A hit to the head does not always announce itself. In a helmet-to-helmet tackle, an elbow in a pickup game, or a fall onto a hard floor at practice, the first minute may feel like nothing more than a jolt. The signs that matter often arrive later, as a headache that builds, a day of feeling off, or light that bothers your eyes only when you sit down to dinner. An entry written in the hours after the impact is how you keep those clues from running together into one vague memory.
Write the facts before the story
Start with what you can observe. Record the date, the clock time, and the place (field, court, gym, street). Write what you were doing and how the contact happened. Note who else was involved and whether anyone saw the impact. Name what hit you, what part of your head or body it reached, and which way you were moving. Keep the words plain. 'Struck the back of the head on the court floor' tells an examiner more than 'bad fall.' If you cannot remember part of the sequence, write that gap down as well, with the time you noticed it.
Log the symptoms in a fixed order
Use the same questions each time so your notes can be compared from one day to the next. Cover headache first: where it sits, how strong it feels on a simple scale you define in your own words, and whether moving or bending changes it. Then record vision, including blur, double images, or sensitivity to light. Add balance and coordination, stomach comfort, sleep, and how focused or foggy you feel. Write yes, no, or unsure, followed by a short note. Repeat the entry on a set schedule for several days, even when you feel fine. A line that says 'no change' is still information, and a blank day is a gap an examiner will ask about.
Why a benchmark is not a symptom
The Guardian Wellbeing published a piece on October 19, 2026, asking whether people really need to take 10,000 steps a day to be healthy. Its summary says that "The fitness benchmark has surprisingly unscientific origins," tracing the number to a 1960s marketing campaign for a pedometer rather than to medical research. The lesson for a head hit log is simple. A number that sounds official can still be arbitrary. When you decide whether you feel ready to go back to training or work, write what you notice in your own body rather than checking a target someone else picked. Your dated record is more useful to an examiner than a goal borrowed from a headline.
What not to write as reassurance
Do not write that you are fine because you felt fine after breakfast. Note exactly when symptoms improved or got worse, and what you did that day, including screen time, reading, exercise, and sleep. Those details help separate a bad afternoon from a pattern. If you kept playing after the hit, write that down too, with the time you stopped or continued. Leaving it out does not make the day disappear from the record, and it may make your account harder to trust later. Keep the entries factual, short, and dated, and avoid explaining away what you wrote.
When to stop logging and get care now
Some signs call for emergency care, not a note. Seek emergency help right away for a severe or worsening headache, repeated vomiting, confusion, slurred speech, unequal pupils, weakness or numbness on one side, a seizure, difficulty waking someone up, or any loss of consciousness. Do not wait for the log to fill up before acting on these. For symptoms that continue after a head hit but do not look like an emergency, bring your dated entries to a licensed clinician who can examine you in person. Bring the time and place of the impact, a list of what you have already tried, and the questions you want answered. If you are deciding whether to be examined this week, the log is a tool for that visit, not a substitute for it.
Keep the record, not the guess
The head hit entry does not diagnose anything. It gives you and an examiner a dated, consistent account of what happened and how your body responded over time. Date every line, use the same words each day, and keep the record going even when things seem to improve, because improvement can be uneven. Every setback gets an entry, and every entry gets a date. That habit turns a confusing week into something a clinician can actually work with.