Serious injury after an accident can be a very difficult time physically and emotionally. After you or a loved one leave the hospital and begin recovery from an accident comes with a lot of pressures. Getting around, how to get back to work, medical expenses, and so much more can be weighing on you or a loved one. But there are easy methods you can use to try and reduce some of that physical and emotional stress, like meditation.
Meditation has been around for quite a while. However, it has become a way for those seriously injured, as well as those not, to cope with physical and emotional stressors. From reducing pain to decreasing anxiety, meditation may be a beneficial part of recovery after an accident.
There are a few other wonderful ways meditation helps after serious injury. Let’s explore them in a bit more detail.
1. Meditation Can Reduce Stress
Healing your body is not the only issue you may have after a serious injury. Stress can be another challenging problem you may need to deal with, because any kind of injury is certainly not cheap.
“The financial worries caused by medical expenses and lost income is just the starting point,” Northern Virginia personal injury law firm, explained. “The resulting physical and emotional limitations can permanently change your life.”
Meditation, however, may help reduce that stress. Research published in JAMA (2014) found meditation to have a moderate effect at reducing stress. This can have a big impact on your daily life while you recover from a serious injury.
2. Meditation Can Reduce Chronic Pain
A serious injury will come with a lot of pain. This is simply unavoidable. But dealing with pain doesn’t always need to be pharmaceutical in nature. There are plenty of other ways to reduce chronic pain after an injury that compliments the medication and recovery plan your doctor outlined.
Meditation is one of those ways. According to a study on the effects of mindfulness meditation for chronic pain, published in Pain Medicine (2015), “A standardized mindfulness program (MBSR) contributes positively to pain management and can exert clinically relevant effects on several important dimensions in patients with long-lasting chronic pain.”
3. Meditation Can Improve Emotional Well Being
Anyone that has gone through a serious injury recovery knows the emotional toll it can take. You may be stuck in your home for months with little to do, causing depression. You may also have emotional issues due to the trauma and severity of the accident, like PTSD. Any way you look at it, your emotional well being may be suffering.
Meditation may be able to improve your well being. In fact, there are tons of studies out there that have shown meditation to reduce depression symptoms and help with PTSD. If you are seeing a mental health professional as part of your recovery, ask him or her about how meditation can help.
4. Meditation Can Improve Your Sleep
How have your sleeping habits been since your serious injury? Probably not the greatest. Pain, stress, depression, trauma, anxiety, and more can keep you awake at night, and/or completely change your sleep pattern. This is not good, since your body needs plenty of normal rest to heal and recover.
Medications can help sleep, but there are alternative ways to improve your sleep after a serious injury while adding benefit to your overall mental state. For instance, mindfulness meditation has been found to be a useful “additional therapy” for insomnia, according to a study published in Current Opinion in Pulmonary Medicine (2015).
5. Meditation Is Free And You Can Do It Anywhere
Unlike modern medicine, meditation is 100 percent free, and you don’t need to go to an office or hospital to do it. You can do it in bed, on your sofa, in your car, at work, absolutely anywhere. Now this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t listen to your doctor and not pay them.
Meditation is free and can be done from the comfort of your home, but you still need to consult with a doctor and follow their advice when it comes to your serious injury recovery. That being said, you can use meditation as a supplemental physical and emotional support tool.
Has Meditation Worked For You?
Trying meditation after a serious injury is not uncommon. In fact, tens of thousands of people may be meditating at this very moment to help them improve their physical and emotional health. From reducing pain to improving sleep, there are a lot of wonderful ways meditation helps after serious