When recovering from any injury, mindset is CRUCIAL. After an injury, many negative thoughts can start to creep in....Maybe I shouldn’t be working out, what’s the point of exercise when all I do is get hurt? Great, now I won’t reach my goal that I have worked so hard for, why even try? Maybe that exercise I did is “bad.” I won’t be able to keep up with my friends.” The list goes on and on...What we need to do is shift gears, change lanes and DON’T slow down. Negative thoughts can lead to negative emotions and negative emotions can lead to negative or self-destructive behaviors.

 

The earlier we can shift our mindset and “zoom out,” the earlier we can break that cycle of negativity and get back to doing what we love to do. The only way to guarantee that you won’t get injured is to not work out or exercise at all, and I think we all know how detrimental that is to our mind, body and emotional state. That is NOT an option. When you get injured, it is ok to get upset or “fired up,” in fact that is a good thing. It means that you care about whatever it is you’re getting worked up about. However, we challenge you when you face those thoughts and emotions to not try and shut them out but rather accept them, take them in, but then start to shift your mind to getting away from “I can’t do this anymore” to “how can I do this differently.”

 

Stress on the body/mind isn’t always bad. Not only that, but research has shown that stress can be a positive thing. With all that being said, we want to be clear that although there is an upside to stress, there are upper limits, and that too much, and/or unrelenting stress can be harmful.

Each one of us experiences numerous stressors each day. In basic terms, a stressor is something that disrupts our baseline, or homeostasis. For example, when we go in a sauna the heat can be a stressor as it begins to increase our body temperature from its ideal baseline.

 

When we experience a stressor, we respond with a stress response. Continuing our sauna example, our stress response to the stressor of the sauna heat is that we begin to sweat as a way to help our bodies cool and maintain homeostasis (aka our normal body
temperature). There are many types of stressors, and they can be real or perceived. A real stressor is the physical trauma that occurred from an injury. A perceived stressor might be the feeling of a threat to our ego as we need to ask for more assistance or limit our normal activities as our bodies heal from the injury. Both of these types of stressors can cause the same hormonal response.

 

Again, we all experience many stressors, and the sum of all of these stressors is called the allostatic load. Each and every one of us has a different level of allostatic load that we can tolerate. We strongly believe that an improved stress mindset can allow for an increased potential of allostatic load (i.e. a higher amount of stress that is tolerable), and can help us better utilize our stressors for positive change. Nevertheless, we all have a point of “too much stress” where it is more than our bodies and minds can tolerate. Although it is usually a single stressor that seems to “put us over the edge,” it really isn’t that single stressor to blame, but rather the
accumulation of all the stressors (aka the allostatic load).

For example, imagine someone who just had an injury that:

• Is in their 40’s

• Smokes

• Sleeps 5 hours per night

• Works 10 hour shifts

• Has 3 young children

• Is behind on their mortgage payment

 

The amount of stress they can handle and how their body responds to injury might be different than someone who had an injury that:

• Is in their 20’s

• Is single without children

• Works part time and is able to work from home

• Is financially supported by parents and sponsors

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Why is this important? As you can see, in the first example, that individual's tolerance to accept any new stress (real or perceived) is going to be lower than the second individual. If we look at all the factors listed you’ll notice some of them are not something they can control/non-modifiable risk factors (i.e. age, length of work shift, kids) but some factors are in their control/modifiable risk factors (i.e. sleep hygiene, smoking cessation, financial management). It is crucial to focus on what you CAN control (i.e. those modifiable risk factors) and start to make small, realistic positive changes.

 

Try it...Make a list of all your daily stressors and start to brainstorm what you CAN CONTROL and then set small, achievable goals that you can accomplish daily to make progress towards reducing those life stressors.

 

Additionally, continue to read below for tips on how you can de-stress, sleep better and eat better to optimize your injury recovery. Below are a few options that can be used for actively de-stressing. The objective is to be aware of when your stress levels are rising, and to practice de-stressing with one or more of the options below.

 

There are so many other options as well... the point is to find what works best for you and to have several options at your fingertips.