Self-Care for After an Accident

01 Nov

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Good to Know

Work injuries and car accidents occur every day. In 2012, the CDC reported that approximately 7,000 people are injured in car accidents each day. Car and work injuries can result in minor scrapes and bruises to more serious injuries and sometimes fatalities.

Self-care after an accident is different for every injury, depending on body part and the severity of the injury. When you’ve been injured, it’s important to prioritize your recovery with the right types of self-care.

Self-Care After an Accident

See a Doctor

The stress and adrenaline of an accident can cause your body to overcompensate and ignore possible injuries such as herniated discs, ligament damage, or brain injuries. Untreated injuries can become even more difficult to recover from in the future. Therefore, seeing your doctor immediately after any type of accident is important in order to get the correct information for self-care, healing, and recovery.

Sleep More

Most people need about seven to eight hours of sleep to maintain physical and mental health. However, a serious illness or injury requires even more sleep for recovery. According to Julie K. Silver M.D., a doctor in physical medicine and rehabilitation and an affiliate of Harvard Medical School, losing sleep harms the recovery process because some of these healing processes require more sleep to continue healing. It can be difficult to sleep due to pain or anxiety, but it’s crucial to adhere to a regular sleep schedule, take sleep aids, or painkiller to ensure your body receives enough sleep.

Eat for Your Recovery

Many people have specific eating routines or diets. To ensure optimum recovery, you want to be sure that you consume nutrients and vitamins – these can be gained from a variety of foods or supplements. While you want to eat appropriately, you don’t want to add undue stress to your body or emotions. Check your eating habits with the guidelines that the USDA has available. But in general, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics suggests that people recovering from injury should focus on protein, Vitamin C, Zinc, Vitamin D, and Calcium.

Note: if you’re taking pain medication, eat more fiber. This helps keep constipation from occurring.

Care for Your Emotions

Only recently are we becoming aware of the importance of our mental and emotional health. When the body is physically healing, the emotions are more important than ever. Often, severe injury comes with serious emotional side effects such as PTSD or depression. Some of the best ways to care for your emotional health is to prioritize time with your loved ones, decrease stress where you can, and talk to a professional about your emotional state.

Practice Relaxation

It is far too easy to become upset, stressed, and overwhelmed when you face a severe injury and corresponding recovery. Practicing relaxation with yoga, deep breathing, and mindfulness can do loads for soothing anxiety and grounding you. Find practices that calm you and incorporate them into your day or a few times a week. This can be so important for your physical and mental health.

Gain Financial Recovery

Another component to recovery after an accident is the financial side. Injured individuals may have a legal solution with a claim of negligence. At this point, a personal injury claim may allow the injured party to receive damages for the physical injury that they have suffered. Every situation is different so it can be hard to know if you have a personal injury case under the law. But it’s definitely something to check into if you think you may have a case.

If you believe that you received a personal injury due to the negligence of a company or a product, contact Carrillo Injury Law firm today by emailing office@carrilloinjurylaw.com.