Physical injuries happen every day. They can occur in workplaces around the world. Anyone who is unlucky enough to experience one likely knows that this type of incident can reshape life priorities to such a degree that it can be difficult to maintain motivation. Unfortunately, physical injury and depression afterwards can go hand in hand.
If you were previously very ambitious, now you must manage that ambition with a degree of limitation and maintain that. So, how do you boost your mental health if post-injury depression sets in?
Here are some tips for staying as happy as you can after a bodily injury.
Do what you can, even with an injury
If you have an injury that prevents you from walking or moving as well as before, it doesn’t necessary mean a life sentence being immobile. Modern strides in medicine are amazing and constantly redefine what is known about disability.
In particular, physical therapy sessions can help you slowly relearn to walk and regain those motor skills and strengths under the guidance of a dedicated professional. The rehab expect will help you form a personalized plan of recovery, based on the type and extent of your injury.
For amputees, there is a growing availability and utility in prosthetic limbs that help a walking pace slowly become achievable. A spine surgeon can help you overcome spinal disorders and affilications with careful precision.
It’s worth checking out these options to improve your physical abilities and, in turn, boost mental health as you gain more bodily confidence. That’s useful when a physical injury and depression combine.
Keep your mind sharp
Your mind is only as sharp and able as you allow it to be. Retired people often face this malady. Faced with nothing to do, with their best years of productivity behind them, some elderly people spend their days ‘relaxing’ and feel they make little contribution to society now that they aren’t employed.
While retirement can be relaxing and peaceful for the first few weeks, it can quickly deaden to your spirit. The same issue is true of a sedentary lifestyle after a physical injury.
As a result, some people experience post-injury depression. It’s important to keep your mind active, learning and engaged. Read, take up a new hobby, meditate, keep up social relationships, and more.
Meaningful friendships are essential to daily happiness. Positive friends make life worth living, so make the most of them.
Assess what’s important to you
A traumatic life event like a physical injury can make you stop and reassess what’s important to you. You might have taken some things for granted before the injury happened, and so now is your time to develop your inner maturity and understand just what in your life means the most.
Many people who suffer traumatic events often say that while the event was very difficult to deal and come to terms with, they wouldn’t change it because they ‘wouldn’t be the same person today.’ Keep this in mind during your difficult recovery period. Thinking this way can give you emotional strength that wards off post-injury depression.
Physical injury and depression: The power of thoughts
Fortunately, even people with long-term physical abilities have proven that these limitations are mostly a state of mind, and you can still achieve phenomenal things, depending on how you view your potential. However, if you’re not used to relying on the inner strength that these situations require, you might feel as though you have to re-learn life entirely. And that is no small undertaking.
For this reason, many people find their mental health deteriorate after a physical injury and depression comes on slowly with time. It’s a terrible thing to have happen.
Just because you experience a physical limitation though, no matter how permanent, it doesn’t have to dictate your inner life. Try to appreciate the beauty of being alive.
I wish you the best of luck with your recovery.
One of my blogger friends sent me a link to a book that contains exercises to help a person heal faster after surgery. So much can be said for tending to one’s mental state in order to help their physical state.
Wonderful. Quite right about the physical/mental connection, Jeri x
Great post! Really needed to hear this, thank you!
That makes me happy <3
“Do what you can”, always think this is all anyone can do, in any circumstance. A person should never be criticized for doing what they can although, some may use it as such, if so this is so, so wrong.
To progress, re-build you may find the ‘do what you can’ naturally, not forcefully, increases with each passing day.
Today’s society, as well as possibly ourselves, can more often than not, expect too much, therefore applying, adding unnecessary pressure and/or stress.
Thank you Christy, I needed this today :-)
Oh sweet friend xx Do take care <3
Nice read. Very helpful
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