Episode 33 – Understanding the invisible impacts of traumatic brain injury with Veteran and former CFL player Ryan Carey

MIND BEYOND THE MISSION EPISODE 33 — UNDERSTANDING THE INVISIBLE IMPACTS OF TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY WITH VETERAN AND FORMER CFL PLAYER RYAN CAREY

Brian McKenna

Welcome to Mind Beyond The Mission, a podcast for and by Veterans and Veteran Family members. I’m one of your hosts, Brian McKenna, and I’m a strategic advisor at the Atlas Institute and a retired Canadian soldier.

Laryssa Lamrock

I’m Laryssa Lamrock, strategic advisor at the Atlas Institute and a proud military Family member. In this podcast, we’ll be diving into real issues experienced by Veterans, former RCMP members, and their Families.

Brian

We won’t promise you that we’ll do everything perfectly, but we can assure you that we’ll be getting real about the experiences that so many of us have in common, but don’t always talk about, or don’t necessarily know where or how to talk about it.

Laryssa

We hope you’ll find solidarity in our words and experiences, and most importantly, that you’ll find a sense of hope that things can truly get better. You can live present in the moment and live life authentically.

Brian

Let’s get into it. We’re back on another episode of Mind Beyond the Mission. We’re actually here on-site again in Ottawa, which is nice. It’s good with the tech world, and we’re using a little bit of it today with our guest that’s joining us. It’s actually nice to see you, nice to be working, doing this again. We’re joined here as usual with Laryssa, and we’ve got a recurring guest coming back here. We’re going to be joined today by Mr. Ryan Carey. For folks that have not met Ryan before, very interesting guy, served in the Canadian Forces, lots of honorable service there, and we’re going to be getting into that, but we’re also going to look at the other side of what he knows about the brain.

He knows a little bit about it because also, along with his service in the Canadian Forces, he’s been a player in the CFL. We’ve actually utilized him very recently to come and do an art session with us. The artist, Veteran, and football player, Ryan Carey joining us today to talk about brains.

Ryan Carey

We all wear many hats, don’t we? There you go.

Brian

We wanted to get a little deeper into what’s actually going on physically in our brains. It’s not because we want to bypass the mental health side. In fact, we want to come alongside the mental health discussion and have a little bit more discussions along with it about what’s physically going on to that organ in our head. You look at the world of military operations, a vehicle rollover can give you an impact from the side that your body wasn’t expecting. You could be around overpressure. You could obviously be the victim of a very, very catastrophic explosion.

There’s also 15 years of pugil stick fighting. There’s just jumping out of the back of vehicles with a clunky helmet, pounding you in the head. You listen to the explanation of a parachutist as to what goes on with their body, and they’ll tell you heels, back, pelvis, knees, but sometimes they miss out what’s going on in their head, what’s going on in the brain.

Ryan

I’ll also say I’ve heard stories. I wasn’t in the Navy, but being on ship and being strapped in and being tossed all over the place. I’ve certainly been around a lot of aircraft, what’s happening to our pilots. We don’t know, but we do know that the focus right now in the world should be that repetitive blows to the head, that these small repetitive blows to the head, or repetitive energy entering the brain, however the smart people want to call it, that it’s an assault on the brain, and it’s been shown, it’s been proven in, I think, pretty straightforward science that this is a problem that we should be looking at in all areas of life. It’s that important.

We believe it’s endemic, but what’s interesting is I thought there was no hope two or three years ago, and I can tell you, going to this CIMVHR conference and seeing the good work that everybody’s doing and the level of care that people are putting into Veterans as a whole was very heartwarming. It was very good spiritually for me to be there to go, wow, there’s some people working on this because we’ve been saying this for years. It’s just the world is also full of a lot of information. It’s not like we’re, hey, we’re right.

