A major injury, no matter what part of the body it affects, can instantly derail your daily routine, ranging from your hobbies to your career to many other responsibilities you have. While your medical professional will likely lay out a basic plan for your recovery, you may wonder if there is anything else you can do. Why it’s not a good idea to try and implement various techniques on your own, there are practices that are good complements to a doctor’s recommendations. Just make sure to get their opinion first.
Recovering Physically
Sometimes, an injury is more of an inconvenience, and you simply need to work around it before getting back to normal. For more serious injuries, where you lose a function for a long period of time, there may be a bit of a relearning process for certain skills. For example, say you had a head or neck injury that affected your range of motion, or even had this issue indirectly, like through recovery from cancer in these regions. An action like driving may be out of the question during recovery, and some people never go back due to discomfort, even if it is possible.
This isn’t a call to overexert yourself, in fact, rest is an essential part of recovery. Instead, be willing to implement goals with regards to your attempts to regain certain functions through therapy or simple routines. If this sounds a lot like exercise advice, you may not be that far off. There is a mental piece to recovery that often gets overlooked, but we’ll talk more about that later.
While it may sound a bit surprising, what you eat plays a role in how fast you recover. This doesn’t mean that kale will heal a broken bone overnight, but certain processes in the body require certain nutrients to do their work. As a result, a few dietary shifts may help things along. For example, earlier in your recovery, where you are still dealing with pain, swelling and heat, you will want foods that will help regulate inflammation. These include healthy fats and oils like olive oil, flax oil, fish oil, avocados, cold-water fish, and nuts. Later, as you begin to start moving more to recover, be ready to implement more protein and vitamins like zinc and vitamin C. If you are an athlete, you will likely need to be more stringent with what you eat due to the higher amount of work put on your body.
Recovering Mentally
As we said, being in the right place mentally regarding your injury is essential for a proper recovery. This isn’t just a matter of keeping focused, as a sudden injury can have major effects on your mind. For example, if you are active and are suddenly sidelined, you will have a large drop in endorphins, chemicals in the brain that help us feel good. Now, not only do you have an injury, but are poorly equipped to handle the negative feelings you have about it. The importance of resting your mind as well as your body can’t be ignored. Try and learn some relaxation techniques to minimize your stress, and don’t be afraid to share your feelings with your loved ones and rely on them for support. In fact, you may even want to see a mental health professional if you are really struggling.
All the things we mentioned are viable ways to help with recovery from a serious injury, but sometimes it can be difficult to put them into practice. Injuries not only come with expenses, but also a potential loss of income. As a result, we need to add a third category here: financial recovery from an injury. Ultimately, legal action is the best way to get compensation for your expenses and lost income, but in order to determine if your situation allows for this to happen, you need the services of a good personal injury lawyer. On top of determining if you have a case to begin with, they will help get the proper evidence you need to prove that an entity was responsible for your injury in the first place.
