When you are suffering from an injury, there are always two parts to recovering. The most commonly known and visible part would be the physical recovery your body goes through and the second part of the recovery process is mental and emotional, which sometimes isn’t given enough importance. 

Sometimes, people tend to forget that recovering mentally from the injuries is equally important to be able to get back to your normal life before the accident. Your mental state and how you feel at times even have an impact on how well and how fast you are healing physically. 

Why it’s important to recover mentally from an injury? 

Even though we are always trying to prevent them, injuries are part of life, whether it’s minor joint pain that heals in hours or a day, or it’s a sports or car injury that takes weeks or months to heal. However, often injuries mean taking some time off, giving your body rest and time to heal. 

A lot of people who are used to living an active life have a very difficult time trying to adjust to life or recovery. Not being able to do their favorite activities like going for a run, swimming, or weightlifting can affect some people more than others. This at times becomes the cause of stress, frustration, anxiety, depression, and loneliness.

However, not addressing what you are feeling and avoiding to recover mentally from the actual injury can have more lasting effects than you might think. Sometimes, if you don’t address how you are feeling, it can leave you afraid of reinjury or facing posttraumatic stress, even when you have physically recovered. 

Not taking care of your mental health may also have other effects on your life such as insomnia, anger, loss of appetite, weight gain because of over-eating or eating unhealthy food. Hence, to ensure you continue to live a healthy life after your recover from your injuries, it is essential that you take care of your mental recovery along with the physical one. 

How can you recover mentally from an injury?

When you are recovering from an injury, you are usually restricted in what types of activities you can do, which can be very difficult. However, there are a number of ways and things you can practice to stay positive and be able to mentally recover from your injuries along with the physical healing. 

Change your perspective 

The biggest factor that can hinder your mental recovery is how you are perceiving your situation. This might be a very challenging time for you, for a number of reasons, but try to put this time and energy you have to complete recovery. 

It also helps to keep reminding yourself that even if you are not working out or doing the activities you normally do, that doesn’t mean you are not being productive. It’s also important to understand that at this time, resting and allowing yourself to properly heal, is actually being productive. When you are able to see your recovery in a positive way, that’s doing to help bring a big change in your perception.  

Start setting goals for yourself 

Setting goals and achieving them can be a great way to feel productive and motivated throughout your recovery. However, it is important that you set small and realistic goals for yourself. You can also set smaller goals for your recovery and when you achieve them it will keep you motivated to put on more work. 

Focus on things you can control 

Sometimes when you are recovering from a physical injury, there isn’t a lot that you can do, instead of waiting and giving your body the time, it needs to heal. This time can be very frustrating for some people. However, it is important to focus on what you can control. 

You can focus and control your diet. Eat healthier and balanced meals and drink more water to compensate for the exercise that you are not able to do. Besides, depending on your injury, a lot of times doctors also recommend you a specific diet that can help promote faster recovery. 

Another great way to focus on what you can control is to learn a new skill like taking private drums lessons or just pick up a book to read.

Meditate 

Meditation can be a great way to find some preceptive, peace and deal with the stress you might be feeling for not being able to recover as fast as you would like or any other reason. When you are recovering from an injury, you tend to have time to kill, meditation can a great way to do that. Sitting still and focusing on your breathing has a calming effect on your nervous system and helps to reduce stress. 

Find a hobby 

It helps a lot when you have something you can direct your energy to, such as cooking, working on a DIY project, or anything else that you may enjoy and that keeps you occupied. You may also want to try learning a new skill or polishing an old one. These days, you could get in-home voice lessons if you enjoy singing or have instructors come to your home for anything you might want to learn. 

Follow your rehab program 

You might don’t want to hear this, but doing more rehab than what is recommended by your doctor, doesn’t help you heal faster. However, doing less rehab may slow down your recovery, so make sure you stick to the rehab program that’s recommended for you.

Do not isolate yourself

It may feel difficult but try to keep up with your normal social routine as much as possible. Regularly socializing and communicating with your friends and family will give you a sense of your normal life and help you not feel as low about the injury. 

Try to stay positive 

If you think about the injury and recovery process as a part of life, it will be easier to stay positive. It also helps to keep reminding yourself that you will get better and get back to your normal life. Staying positive will help you practice patience throughout your recovery process and get through this time smoothly. 

Keep a journal 

If you are still looking for an activity to keep you busy, keep a journal can be a great one to pick up. A lot of people recovering from injury tend to keep a pain journal to help them better manage pain. You can record when you feel pain, how long it lasts, and what helps you ease the pain.

 A lot of time, maintaining a journal can also give your doctor an insight into your condition and help them make adjustments to your medications according to what is working and not working for you. 

Practice gratitude 

Being injured or taking time off to recovery isn’t the ideal situation for anyone, but it helps your mental state if you try to think about what this time has allowed you to do. If you want you can make this break from routine very productive and beneficial for your personal life and mental state. 

It helps to look at the positives and show gratitude for the time you are getting for things like reading a good book, catching up on a show, or spending time with friends and family.