I think a lot of people have been right about this. I’ll share something vulnerable. As you know, my father served in the Vietnam War. He did two tours. My mom said over 40 years ago, she’s like, there’s some brain damage here. She was studying to be a nurse. I think this has been going on also for a long, long time. I would say we’re at the stages of studying it where it’s fairly clear to me, and Ken Dryden, God bless his soul, he was like, “The time for advocacy is over. We need to act. We need to take action on this and get on with it.”

You know what? I see people out there doing that. I’m coaching football now. I see that. I see the change. I see the effort in the Canadian Armed Forces. It’s been very, very easy dealing with the Canadian Armed Forces. They’re implementing things. We sat and had hours of conversations with them at CIMVHR. We’ve been online with them. The collaboration’s incredible. Some sporting agencies seem to think that “No, it’s no big deal.” Eventually, they’re going to be liable because I think the science is eventually, it’s at the point where when doctors are saying “Smoking, maybe this isn’t good. We should maybe look at this,” but there was no science to back it up.

Then the fight to prove that it was, I think it’s a similar fight with brain injury. Certainly, if you join the military, and I believe that every single soldier deserves to have a much more robust medical release that assumes that they probably hit their head a lot in service.

Laryssa

I have eight questions coming out of there, Ryan. Thank you for that. I think I just want to give folks a little bit of context. You’ve mentioned CIMVHR a couple of times. Here’s an acronym that actually most military members probably aren’t familiar with. All three of us have attended this week. What brings Brian and I to town particularly, is the CIMVHR research conference. CIMVHR is Canadian Institute for Military and Veteran Health Research. Many Veterans and military members don’t realize that there is this — it’s like an international conference.

There’s 800 attendees this year focused on military, Veteran and Family health research, which I think is pretty encouraging and covering everything from traumatic brain injury and brain health, I can’t even list all the things. If people are interested, they can have a look more. I also wanted to say, I think it was pretty astute of your mom, Ryan, to talk about the fact with her nursing background that there was a brain injury there. I think the default for a lot of us because the conversations around PTSD are so prevalent that people think if there’s an issue, they automatically default to, okay, well, there’s church or memory loss, or there’s changes in behavior or whatever, it must be PTSD.

I think they’re missing the boat, as you’re saying on taking that step back and the more fulsome assessment and consideration that maybe it’s a physical brain injury.

Ryan

Yes, one of the things I’ve noticed the last couple of days, I’m certainly not a doctor. Everyone around me knows that. I can’t really assess for you where the science is at, but what I can tell you is going to conferences that used to have very little discussion of that organ in our head as a physical organ, as what’s going on, and how is brain injury impacting us. I used to not see it, and it used to really get under my skin. What I can tell people out there in our community is folks are on the file now. I can’t give you a more in-depth assessment of where it’s at because, quite frankly, when you’re doing science properly, you look to see what’s going on.

You don’t figure out what you think’s going on and then look backwards to try find the evidence for your position, which was an interesting thing that was brought up to us at this conference. I look at the schedule. I look at the talent that’s in the room. I’m also really happy to see the Canadian medical system and the Canadian Forces medical system doing beg, borrow, and steal, man. If the Kiwis and the British are doing something better than us, let’s learn that. I don’t like misplaced patriotism.

Brian

There’s no time to reinvent the wheel. Yes, exactly.

Ryan

We don’t need to do that. If they’re ahead of us, let’s hop on board.

Brian

I think Veterans can bring that to the forefront, saying, “Hey, you’re asking us to go cooperate with them in very extreme situations. Let’s keep doing that.” We make good bonds. We make good friendships in those environments.

Ryan

Isn’t that the point, though? I look back in my history, there’s a British, Australian, and American soldier in the same vehicle with me. Yes, everybody’s different, but at the same day, if that vehicle gets smacked, we’re all in there together. I don’t need a Canadian plan. I need the one that works.

