Our articles are not designed to replace medical advice. If you have an injury we recommend seeing a qualified health professional. To book an appointment with Tom Goom (AKA ‘The Running Physio’) visit our clinic page. We offer both in-person assessments and online consultations.
We live in an increasingly busy and stressful world. Combining this with training for sport, family life and work is a challenge. We all need a chance to recover!
An important concept for recovery is that it needs to meet both our physical and emotional needs. This slide I’ve pinched from Running Repairs Online highlights this…
Our physical and mental health are intertwined. Place pressure on one and it starts to rock the other. We see this often in injured runners – being unable to run influences their physical fitness and mental wellbeing (we discuss this more in our video ‘the psychological impact of injury’). Sometimes it’s actually a deterioration in their mood and mental health that creates the most distress and pushes someone to seek help.
It’s important to understand this, empathise and help people find the right support. My own personal experience with anxiety and OCD has taught me a lot. They’ve been part of my life for around 20 years and actually a big part of how I got so into running – my first marathon was for the Mental Health Foundation.
For a while I’ve wanted to share what I’ve learned in the hope that others may benefit so I’ve included it in our new video below where I discuss key aspects of both physical and mental recovery.
As I say in the video, I’m not a mental health professional so please don’t take this as professional advice, it is just my views and ideas based on experience. If you’re struggling at all with your mental wellbeing please seek help.
In addition to the video there are a couple of books I would recommend;
- How to Tell Anxiety to Sod Off by James Withey – this is a funny and honest view of anxiety with some useful pearls of wisdom
- Overcoming Unwanted Intrusive Thoughts by Sally Winston and Martin Seif – this was a real game-changer for me and is especially useful for people struggling with troubling thoughts, OCD or persistent rumination.
I’d also recommend the Clinician’s Den Facebook group which is a lovely supportive environment for anxiety, stress and mental health. Plus if you’re on Instagram @AnxietyJosh is well worth following.
Improve your patients recovery from running injury with our free video series on lateral hip pain, ITB syndrome, low back pain and more, available now at clinicaledge.co/running
