Your Inner Athlete: 5 Strategies To Bounce Back From Injury

03 Dec Your Inner Athlete: 5 Strategies To Bounce Back From Injury

Dr. Haley Perlus continues with tips about ways to empower “Your Inner Athlete.” This week, Haley talks about five strategies to bounce back from injury with fast and efficient results. In your sport. And the advise also applies to hiccups in your life in general.

For anyone who has a passion for sport and physical activity, an injury, its rehabilitation, and time away from your sport, can be a major disappointment. Sport is a big part of your identity, a major source of self-esteem, and an important tool for coping with stress. You simply love to be active; it’s who you are!

How can you use mental toughness in rehab to bounce back with fast and efficient results?

Research demonstrates mental toughness shortens a person’s rehabiliation and allows for an effective return to sport. Here are 5 strategies you can implement right now to achieve this too.

• Maintain a positive perspective. Deal with what is and not with what it has been or could be. Yes, your injury is no fun! It’s okay at the beginning to be upset and angry. Yet the only way to move forward is to focus on your action plan to effectively rehab your injury. Eliminate any “woulda, coulda, shoulda” and “if only” from your self-talk, replacing them with dialogue about what you can do today.
• Make rehab your new sport. The human spirit is driven by challenges. Embrace your rehab as a new, temporary “sport” to conquer. Challenge yourself with new goals to help you reach higher levels of performance. Take advantage of this opportunity to return to your sport stronger than ever!
• Your attitude equals your altitude. We are made up of energy, and the positive energy created from our positive thoughts fuels positive results in our lives. The fastest way to recover from an injury is to stay positive and focused on following your rehab regimen. Measure your milestones of success and reward yourself each day for your achievements.
• Stay connected. Although you may not physically be able to participate in your sport with friends, stay connected. Continue to support your fellow athletes and you will receive the same support in return.
• Harness the power of visualization. Visualization is the most powerful metnal toughness tool professional atlhetes use to 1) increase feelings of personal control, 2) break up the monotony of rehab, and 3) escalate the rate of healing. Creating the expereince first in your mind will help you to achieve it in real life.

About Dr. Haley Perlus:

The event wears its name like a glove: “WOW.”  The acronym is a perfect fit for Becca Tudor’s awesome Weekend of Wellness, relatively new festival (the 3rd annual gathering took place in early June 2015) that celebrates overall fitness, including ways grow a spine, man up –  yoga, kettle bell, Pilates, cycling, kids’ classes – and also get educated about health trends in general through lectures by doctors, nutritionists, and renowned experts in the field of sports psychology. Experts such as Dr. Haley Perlus, a stand-out on a long list of superstar women featured at Telluride WOW, already a no-miss event if you are on a path towards personal transformation.

I attended Haley’s lecture about the psychology behind good nutrition and overall health. The holistic contents turned out to be a back door to ways to live a healthy life in general. We were all left wanting more from this buff, blonde brainiac, so Telluride Inside… and Out invited Haley to blog on our site. And lucky for us all, Haley agreed. 

BIO: With a Ph.D. in Sport and Exercise Psychology, M.S. in Sport Pedagogy, and numerous fitness and coaching certifications, Dr. Perlus is an expert at empowering athletes of all types and health enthusiasts achieve peak results. An adjunct professor at the University of Colorado, international speaker, former Alpine ski racer, appointed Industry Leader for IHRSA.org, and author, including soon-to-be-released “The One Minute Diet and Guidebook to Gold.”

Dr. Perlus helps people reach their highest standard of performance. For further information and a free chapter of one of her books, visit www.DrHaleyPerlus.com