Brian

That’s right. There’s only one problem at that point in your life. [laughs]

Ryan

I actually want to throw something back to Laryssa here. It actually goes to a conversation we had last night, which is how much memory and brain injury are linked. Perhaps it comes across to some of the people in our life that we’re ignoring them or that thing that they reminded us of two or three times, it ought to register in the “really matters” part of our brain, but for some reason it doesn’t. She started telling a story last night, and I could remind her of what she ate at that dinner three years ago and who was sitting across from who. Could I remember exactly what session I was going to first thing this morning, what room I’m presenting in? Could I remember my pass? I actually left the room, almost forgetting my room key. Had to jam the foot back in the door. It’s like, what do you make sense of that? It’s like, you can pull this thing out from deep dark back, remember what colour someone’s socks were, but not what someone that matters to me said yesterday.

Brian

Well, I think really what’s happening there is it’s a combination of things, right? Sure, I get the same thing. Obviously, experience a lot of head trauma. I think some executive functioning might be compromised, but at the same time, the brain’s incredibly neuroplastic. It can adjust. It can make changes. We see that when you try to make yourself as physically healthy as possible, it creates better blood flow to the brain. It gives the brain better chemicals to work from because you’re ingesting the right food because it gets neurochemistry.

It gets positive hormones come from the stomach. They’re called neurotransmitters. Again, I’m not a doctor. I’m just learning this from doctors. This is part of Operation Brain Health, which we have under Project Enlist, is talking about the importance of physical health in that. Now, if your physical health is compromised, some people have health issues. One of the things that they report right away is a foggy brain. Yes, it’s because they’re not getting that. I think that there’s a combination of things that are going on there. That’s why I believe it’s super important to make the brain healthy, especially if you’ve experienced trauma, because I think it makes sense.

A healthier brain is going to allow you the space to be able to go in and face the traumas that many Veterans face. Many Veterans face not only in war, but let’s face it, a lot of people that join the military, I’m not sure what the percentages are, they come from rough backgrounds or they come from a military background where this is just the norm, rough. Maybe they have to think deeper and go back to their childhood and go, what was going on there? Maybe they have to, and in order to do that, you need to be healthy. That’s a war you got to fight. You got to go back to some uncomfortable places.

I think you need to be physically healthy. I’ve sat in sessions where I’ve gone back to some of those places, and after it felt like I had a 500-pound rucksack on my back. I recognized that it was just really low energy. What did I do? I didn’t have the energy to do anything, but I went out for a long walk and it cleared it.

Laryssa

Yes. You and I have talked a little bit about brain health in general, and I think that could be applicable to traumatic brain injury or PTSD or any of that. You’ve talked certainly about the physical component, and it looks like you’ve done a lot of work, Ryan, to maintain and improve your own brain health. Just in the time I’m getting to know you, you do that in a number of different ways, and certainly the physical piece of it. I’d really like to learn what are other components of that brain health. I’m curious to see where you’re going to go with that because I have an assumption about something that you shared with us the other night.

Yes, what are the other components for you with maintaining your own brain health?

Ryan

Well, for me, it’s actually lowering the bar.

Laryssa

Okay. How do you mean?

Ryan

There’s times in life where you experience a little more stress. This week, for me, is one of those weeks. I had to drive to Montreal. Sorry, drive from Montreal to Ottawa for CIMVHR. Great. Had to come back here. I had to teach a class yesterday. Tomorrow, I’m heading to Toronto. Long bus ride, coaching the football game. Back late Friday night. That’s enough stress. I’m taking a break from the gym, and I’m walking because I don’t want to put my body under more stress. I’m trying to relax a bit more because the stress is out there. What am I doing? I’m doing breath work. I’m meditating. I’m spending as much time as I can with things that are important. My Family. I have my music to go to.

This is all of it. It’s understanding that, yes, you need to move. Yes, you need to eat well. Yes, you need to do things that are healthy for your brain, like walking. There’s also other really small things that you can do and you can use as tools when those ruminating thoughts show up or when you’re just feeling off. I think there’s times when you need to sit with that, and there’s times when it’s just physical, and you need to just do something so you can stop feeling like that. I think people experience that. Medication doesn’t always solve that.

