How to Mentally Recover from a Serious Injury or Illness

After facing a serious physical injury or illness, it’s easy to focus solely on the physical recovery process. However, it’s important to remember that injuries and or illnesses can also have a significant impact on your mental and emotional well-being.

According to a 2016 study conducted by the peer-reviewed medical journal Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology (SPPE), depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder are common post-injury. Identifying and managing depression after a major injury is essential in clinical care.

If you’ve recently suffered a major injury or illness, you may find yourself forced into isolation, or having to stay partially or even completely sedentary, or limited to doctors’ visits and caregivers. Regardless of your pre-injury or pre-illness level of activity, this can have a profound and negative impact on your mental well-being.

However, there are some things you can do to regain not just your physical health, but your mental health as well.

Stay Positive

Rather than focusing on what you used to be able to do that you can’t do at this time, stay focused on what you can do and what you can control. Re-evaluate your objectives and create new goals to strive towards. Something as simple as striving to maintain a modified exercise routine can help you recover from your injury as well as alleviate feelings of depression.

Meditate

To help deal with the physical pain, discomfort and negative emotions that one can experience post-injury, turning to meditation can help. Although you may think that sitting still and concentrating on your breath might amplify your negative feelings, meditation has the opposite effect. Through meditation, you can begin to reduce stress, calm your nervous system and alleviate depression while supporting optimal physical healing.

Journaling

Journaling your thoughts and feelings is another helpful way to process what you’re going through. It can help you identify patterns in your thoughts and behaviors that may be negatively impacting your mental and emotional health further. It can also help you let go of negative emotions, find small things you can be grateful for, and remind yourself what makes you truly happy. You may even consider creating and sharing your story with others who have experienced or are experiencing a similar situation as you chronicle your path to healing. In this way you could gain additional support as you in turn support others.

Therapy

It’s important to understand and discuss any resulting feelings of depression, grief or anxiety and explore ways to cope and alleviate those feelings. Even if you’re not able to physically go to a therapist’s office, you can get therapy online by chat, webcam, or on your smart phone. Talking to a therapist can help you overcome the negative emotions you’re dealing with while providing you with support and encouragement.

If you have suffered from a serious physical injury or illness and are in need of mental and emotional support on your road to wellness, know that you’re not alone. An experienced, licensed mental health professional can help.

Call or email me today to set up a free consultation.