time, getting to sleep was less about tiredness and more about what my mind chose to do when the lights went out. Thoughts would arrive uninvited — sometimes anxious ones, sometimes creative ones. Ideas, phrases, connections. Perfectly reasonable thoughts, just turning up at the wrong time.

    What I needed was not silence, but less space for those thoughts.

    The basic method

    The core of the strategy is simple.

    I begin at 1000 and slowly subtract 3 each time:
    1000, 997, 994, 991, and so on.

    (more…)