That’s just something you’re going to have to eventually learn to deal with because you have an injury. You probably have a brain injury. You’ve probably been diagnosed with some type of stress injury and understand that that’s normal. Having a stress injury is that you’re going to have periods of anxiety and periods, maybe, where you’re sliding into depression. Here’s the difference. If you work on all those things, you can feel them coming on. You can feel anxiety coming on if you know what it feels like, because normally, anxiety starts in the body. Is that coming from brain injury? Don’t worry about it.

Just understand that it starts physically, and that’s why breathwork is important, because breathwork will teach you to get that under control.

Brian

For me, one of the things that happens is when I know that I’m mentally stressed and normally, from an anxiety side, the first place I feel it’s in my neck. I feel like my neck’s getting larger. I actually have stood in front of the mirror when I’ve sensed this coming on, and it actually seems like it’s puffing out, and I’m certainly getting red. That’s where I now — by now I mean dealing with this for 15 years — that’s where I know that I’ve actually crossed the line. More than likely, my guts were telling me a little while ago, but I wasn’t listening —

Ryan

The body keeps the score.

Brian

— or I was just pretending. Oh, it doesn’t ever. It keeps a score, and it reminds you that you lost the other day, too.

Ryan

That’s a really good book by Dr. Van der Kolk, just to throw out there, if you put notes in the pod. The Body Keeps the Score is a fantastic book that talks about this.

Brian

It’s one of the first ones that was referred to me. The point I wanted to throw your way is like, okay, that’s the anxiety. When I know I’ve got, when my whole system is having issues with brain injury, what’s happening is I start to get a green haze, almost like looking through coloured glass, and just like in the center of my vision. Now I’m at a point where I can tell the difference. How do those things present to you? You just mentioned feeling it coming on to a degree. What are you feeling?

Ryan

Normally, for me, it’s like an adrenaline. I literally feel it in my guts first. The only reason I really connected with that is because someone told me this years ago, and it just stuck. They said anytime you have a disturbance inside, your immediate action is silence, not to respond to it. It just is. It’s fine. Don’t react to what’s that bringing up to you. What can that bring up in you? It can bring up frustration. It can come in the form of frustration. Anger starts with something first. I was trying to manage road rage, getting angry.

Most Vets don’t agree. It’s like, oh, no, we can dial it up. That scares everybody around you. You have to learn that, okay, it’s a normal part of brain injury, PTSD, but you need to start to work on it. You have to work on that. That’s coming from a deep place that you need to go to, probably in your psychology, but again, we’re back to try to be as physically healthy as you can so you can go into those sessions. Yes.

Brian

They feed into each other. It’s like if I pretend I’m not having trouble seeing, well, then I’m pretending that I can drive to the grocery store properly. I can pretend that I can get to the end of that report review, but I can’t. Now I’m running out of time. Now I’m frustrated because my timings are off, things are delayed. All of that, in a lot of ways, probably because I ignored an indicator a little while ago. That’s me talking about how I go through it. What do you see when people are in your life, because that’s why you’re at this table, as you live with people that deal with these things.

What does it look like when you’re not in that body, but you’re watching that happen around you?

Laryssa

It’s curious because I was thinking like what’s going on for you folks, like Ryan and Brian, as you both were chatting, there’s people around you while you’re going through that, like while you’re driving to the grocery store, while you’re doing those reports, whether it’s your coworkers, your Families, there’s people around you. I can speak for myself primarily, but a lot of other Family members I talk to, at the beginning, if you guys aren’t communicating that to us, we’re taking it personally. We’re taking it that you’re disinterested, that you’re mad at us, that the relationship isn’t going well.

I think many Family members, unfortunately, and I think children too, maybe even more so, internalize things, and it’s because we didn’t clean our room properly or we disappointed them on a report card or as spouses, like I said, it must be a reflection of the relationship, or they’re pissed off at me. If you’re distracted because you’re trying to manage those other things and you forgot something that was important to me, okay, so I’m not important to you, that kind of thing. Yes, and what we’re observing is it’s hard to interpret someone’s body language. It can be interpreted so many different ways.

