No one likes to be injured, but injury often comes at a cost of taking part in sports or activities associated with high impact or physical contact.

For many of us, exercise can become a huge part of our lives. It helps us to stay fit and healthy, many of us enjoy it and form a social life around it, and for some of us it helps to focus the mind or keep anxiety at bay. Then bam – injury strikes. You’re no longer able to do what you were doing and your activity levels initially have to suffer for it. It’s no surprise that injury can bring about a strong emotional response.

Frustration, denial and anger often arise, in addition to the pain. “If only I hadn’t made that tackle”, “I’ll be playing next week”, “I can keep running on it”. This is where physical and psychological resilience becomes crucial.

Firstly, by denying the injury in the first place you could actually do a lot more damage, it’s important to listen to your body and know when you need to stop. Take Derek Redmond’s mid-race injury for example (http://youtu.be/t2G8KVzTwfw), if this hadn’t been the semi-final of the Olympics he probably shouldn’t have continued. You can only imagine how he must have felt knowing his Olympic dream had ended through injury.

Feelings of frustration and anger associated with injury only divert focus on recovery. It’s also important to fill the time you would have been exercising with something else, to prevent the injury from getting you down. Remember, you can still be active or even exercise as long as it won’t make the injury worse. If you have a lower body injury you still might be able to train your upper body in the gym for example. You could even focus on your nutrition or conditioning your body through Pilates or Yoga to steer you away from high impact exercise during recovery.

Even research has found psychological factors such as self-perceptions after injury, coping strategies and emotional reaction to play important roles in the recovery of sports injury. Psychological responses to injury are thought to contribute to rehabilitation outcomes and so having a positive mentality towards recovery seems vital.

Here are a few tips for coping with sports injury:

• Keep a positive attitude
• Accept the injury – once you accept that you have an injury, you can start on the road to recovery
• Think of what you can still do, rather than what you can’t
• Reflect on what you have achieved since the injury
• Focus on recovery – set yourself goals
• Stay involved – if you play for a team or club, go and support them whilst you are recovering
• Stay fit and healthy despite injury – look to improve your nutrition or exercise in a way that won’t make the injury worse
• Learn about your injury and how to optimise recovery

Although it’s easy for injury to get you down, focus on becoming better and stronger than you were before.

Adie Blanchard – Researcher

References

Brewer, B. W. (2003). Developmental differences in psychological aspects of sport-injury rehabilitation. Journal of Athletic Training, 38(2), 152

Evans, L., & Hardy, L. (1995). Sport injury and grief responses: A review. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 17(3), 227-245.

Brewer, B. W., Van Raalte, J. L., Cornelius, A. E., Petitpas, A. J., Sklar, J. H. et al. (2000). Psychological factors, rehabilitation adherence, and rehabilitation outcome after anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction. Rehabilitation Psychology, 45(1), 20.