6 Ways for Dealing With the Mental Effects of Sport Injuries & Sickness
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Many athletes ask me for help with dealing with the psychological effects of sport injuries.
Last weekend I saw a couple of the elite Norwegian triathletes were dealing with food poisoning on race day.
And last week, I was off sick due to a non-contagious infection and I’m still in recovery mode. My training was going super well, business was on the up and I was having a blast in Lillehammer! All of that is now on pause or in slow mo mode.
So I felt it was the right time to write about dealing with sports injuries and sickness!
The question on athletes minds is: how can I mentally optimise my recovery from this? Here are 6 ways:
1 | Accept your reality
If you’re refusing to accept niggles or signs of ill-health, then you’re heading for trouble, whether it’s a more serious injury or health issue, or both.
Acknowledge the issue early, act straight away and minimise your chances of injury or sickness.
If an injury or ill-health occurs suddenly, the sooner you acknowledge this is your current situation, the sooner you can create an effective recovery plan.
Listen to your body and honestly assess where you are now and what it will take to come back, so you can plan accordingly.
2 | Focus on the right things at the right time
When your focus is on everything you’re missing out on e.g. all of the lost training hours, lost potential podiums, lost fun with friends etc. then you’re going to bum yourself out and prolong your recovery.
Instead, focus on the right things at the right time.
There are the things you can influence on a daily basis e.g. recovery exercises, rest, fluid intake, nutrition, brain endurance training, meditation etc.
The serenity prayer says it best:
“Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.”
3 | Do’s and Don’t’s of Self-Talk
In 2019, pro US triathlete Gwen Jorgensen (@gwenjorgensen) experienced a lot of pain due to Haglund's deformity and underwent surgery to solve the problem. But prior to surgery, Jorgensen was rating her pain on a scale of 1-10 several times a day - do NOT do this.
The words you say and use trigger the feelings, emotions, actions and physical manifestations associated with that word.
For example, when you say ‘I’m in pain’, this triggers and activates the pathway for pain.
If I asked you, what do you want instead?
And you answered, ‘I don’t want to feel pain’, your brain doesn’t here the ‘not’ and it still activates pain.
This is because in order for your brain not to think about something, it has to first understand what you don’t want it to think about.
For example, if I asked you not to think about Einstein riding a pink woolly mammoth juggling 5 green monkeys, you immediately form that image and/or video in your mind. As your brain is understanding what you don’t want it to think about.
This is the same with saying ‘I’m in pain’, your brain creates an image and/or video of you being in pain and triggers all of the stuff connected with you being in pain, because it’s understanding what you don’t want to think about.
Unfortunately, your brain can’t differentiate between what’s unhelpful and helpful to you. It only understands which brain pathways you use the most and the least.
If you often repeat to yourself, consciously or unconsciously, ‘I’m in pain’, your brain will strengthen the neuropathways associated with being in pain. This means they’ll become easier to activate and the state of being in pain is easier for you to enter.
Instead, any time you hear yourself saying ‘I’m in pain’, switch it for powerful, productive and positive words, like ‘I’m in discomfort’ or ‘I’m not feeling comfortable’ or ‘My body is healing as fast as it can.’
You’ll then trigger and activate all of the feelings, thoughts, actions and physical manifestations you associate with these positive words.
The more you stop saying ‘I’m in pain’ and replace this phrase with powerful, productive and positive words, the more you’ll activate and strengthen those powerful neuropathways. And being in comfort or in fast recovery mode will become your new default setting.
[Read more here: Why it’s a bad idea to repeat phrases that mention things you want to stop doing and/or feeling.]
4 | Road map your recovery
Talk to your team and experts around you to help you develop an effective and efficient recovery plan, and work that plan as best you can - this could mean just rest for the first 4 days!
If you’re missing certain expertise, seek them out.
A recovery plan will help you focus on the right things at the right time on a daily basis, and give you the confidence that you are on the right track to recovering as fast as you can.
5 | Lessons learned
Write down everything positive and productive you’ve learned from this experience and if you have your own set of rules or laws that you live by, add one or two rules to that list.
For example, I have a list of ‘A’s Laws’ in which I live my life by and due to my recent infection I’ve added: ‘Do not priorities work over recovery - you’ll only come to regret it later and it will cost you more time and energy down the line’.
6 | Add in Brain Endurance Training
Brain Endurance Training using SOMA NPT (neuro performance tech) is scientifically backed app-based (iPhone and iPad only) cognitive training drills designed to increase your mental resilience, focus and capacity to withstand fatigue, so you’ll outthink, out-last and out-perform your competition.
By integrating BET into your physical training and/or recovery, you’re able to include another training stimulus and add to the stress you receive/d from physical training, WITHOUT including more physical work.
I can track and analyse your data to ensure you’re progressing too. Here are some of the results you can expect:
Sustained longer periods of endurance
Sustained pain for longer
Maintained higher levels of cognitive function under fatigue
Maintained agility under fatigue and performed 8.4% faster
Improved accuracy
Improved reaction times by 11%
Improved vigilance (attention) 40%
Reduced errors by 74%
Reduced decision-making time by 8%
Offset mental fatigue for longer
Find out more here: How Brain Endurance Training Can Increase Athletic Performance