It could be that you’re just withdrawing and trying to manage stuff, or I could be interpreting that as you’re pissed off at me. Yes, there’s a whole bunch of stuff going on for the people around.

Brian

Yes, it’s such a challenge, too, because one of the ways I have been coached to handle some of the stressors in life is to write lists. Well, what happens when you can’t read them? That might be where the lowering the bar has to happen in my life. It’s like, well, maybe today’s not the day to repair the deck and go buy all these things from Home Depot.

Ryan

There’s a weightlifting book I read years ago, and it said if your elbow’s sore — It’s the best advice I could give, and it’s the least followed — if you’re doing an exercise and it hurts your elbow, stop doing it. How many of us just push through that? Like you said, there’s that initial pain that we don’t, but the fact that we’re talking about it allows you to recognize it. There you go. Back to this is part of having PTSD and these types of feelings, I think this is where that comes from. Very difficult for me at a point in time in my life to express that to anyone. I was ashamed of it.

Now, like I said, I’ve gone back and dealt with some of those things. I’m not ashamed to say. It just doesn’t exist anymore. We’re talking about the caregiver, the importance of the caregiver, which is often overlooked. I think there’s two things I just want to say quickly. I think one thing that the Concussion Legacy Foundation does very well is they have peer meetings for caregivers. They’re starting that, and we’re starting, right, because it’s like you’re all dealing with very similar things. We like to see the support line opened up to caregivers, and we can talk about that after, to get people help for brain injury, but it’s an administrative function.

The person with brain injury probably can’t do it all. That’s why it’s like the caregiver’s going to have to do that, is that administrative function is important. That peer group, I think, for the Veteran is important because folks who are Veterans can provide that safe space where they can come and just talk and not, yes.

Laryssa

Well, because I imagine there’s a lot to process there, and maybe I’m going to ask Ryan something that I’ve observed too. You’re saying there’s shame there. You’re ashamed to talk about it. When it comes to the point that you can’t remember. Brian, you walked into the session, you almost forgot your room key, that there’s that internal, there’s a lot to process there that each of you probably managed —

Brian

Thanks for reminding me.

Laryssa

Short-term memory loss. I’m there to help you out, buddy. Yes, the fact that you managed troops and that you were in control of things that were critical, like matters of life and death. That might sound dramatic, but it’s true. Knowing that you came from that position, that you commanded troops and were so responsible to the point that you can’t even remember three things on a grocery list, that must be frustrating. That must cause internal stress, and do you get angry at yourself for that part too?

Brian

Well, I think one of the things people often talk about body image and what they see when they’re looking back. What I see is a loss of capability, and that bothers me more. It’s like, yes, okay, who wouldn’t want to be younger and fitter? What I’m more bothered by is actually related to what you just said. Like when I’ve got to get a 16-year-old to help me mount a TV bracket, it’s like, well, I used to be the one showing you how to use the tools. Then you come to the mental health side of things, like, should I be confused by grade 8 math? No, but I can’t help my kids in the last couple of years with it. Not just because it’s changed, I’ve changed, right? It’s those things.

Yes, I relate very strongly to what you just said. That was actually one of the hardest parts of the whole brain health, mental health transition issue for me was how am I struggling to read a map? I used to make maps out of dirt and string. These were capabilities that I just pulled off the tips of my fingers. I have had to learn to give myself a break, but it is a constant struggle. Then you add into that, as soon as you get used to it, then you age, right? Because these things that happened to me, I’m not 34 anymore. At 47, where does the injury take over? Where is that just Brian forgetting stuff?

This is all part of it. One of the things I wanted to ask you, and I’m really going to go after the football player here, but compared to the other things, is the concept of squaring up. When we are about to shoot, we try and get our feet as close to parallel to a target as you can. Obviously, it has to be offset. When you’re pugil fighting, you don’t turn like William Tell shooting a bow and arrow to the side. You actually put your senses and your capabilities towards the problem. Football player squares up to tackle. Is it harder when you get hit from the side? Do you get hurt more in your football experience when you don’t see that hit coming?

