How to deal with depression caused from injury?***

Can you cross train? With my injury, I can't, which makes it all the worse.

Have you been injured before? If so, remember, you were able to come back from it.

In the meanwhile, get outside. Don't stay cooped up in the house watching tv and surfing the internet. Play in the snow. Go for a hike. See a movie. Go out to eat. Go get coffee. You'll go stir crazy staying cooped up.

Take hot saunes for 30 minutes, sweat your balls off, burns about 600 caloires. It will help you guys feel better. Much better than complete inactivity.

Take up another workout routine - yoga, swimming, hiking, etc. For me, it was lifting weights. I said "F@#% running", and tried to focus on getting as strong as I could. After a couple weeks, it gets a little addicting like running. Any additional muscle weight you put on, you can lose again if/when you get back to running.

Oh lawrdy wrote:

Take hot saunes for 30 minutes, sweat your balls off, burns about 600 caloires.

wait.. what? I don't think this is true.

Saunas burn calories, "technically."

Even when you are sitting at your desk or couch you are burning calories, when you eat you burn calories, and, yes, when you exercise you burn many more calories than when at rest.

A sauna does not burn calories in the same way as exercise because you are not expending energy to move your mass over a distance, like when you go on a run. Nor is it like building muscle, which will increase your metabolism and burn more calories over the long haul.

However, two things do happen when you spend enough time in sauna with X degrees of heat.

First, your heart rate increases in a sauna. Take a heart rate monitor into a sauna, check it out for your self. You expend more energy with an elevated heart rate.

Second, I have to assume, but I have not verified, that at some point your core body temperature rises. A higher core body temperature increases the rate of moisture evaporation and burns more calories. Same thing happens when we run on a hot humid day. I suppose you can check this with a thermometer.

So if you put all the variables together I suppose you could find out how many calories you actually burn. I doubt it's substantial, but there is no doubt that the energy expenditure is much higher than at rest.

glory days gone wrote:

I have been injured and unable to run fro 2 months. It is beginning to get to me: im depressed, negative, and almost destructive. What can I do to help?

Medical marijuanica.

The biggest thing is to make up your mind now and decide whether or not you will continue to run if the injury takes another month or two to heal. If you are committed to rebuild after that much potential time off, then you can focus your energy on rehabbing and cross-training now.

Try different physical therapies, hit up the bicycle trainer or do some pool jogging...focus on core and your diet. It is up to you whether you want to come back 20 lbs overweight and with an aerobic system you have to spend most of the year dusting the cobwebs off of, or return at race weight, lean and mean, and are back to where you left off within a matter of a few months, assuming you don't rush things.

I know elite athletes that have taken the same amount of time off and come back to have one of their best years on the track.

i've suffered through 2 stress fractures, one junior year of high school (out 4 1/2 months) and my other freshman year of college (3 months).

junior year i spent my time doing numerous cross training routines, and railing my girlfriend a ton. i was lifting a lot too, so i came in about 6 pounds heavier senior year XC than i was junior year XC. needless to say, i was slower and not as strong of a runner, plus my confidence was in the shi*ter. i put the season behind me, trained my ass over winter, and had an awesome track season in the spring.

my second SF in college i basically did a ton of ab workouts, and stationary bike workouts at the rec center. i did pick up dieting however, although when i was out drinking and eating jimmy johns on the weekends that didn't help too much. needless to say, i came home from college weighing about 10 pounds more than i do now, but after a summer full of dedicated training i made it back. while injured though it was nice to be busy with school work and have other things to do, otherwise you will go crazy.

Yeah I agree. The main thing is keeping yourself busy with SOMETHING. The first priority should be cross training/rehab if your injury will allow it. After that its school, your job, maybe a hobby you haven't tried out yet or lost touch with, going out more, etc.

The main thing though, and I've had multiple stress fractures myself, is to not define your worth through running. Keep in mind that most if not everyone you interact with on a daily basis besides your coach and teammates doesn't really care if you run or not. Be yourself and stop ruminating about what coulda, shoulda, woulda been. You gotta move on. For me I actually consciously spent less time with my team when I was hurt because hanging out with them would make me upset that I was injured and not able to run and do the activities they do/talk about on a daily basis.

