Recovering from a long-term illness or injury can take its toll physically and mentally. Supporting your mental health through recovery is therefore extremely important!
Your body will have gone through a lot of changes, and depending on the recovery, you might find that you are not only physically struggling but mentally too. Your mental health will play a massive part in how well you recover from your ailments and how fast you can get your life back on track too.
If you are unable to overcome your mental health challenges arising from your illness or injury, you might find your physical efforts are hampered as you won’t be in the right frame of mind to support your recovery.
This is why it’s vitally important that you tend to both your physical and mental conditions when they arise, and through recovery.
Get Support
If you are struggling mentally, you need to seek help and talk about your feelings. There is no shame in admitting you need help or you don’t think or feel the same way you did prior to your recent setback.
Talking to family and friends or a therapist can help you to express how you feel regarding the changes in your life and help you to process what has happened to you.
Struggling mentally will not only affect how you see your life, as the changes you will make can also put a pause on your physical recovery.
Your body and mind need to be on the same page to support your return to health.
Sleep
You need to ensure you are getting enough sleep during your recovery.
A lack of sleep will reduce your judgement, energy levels, and body’s ability to heal, increase irritability, and contribute to poor mental health.
Sleep is a vital function you need to ensure you are getting enough of each day. For most people, this is around 8 hours per night with 4 sleep cycles, each lasting 90 minutes.
It is worth paying attention to your sleep routine and hygiene to help you reset your sleep and help you to get back on track.
Reduce Stress
The last thing you need while recovering is to be under increased stress or pressure! However, this can feel unavoidable at items, significantly if your illness or injury impacts your ability to work and your income, or your social and family life.
It is only natural to worry about how you will support yourself, your family, pay your bills etc. To help you stay in the right frame of mind to get back on the road to wellness, you need to get a handle on your stress levels.
Be proactive in rectifying your issues, no matter how much you want to bury your head in the sand.
Whether this is calling your work, family or bank to explain the situation, talking to a personal injury lawyer to get any compensation you might need if any accidents happened at work, or talking to your employers to negotiate your return to work if required.
Address everything head-on and work towards keeping your stress levels as low as possible.
Making sure your mental health is supported as much as your physical health can do wonders for your recovery from a long-term illness or injury.
You need to think of your body as a whole and look after every aspect that makes you work, and this too means paying your mental health some attention at this time.
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