Ryan

Oh, yes, 100% of the time. You’re not ready for it. Yes. That’s why —

Brian

Do you think you get injured more, though?

Ryan

I think you’re more relaxed in some cases. I mean, it’s a double whammy. The good thing that there’s a rule change because you used to be able to just drive your forehead into someone’s ear hole. The chances are it was a double whammy because you drove your forehead into their ear hole, you smashed your head, too. It’s not just that person that’s getting the energy, it’s both of you. Then when they hit the ground, maybe they smack their head on the ground. That’s not good sportsmanship. I think with the rule change, look, it’s like going to the military. You’re not going to prevent head injury, it’s not going to stop.

It’s like football, it’s not going to stop. That’s the sport. There’s a good chance. Just by changing the rules and adjusting it more so in practice, because it was happening more in practice than it was in game, so it doesn’t make sense. That’s where the military has made — I believe they’re making changes in that, which I’ve seen them react to very quickly. You know, as an NCO, and this is the message directly to combat arms NCOs, you are exposed to a lot of blast signatures because not only are you the subject matter experts for the weapons, you’re the ARSOs.

You have to throw a lot of rounds downrange to learn how to use the weapon. Then you have to show some dude that’s not as good as you how to shoot the weapon, and that just keeps going all the way up to Warrant Officer. Then you are a little less exposed, but you’ve got all that exposure the whole time.

Brian

What Ryan’s getting at here is, take the circumstance where you might get two rounds a year of an anti-armor weapon. You’ve trained and you’ve practiced, and you’ve practiced on things that aren’t an actual live munition, dummy rounds as they’re called. When you get up there, you’re going to shoot those, and it’s like being hit with a 500-pound pillow. Snot comes out of your nose, your teeth can hurt. How about the safety staff? How about the range staff? How about the assistant range safety officers that are around for everybody’s two rounds, right?

You get your two, I get my two, but that guy, if we’re not watching, could be exposed to hundreds in that day. Now, the Forces doesn’t do that.

Ryan

No.

Brian

It certainly has these limits that has put them in, and they’ve actually got more stringent as the Forces has learned more. At the end of the day, it’s not just what you pulled the trigger on, it’s what was pulled around you.

Ryan

Right. There’s two separate stories from NCOs that they didn’t serve with each other, and they were basically identical. They were ARSOs on an 84 range, and at the end of the day, both of their noses just started gushing with blood. What is — I don’t know, I’m not going to diagnose it. I’m just saying that’s —

Brian

It happened.

Ryan

That’s part of the there’s something happening in the head. That’s not accusing anyone of anything. You don’t know how to change a problem if you don’t know what the problem is. I’ve seen that. I think that’s changed recently. I think those two stories are from 10 years ago, when, hey, let’s face it, we’re ramping up for Afghanistan. Like you said, this is the other challenge when it’s feast and famine. The military gets built up and it gets torn down. Then all of a sudden, there’s a task coming up and the military gets built back up like Afghanistan. Now you’ve got to promote people. Now the ball is rolling, right? You only have so much time. Yes.

Brian

Just like you said in the football analogy, that’s the game, right? That’s how the game is played. I’ve had many people come up to me, whether it’s doctors, sometimes spouses, and say, “Why does the army do this?” What I’ll tell them is, if you love this person, you don’t want them in an army that doesn’t practice, doesn’t train, and things are fake all the time. In fact, when you go and do the business, the only thing that should be new is that the other guy means it. Everything else, you should have had that helmet, that sound, that noise, that exposure, that experience. That’s the game.

The military, I’m telling you, as far as I can prove and see, is doing the best it can. Tight G turns are tight G turns, and that pilot is still going to go through that. The sailors are still going to be up and down, topsy-turvy for six months at a time, and we’re still going to be knocked around by things. We have to, yes, mitigate where we can, but develop the system that catches people, and we have to be more aware of the injury to the brain.

