Last time we talked about injury-proofing our bodies. But we all know injuries are going to happen. I hate being injured and I get really grumpy about it. But it’s happened to me enough times that I have some thoughts about how to approach it when it does happen.

You all know what I’m going to say first, right? See a doctor.

I cannot diagnose a problem and before you start throwing ideas at it, you want to make sure you’re not going to make things worse. Please do not take anything you read here as medical advice.

However, let’s be real. A GP is likely only going to help you in two ways: 1) to rule out or diagnose something major like a broken bone and 2) to send you to someone more helpful than they were. This is where it’s great to have a GP with a really good rolodex of people to refer out to.

Be patient. It may take you a while to get a good diagnosis and it’s really frustrating during the search process. Don’t give up!

But even when you have a diagnosis, you will likely take longer than you think to heal. Get an estimate from whoever you’re seeing and start asking around. I bet you have people in your life who have had the same problem and they can tell you what their experience was. Believe them. Accept it. If you happen to heal faster, great! It’s a lovely surprise. But don’t count on it. While you’re talking to those people, ask them what helped them. Try it. Accept that you may have to throw many ideas at the problem and really work at it.

Don’t RICE, POLICE.

We all grew up with Rest Ice Compress Elevate but that’s old news and the Rest part is not the accepted best practice anymore. Instead think Protect (make sure you don’t make the injury worse) Optimal Load (keep the injured part moving but in a range and with a load that it can handle) Ice (icing alone can be better for an acute injury but for something more chronic try alternating ice water/hot water if you can submerge the joint, or ice pack/heating pad if you can’t) Compress (help support the joint and keep swelling down) Elevate (helps with swelling)

Try not to get your identity bound up with who you were before the injury.

Accept that your injured body may need different treatment than your non-injured body. This is a subtle one but I get caught up in it all the time. A few years ago I had a tendon injury in one foot that was so painful I thought I had broken a bone. When I finally got it diagnosed I was incredibly grumpy because of the shoes I had to wear. Here’s what my brain had to say about it, “I am a barefoot person. I used to be a dancer, for god’s sake! I have really strong feet that can do anything. I’ve worn barefoot style shoes for years and walked all over in them with no problems. My feet are tough! I am not a person who wears arch support! And I am certainly not a person who wears a completely stiff shoe!” My problem wasn’t my foot; it was my silly brain that couldn’t let go of what it thought my identity was. I wore the stiff bootie and the stiff shoes for years while my foot healed. But I also worked to build my foot strength back safely, slowly, and carefully so now I’m back to being barefoot at home 100% of the time and back to barefoot shoes about 50% of the time.

You’re probably not going to be able to shut down your brain’s auto-response to your injury and the assault it perceives on your identity, but what you can do is notice it when it’s happening, listen to it, comfort it, and reason with it to help it accept the support you may need while healing.

Equally, try not to get your identity bound up with your injury.

Maybe your injury is forever, but maybe it’s not. Give yourself plenty of time and space to find out. Even if the injury is forever, it’s not you and it doesn’t define everything about you.

Care for the rest of your body.

The rest of your body will probably suffer during recovery because it’s trying to pick up the slack. You may not be able to mobilize, stretch, roll out, or exercise the injured part, but you can and should do all those things with the non-injured parts and more so to keep them as healthy as possible.

Don’t stretch an acutely injured part.

This is always my mistake. My first impulse when I hurt myself is “Stretch it more!!” Don’t do it.

Once you recover, don’t jump right back into the same level of movement you were doing before.

Yes, your body still remembers the skills and your mind still remembers being that person but the tissues need time to recover and build strength and mobility back up again.

Try to remember other times in your life when you were injured and how it felt like you were never going to get better. Then you recovered and you can barely remember the injury.

I’ve had so many injuries where I thought I would never get back to what I was before. And the thing is, you might not. That’s why you want to try to separate out your identity from this. But most of the time, you do recover and you move on, maybe even in a better way from before because you learned from your injury. All of those injuries I once had? I have to really think about it now to remember them. When I injure myself now, it’s comforting to think back on those past experiences to help me hold on for the long haul of healing.

Get curious.

One of the best cues I learned during my yoga teacher training was to engage my inner commentary and give it a script to use: “Isn’t that interesting?”

My foot hurts when I move it this way. Isn’t that interesting? I feel fine during the day but can’t sleep with the pain. Isn’t that interesting? I’m angry at myself for being hurt. Isn’t that interesting?

The script doesn’t change the reality but it does give you access to your own powers of observation. Your recovery (whatever recovery is going to mean for you in this situation) will work better if you are engaged with the process in an open and curious way, allowing the experience to unfold while paying attention to it.

Give it a try the next time you’re working with an injury and see where it takes you.

copyright 2020 Autumn Needles Pilates and Fitness LLC