Beyond the injury: Rebuilding body and mind

AP:
Serious injuries and medical conditions disrupt people’s daily routines and can impact their confidence and sense of identity. Elite athletes know the challenges from an injury that sidelines them from their sport, requires physical rehabilitation, and leaves their ability to return to competition in doubt. The process that top athletes go through to heal physically, mentally and emotionally highlights what a recovery might demand of athletes at all levels, as well as people experiencing chronic pain, recuperating from surgery or facing other setbacks. Because progress is rarely linear, patience and the ability to reset expectations can be as valuable as perseverance, consistency and motivation, according to experts.
“Sport has always mimicked life,” said Ross Flowers, a sports and performance psychologist in Los Angeles. “You’re going to face challenges, bumps and bruises. You got to figure out how to work through them and overcome them.”
LEARN YOUR BODY’S LIMITS
Fans are accustomed to watching athletes compete at the Olympics, the World Cup and other sporting events with broken bones, torn ligaments and dislocated joints. 
While discomfort is expected during intense training, and pushing through pain becomes more critical during competition, even seasoned competitors need to know when to listen to their bodies, experts say.
“There’s a relationship with pain and understanding how to work with it, if it’s possible to work through it, but also knowing how to back off of it so the pain does not persist,” Flowers said, adding that training to the point of physical fatigue or in conditions that build endurance is the sweet spot for improvement.
Injuries can happen suddenly or develop from a nagging but manageable nuisance into a debilitating condition over time. Whether it’s a soccer player sidelined after a collision or a worker who can’t stand after months of chronic back pain, the outcome is similar: a forced pause and learning to heal once pushing through pain no longer works.
“So how do we know our limits? It is definitely an experimental process,” said Lisa Miller, a health and sport sciences professor who teaches at the online American Public University System from her home in Columbus, Ohio. “We have plenty of athletes who still don’t know. But we have also had more examples of athletes saying ‘this is too much, I’m burned out, and I’m going to take a break’, bringing much more attention to the psychological side of sport.”
Honestly assessing whether an injury is affecting daily life and long-term well-being is part of recognising one’s physical limits. Miller said she has seen athletes of all levels return to competition thinking they are ready to excel, but not all can, or do.
Tennis great Serena Williams made the difficult decision to withdraw from a doubles match this month because of a knee injury.
GRIEVE, GROW, ADAPT
Even after bones heal and surgeries succeed, experts say recovery can mean coming to terms with what injuries have changed and permitting yourself to grieve those losses.
Former Baltimore Ravens cornerback Kyle Arrington, who is now a community activist in Maryland, spent nearly two decades with every hour of his day organised around football. After a severe concussion ended his career, that structure disappeared almost overnight.
“I knew what everything looked like year in and year out for the past almost 20 years,” said Arrington, who was a Super Bowl champion during his tenure with the New England Patriots. “To have that stripped away in a blink of an eye was a real upheaval.”
Grief and depression are common after season- or career-ending injuries and other life-altering experiences. People making a physical recovery may also mourn lost friendships, missed opportunities, unmet goals, and a sense of purpose. The emotional pain can be especially acute when someone’s self-identity rested on excelling in a sport or a professional role.
Experts say a support system can help people stay grounded when they have to make major medical and career decisions.
“Having a team around you is incredibly important to get good advice, be objective, but also positively push you, not just for your sport and your performance, but for life,” Flowers said.
LOOK BEYOND WHO YOU WERE
Sports psychologists say recovery often turns a corner when people stop trying to reclaim the past and begin building a new future.
When returning to the life you had before isn’t possible, experts recommend exploring goals and sources of meaning that could become the foundation for a new sense of identity.
“There is hope that something else can replace this,” Miller said. “And when we can find that daily rejuvenation of hope, we can also find new sources of happiness as well.”
lifestyle@gleanerjm.com