Ryan

To fall back on what Laryssa was saying about what’s it like to leave that space, it’s hard. When we were in the military, it was really important. Everything we were doing, it was really important. When you’re talking about, I can’t read a map anymore but when you’re in the military, you’re reading that map knowing that, okay, I might not have GPS. I have to know how to navigate with a map and compass. You have that pressure on you. When you leave, and it’s like, you want to relax that a little bit. Maybe you don’t have that, but I think that is an understanding that everybody has to have.

You’re leaving a Family. That’s why these challenges, a lot of times, come up in transition. I think transition is important. It’s nice to see transition involved because guess who’s dealing with that head-on? The caregivers, right? Yes.

Laryssa

I’m going to change gears a little bit, but it’s kind of about transition or change. Is there a different, better version of Ryan Carey post-concussion than would have been without it? Is there something different or something you’re experiencing now that you wouldn’t have… I’m going to say the opportunity. Has this journey led you somewhere that you’ve had opportunities that you don’t think that you would have had beforehand? That might seem like a really odd question, but I’m curious to know.

Brian

He’s pensive.

Ryan

Yes. I think a few things happened. First of all, I took a good look inside and said, “Okay, what am I bringing to the party here?” I’m divorced. I have three kids. How am I going to be the best ex-husband and the best dad I can be? How can I do that? Really approaching my life from that Family perspective. Getting my days back in order, I felt like I just lost my discipline. No, maybe I needed that. Maybe I needed to be less active for a while. I can tell you when I started making those physical changes, and I started to take responsibility, not only for my own actions, but for my own health, I really started to grow as a person.

It was around that time, I recognized that I think I need to be a little more social. At that time, I was like, “I’m going to go and play music at an open mic. That’s my goal.” I played in a Grey Cup in front of 95, I don’t know how many thousand. It was in Edmonton. Now, I’ve been in the military. I’m not really afraid of a lot. Public speaking, no problem. It took me a year. My point is, all of us have — If you want to do something that’s hard in life, you’re going to struggle. It’s going to be a struggle. It’s going to be a struggle.

Sometimes when we’re talking about exercise to someone not exercising, well, that’s their struggle. How do you get to that? Well, that’s what we’re all trying to figure out, right?

Laryssa

Part of the reason for my weirdly phrased question was wondering if your injury led you to music. Would Ryan Carey, without your experiences, necessarily have gone down that path? That’s what I was curious about.

Ryan

It’s a beautiful question because I literally grew up and got a PhD in music because my dad was so musical. I literally listened to gospel, bluegrass, country, everything. Everything.

Laryssa

Your whole life. Okay.

Ryan

Music was always there for me as a therapy. I always went to it because I had a feeling. Then I was a good drummer, so I had really good rhythm. When I got back from Afghanistan, I had a bass guitar, and I’m like, no, I’m going to start learning how to play the acoustic. I just started teaching myself how to play the acoustic. Eventually, took some courses at Berkeley. Then in 2018, I saw that photo, and I really started writing a lot of songs at that point.

Brian

When she asked that question, one thing that stood out to me was, is your coaching all about slant routes and coverages or is it because you want to protect these kids?

Ryan

I told these kids two things. I said, “Don’t you ever let me hear you saying something bad about yourself. First of all, you’re all perfect. You’re all wonderful young men. You’re nice, you’re kind, you’re gentle. You drop a pass, it doesn’t make you a horrible person.” Stop saying, “Oh, I’m such a loser.” Don’t you ever let me — their psychology is so important. They need sometimes tough love because they’re young boys, but not obviously something that’s physical. They like the, hey, put your arm around them. Wait a second. “How are you today? You seem like you’re a bit sluggish.” “No, I’m good, coach. I’m good.” “Okay.” Then they make it playful. I make coaching playful. At times when they need to learn a point, hey, I pull on my stuff that I learned in the military about standing in front of a crowd and getting their attention in a professional manner. I use all of that. I teach them that actually using your head too much is a bad tackling technique, first of all. Second of all, it’ll worsen your performance.

