Fear is a very common emotion that is experienced in physical therapy - both during pre-hab if you are having a surgery, rehabbing after an injury or surgery, and even at times after you have been discharged from physical therapy. (Although your physical therapist should be helping you to work through these fears and hopefully you will have built up your confidence before you are discharged!)
Fear is the brain’s response to our injury or pain that helps to protect us from having it happen again! That is why it is normal and expected! Who actually likes to be in pain or wants to have the injury happen again when it takes us away from doing what we love and what we need to do?
I had a client who was telling me that they were fearful of doing their heavy deadlifts again, because a few months ago they hurt their low back on the last rep of their last set of their deadlifts that night - and it took them away from working out for a couple of weeks. Understandably frustrating! And then as they got back into deadlifts again, they started at a lower weight (great choice) to build back up without hurting themselves again. And they felt decent, and then on the final rep of the last set, they felt pain again. Now that this has happened twice, you have evidence that this could potentially keep happening. So as a result, your brain tells you you should be afraid of doing the deadlift in general, and especially that last rep. Why? Because if you are afraid to do something, you are less likely to force yourself to do it, and if you don’t do it, then you are also less likely to hurt yourself again. Your brain is protecting you!
With injuries and pain, that’s our body’s way of telling us something is wrong - so your brain is listening and contributing to that, and telling you what not to do by sending those pain signals and adding the fear component to slow you down. That does not mean that you need to be afraid of doing any specific movement that has previously caused you pain or injury, forever though. Over time, as you start to get stronger again, you and your physical therapist will work together to re-teach your muscles to not only work properly and correctly so that you are less likely to hurt yourself, but also to help you work through that fear so that you can get back to doing what you love.
While fear is initially helpful in protecting us, if we don’t work through that fear and teach ourselves and our brains what is safe again and what is okay to keep doing (with the help of a physical therapist through the process) the fear ends up working against us. Usually one of two things ends up happening to us. 1) We avoid that movement or activity completely, no matter how much we enjoy doing it. 2) We are so aware of how our body is moving and we overthink every aspect of the movement that we are trying to do, that we overthink too much and then do the movement incorrectly and end up hurting ourselves anyways - and do the opposite of protecting ourselves.
There is a fine balance between this and it’s helpful to have a PT who can help you through this fear process, so that it doesn’t get to the point where it becomes difficult in functioning day to day - we don’t want you to get to that point! A PT can help you with this process because we are trained to see how your body is moving and can notice signs of fatigue and compensation and if you are doing movements correctly or if modifications of any kind are needed. So if we can help you with the modifications and building up your physical ability in being able to do something, we are also teaching your brain in the process to trust your body again. We are more likely to catch when modifications are needed or a rest is needed before you notice, and therefore we can help you to stop before that pain kicks in again. The more we can do that and the more we can help you through the movement and increase the movement, the more confidence you will build up in yourself and your abilities!
If you are dealing with fear of pain or an injury repeating yourself, you don’t have to live that way forever! You don’t have to avoid activities forever! If this is where you are now, please know we can work with that! Fear is helpful at first, but it doesn’t have to stick around forever! Let’s talk today about this!
If you don’t have a physical therapist to work with yet, this is your sign to get in touch with me today! Email me today at livewithoutlimitspt@gmail.com and give us a follow on Instagram by clicking the link below!
Thanks for being here!
Dr. Katie
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