The 3 components of a successful recovery

Stuck in a rut with your healing or recovery? Are you missing a key component?

When you embark on a recovery journey, be that after an acute injury or resolving chronic pain, there are three important components that must be addressed for healing and recovery to occur.

1.        Treatment course and body awareness

2.        Environment modification

3.        Exercise and movement plan

All 3 components need to come together to create the optimal healing conditions for the body. Effects of treatment will not ‘hold well’ without changes made to how you move your body outside of the treatment room, or strength gains will be less effective if they are not integrated into daily life, and without modifying your environment you are not removing the possible triggers to pain or poor body alignment.

What I am aiming to highlight is that in most cases you cannot rely on anyone of these components alone, or if you do, the probability of incomplete or very slow healing is likely and relapses can also occur.

Recovery can often look like slotting multiple jigsaw puzzle pieces together to create the full picture!

Treatment

Osteopathy highlights body asymmetries and alignment issues that have become symptomatic or prevent full healing, and treatment helps to restore balance by releasing areas of tension, stimulating the circulation and drainage, reducing central nervous system sensitivity and improving organ motility.

Completing a course of treatment is vital in developing your body awareness (awareness takes time and needs lots of reminders!), stimulating consistent change within the tissues and supporting you with a progressive exercise and movement plan.

Environment Modification

In many cases your working or home environment needs to change in order to remove the predisposing and maintaining factors to your aches and pains. Key areas to consider are desk set up, driving seat position, soggy sofas, work surface heights, mattress and pillows and phone/ipad usage. Some of these maybe already be set up well, so do you need to include more movement breaks or do you need to create a more versatile space so you can move, even while you work?

Have you considered a 3-station working environment? Perhaps a standing area (could even be your laptop on an ironing board or window ledge if at home), sitting desk and an area to pace, swing or sway while you’re on the phone.

In the evening or at relaxation times avoid dumping yourself into the black hole of your sofa, consider floor sitting on stacks of comfy cushions where you can cycle between lots of body nourishing positions.

Exercise and Movement Plan

Very few of us need to move less! Our environment is usually set up for convenience, comfort and rest, and to help us expend the least amount of energy possible.

This leads to weakened and wasting musculature, bone density loss, stagnant and inflamed systems and even brain fog and mental fatigue.

So part of an effective recovery plan is to integrate an individualised and progressive exercise program. This doesn’t have to look like a lycra-clad, daily gym sweat-sesh, but starting with where you’re at and with what you will enjoy and is convenient is the plan.

The key ingredients to any plan must include:

·      Some form of resistance training, think bands or weights, 3x/weeks

·      Daily light cardio such as walking, dancing, cycling, swimming, house-work or gardening, for at least 20-30 minutes

·      And 1-2x/week some short bursts of high intensity, harder cardio, such as short sprints (bike, row or run), jumping or skipping for 10-15 minutes

All our plans can be adapted to whatever set up you have, be that at home, in the office or in a dedicated exercise space, with no expensive kit or fancy clothes required!

I haven’t mentioned nutrition in my 3 components, but it does have a very important part in supporting healing, recovery and reducing inflammation too, so please also consider this if you know that you need help in this area and we can incorporate the necessary support into your program.

Have you now identified the absent link in your recovery journey? Let us know if you need help filling in the missing puzzle piece and achieving your goals 😀.

Emma Wightman
www.the-sop.com