We want the football. We’re on offense, we want to score. We’re on defense, we want to take the football from the defender. I don’t teach them to hit hard. I teach them the first person wraps up, second person takes the ball. I don’t care how hard you hit him. Just get a hold of him and wrap him up because if we take the ball out of his hand, that’s our job on defense. A bit of a cultural shift, whereas before it’s like, no, no, no. You take that and you drive that thing right into his, you try to hurt him. No, that’s not sportsmanlike. Why would you want to do that? It’s not war, it’s just a sport.

Brian

As we wind up here, I’m hoping that one of our main efforts today is that we leave people with your understanding and your explanation of those pillars of brain health. What are they? Because when people think about the brain, it’s complicated. There’s many parts of the brain. I would have expected this list to have 105 things on it. What are the pillars of brain health as the patient, as the Vet, the guy dealing with this?

Ryan

As the patient, self-managed care. Exercise, nutrition, sleep, cognitive reserve. They each involve various levels. Exercise, something as simple as walking. Nutrition, nobody agrees on what to eat, so just eat whole foods and make sure you’re hydrated. Of course, there’s things for brain health. There’s lots of information out there on that. I don’t subscribe to the cult of nutrition. Most people are under-eating. Have a good look at your nutrition and try to eat whole foods as much as you can, 90% of the time.

Ten percent of the time, live your life. Have a drink, have some pizza. Sleep, really all you can focus on in a pure role is sleep hygiene. How are you going into sleep? Cognitive reserve, that is a whole list of things. Being social. Having a task and a purpose in life. On top of doing some stuff for your brain health. For me, it’s music. This hand has to do this, my right, left right hand are doing different things, sing, play harmonica, to coordinate all that is just good for the brain, and I don’t have to think about it too much. There you go. Those four things, yes, get those into your life.

Brian

I think that’s an important message for folks, too. It’s like, yes, absolutely, see your doctor and talk to the people around you, which is something I didn’t do enough of. Let people know that you’ve lowered the bar today, and they might have to give you some space. I do really appreciate that idea of like, there are things in my wheelhouse, there are things that I can do, and there are some things that I’ve got some ownership on. Quite frankly, if I’m wondering why I’m not getting better while I’m not exercising, eating garbage, and doom-scrolling all night, well, I’ve got three answers right there as to why I probably am not doing the best with the brain I have.

Ryan

Yes, and I think we all get there at some point. I also would say that yes, most of the time when I’m not feeling good, I find something to do, and sometimes I just empty the bucket. It’s okay to relax. It’s okay to have that 20-minute nap. It’s okay. Sometimes that can make a world of difference as well.

Laryssa

Well, thanks for joining us again, Ryan. I learn something every time we have a conversation, let alone even outside of the podcast. Just thank you very much for spending your time with us again. I know we’ll be popping some information for people into the links below and stuff. Yes, good to see you again, Ryan.

Brian

Good to see you again, buddy. We saw you just the other day, but safe travels down to Toronto. Thanks for joining us again, Ryan. This has been another episode of Mind Beyond The Mission.

Brian

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Mind Beyond The Mission.

Laryssa

If this conversation resonated with you or helped you in any way, I encourage you to subscribe to Mind Beyond The Mission wherever you listen to your podcasts, so you’ll be the first to know when our next episode comes out.

Brian

If you know someone who might relate to what we’ve shared or could find it helpful, please feel free to send it their way. We’re all on the same team.

Laryssa

Plus, we’d love to hear what other topics you’d be interested in us exploring in future episodes. Brian and I have a lot of ideas and subjects we plan to dive into, but you, the listener, have probably experienced or thought of topics that haven’t crossed our minds yet.

Brian

Please reach out if this is the case. We’re on social media @atlasveteransca on most platforms. Please feel free to tweet at us, send us a message, or leave a review on this episode, and let us know what else you’d like to hear us talk about.

Laryssa

Brian, it’s always a pleasure having these important conversations with you. Looking forward to next time.

Brian

You bet, Laryssa. Take it easy.