It is really individual, some athletes like being around the team when they are hurt for support and to keep in touch with running, while others find that destructive and don't hang around the team as much. The fact that you are upset shows you are a serious runner, which is good. In high school I didn't really care about running as much so it didn't bother me to the same degree it did later. Anyway, I also recommend trying to research your injury and how to prevent it in the future. That way you are using your time productively and can avoid this from happening again. Injuries are part of sports, you sometimes just have to roll with it. Figure out something else that you enjoy doing and let that substitute running for the time being.

If you can cross train without aggravating your injury I really recommend you absolutely get after it. 90-120 min a day, at high intensity. That should keep you busy and motivated. You will recover faster than running so you can go harder on a daily basis. Contrary to what other people may say cross training actually makes a big difference when you are out, if anything for the mental component.

Find some other things you like to do. It's a good opportunity since you're forced to balance your life more.

When I had a pretty debilitating and long-term injury, one of the things that helped me stay sane was volunteering. Get the focus off yourself and spend a few hours a week giving back to your community. Trust me, you'll meet some really neat people you otherwise wouldn't have, and you will feel better about yourself.

Long term running injuries are kind of a wake up call as to how you are going to define yourself when you are no longer able to train like you do when you are younger. Nobody thinks it's going to happen to them - all those old guys who are slow and can't train anymore did something wrong-not!

focus on getting better at something other than running.

take up another sport that you can train and compete in. bike racing, swimming, or rowing all have age group competitions in most cities. once you start shooting for times, it's no longer just crosstraining.

you'll be really happy you did when you hit your mid 30s and you can't run hard or long enough to stay in shape.

Mike Hunt is grand wrote:

When I had a pretty debilitating and long-term injury, one of the things that helped me stay sane was volunteering. Get the focus off yourself and spend a few hours a week giving back to your community. Trust me, you'll meet some really neat people you otherwise wouldn't have, and you will feel better about yourself.

Great idea! Running and training benefits nobody but yourself. we kind of forget about this sometimes.

I'm a psychiatrist by trade, and I can tell you from experience that the only way to deal with feelings of depression is by taking medication. SSRIs, anti-psychotics, mood stablilizers... anything you can throw at the problem. Remember, deperssion is a chemical imbalance, so it can only be treated chemically. Man, after all, is essentially a chemical automaton. Feeling good just a matter of finding the right combination of drugs that works for you. With every possing day that you go without medication, your chances of committing suicide increase tenfold. Don't hesitate to make an appointment with a psychiatrist today!

Do you go to a college? If so, you may have free access to counselors/psychologists or other mental health professionals. I think it could be helpful for you to speak to someone like that. Even if you don't go to a university, it could be very worth it to make an appointment with a therapist, especially if you are feeling destructive.

I imagine a lot of your sense of identity and self-worth is tied up in you being a runner. However, the risk of injury is always there. Every athlete, amateur or professional, is always at risk for experiencing a career-ending injury. I don't mean to say your injury is career-ending, the odds are it is far from that, but it is possible that any of us runners could become injured and never really be able to return.

I think it would be worthwhile to begin to forge an identity and sense of self that revolves around things other than running. Do you have other passions/interests? Music, games, academic interests, art, career, hobbies, whatever really... Outside of running, what is it that you want to do, what do you want to spend your limited time on earth doing? For many people, that can be a very difficult question, so take some time and think about what you really want to do. Also, can you do other physical activity, i.e. hike, bike, surf, swim, play ball sports, etc?

Best of luck, I suffered a difficult injury that ended my college running. Now out of college I still am not running anywhere near the level I was before becoming injured. I have hope that I'll get back up there, but we'll just have to see. Despite that, now my life is much more balanced and stable than when it was before I was injured. All of my hopes and desires aren't related to running. I believe challenges are growth opportunities, and my injury was just another one of life's challenges.

Is this KB?

Mental Health wrote:

I'm a psychiatrist by trade, and I can tell you from experience that the only way to deal with feelings of depression is by taking medication. SSRIs, anti-psychotics, mood stablilizers... anything you can throw at the problem. Remember, deperssion is a chemical imbalance, so it can only be treated chemically. Man, after all, is essentially a chemical automaton. Feeling good just a matter of finding the right combination of drugs that works for you. With every possing day that you go without medication, your chances of committing suicide increase tenfold. Don't hesitate to make an appointment with a psychiatrist today!

I'll give that 1/10. You had 3/10 until the last line; shoulda stopped a bit earlier.

Be happy you haven't been injured for years with little chance of ever getting better again.