Navigating your emotions after a sports injury

Have you recently experienced a sports injury? Here are some insights that might help you to navigate your emotions.

Experiencing a whirlwind of emotions after an injury is entirely normal. Post-injury feelings can range from shock and anger to frustration or even numbness. These reactions are personal and valid — there’s no prescribed way to feel after you’ve been side-lined by an injury.

In the aftermath of an injury, a common instinct might be to try to squash down or avoid your emotions as a way of coping. This may be a conditioned response to stress, influenced by societal norms or our upbringing, which often tell us to ignore our feelings. For many of us, we grew up in environments where it was not safe to feel, process and express our emotions, so we tuned out of our emotions. This may extend to your sporting experiences, you may have received messages like “men don’t cry” or that “showing emotion is a sign of weakness”. In many sporting environments, respect is often given to those who can endure a lot of pain and sacrifice themselves for the team, whilst ignoring personal consequences — qualities often referred to as being “mentally tough” and “resilient”. There are of course benefits to these qualities in sport and life, however, in the context of injury, such climates often promote emotional suppression where athletes may feel the need to act out fake positive emotions, or supress their authentic feelings1.

Not only does supressing our emotions take a considerable amount of energy and effort which could be used elsewhere, it also prolongs the coping process and prevents us from coming to terms with a stressful or traumatic experience. Beyond this, inhibiting how we feel can be detrimental to both our psychological and physical well-being2.

This is because our emotions are a powerful source of information, often stored in the body and expressed through words or images. They tell us what’s important to us and guide us to act according to what we need and want. We need to listen to our emotions, which involves noticing and acknowledging their existence.

So how do I start?

Firstly, when you experience an uncomfortable emotion try to resist the urge to bottle it up or push it away, by acknowledging what you’re feeling. There may be many ways you can do this, perhaps by speaking to a friend or journaling. What’s important is that you remain open, curious, and non-judgemental about what you’re feeling.

If you don’t want to speak about your injury, consider writing down your experience. Many people find that putting pen to paper is a powerful way to express how they’re feeling. Studies have shown that writing about unresolved stressful or traumatic experiences, can be beneficial for psychological and physical well-being for both athlete and non-athlete populations 3–5.

There are no ‘set rules’ for this, the studies mentioned suggest writing for 15–20 minutes on three consecutive days, with instructions to write about your injury experience.

An exercise to try

So, if it feels OK for you to do so:

· Set aside 15–20 minutes (not too close to bed) where you’re free from distraction.

· Get a pen and paper, and write about your injury experience, including all your thoughts and emotions about it.

· Try to let go and write about whatever crosses your mind.

· It’s natural to experience unwanted thoughts and emotions, if you feel it’s too much then leave it and come back to it another time.

· Try to leave space after you write to sit with and process your thoughts and emotions.

· Repeat this over the next few days.

If this was difficult or you want to speak with someone, please feel free to reach out to me — hannah@becuriouspsychology.com

Remember — emotions are not “good” or “bad” they are information, what does your emotion tell you about your situation, and about what you might need or want?

References

1. Mankad, A., Gordon, S., & Wallman, K. (2009). Perceptions of emotional climate among injured athletes. Journal of Clinical Sport Psychology, 3(1),1–14.

2. Wenzlaff, R.M., & Wegner, D.M., (2000). Thought suppression. Annual Review of Psychology, 51,59–91

3. Mankad, A., & Gordon, S. (2010). Psycholinguistic changes in athletes’ grief response to injury after written emotional disclosure. Journal of Sport Rehabilitation, 19(3), 328–342.

4. Mankad, A., Gordon, S., & Wallman, K. (2009). Psycho-immunological effects of written emotional disclosure during long-term injury rehabilitation. Journal of Clinical Sport Psychology, 3(3), 205–217.

5. Frattaroli, J. (2006). Experimental disclosure and its moderators: a meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 132(6), 823.