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Unfortunately, physical pain and constraints are just the beginning of the journey for a brain injury victim. The pain is accompanied by unexpected mood swings, anxiety, depression, memory loss and a lot of hopelessness. 

But what if I said that even brain injuries have a positive aspect?

To a third person, brain injury victims are unfortunate, and their life is a combination of grief and despair. But if you talk to a close relative of a brain injury victim or the victim himself, it’s astounding to know that at the end of the day they could extract a few positive points from everything that happened.  This is the first sign of recovery. 

“This is not to say people are happy about the injury, but report experiences like pride in themselves and a new appreciation for life.” (Collicut, McGrath and Linley, 2006)

Instead of discussing all the downsides and disadvantages of brain injuries, let’s discuss how you can avoid it and stay positive. 

Maintain a Positive Attitude

Negativity will get to you much more easily than positivity, and this goes for every other negative feeling. This is what rehabilitation centers focus most upon. Before starting with any indulging activities or motivating speeches, the clinicians make it an effort to instill positive thoughts and maintain a positive ambiance. This is not only a theoretical psychological study but can be backed up by many medical pieces of evidence as well that the environment a patient is exposed to has a greater effect on the healing than any other medicinal treatment. 

Resilience is Key

Not all days will be good. But you’re like a tree in a storm. Like a storm, brain injury will not last forever, but during that short time there’ll be times when the winds will be stronger than usual, many factors will arise to push you down and break you. Resilience is key. Some days you’ll feel like life isn’t all that bad and some days you couldn’t have been more depressed. But holding on to the little positive things is very important yet the most challenging part of rehabilitation. 

Everyday, write down at least one good thing that happened because of your injury. For example, instead of gulping food at office you were surrounded by your family at lunch enjoying a peaceful meal, or you got to observe how well your partner deals with chores at home in the time that you would usually be away. 

Feeling a sense of punishment or the common “why me?” mood is going to be a constant partner. But if you’re an adult, you have to realize that every bad thing that happens leaves with a lesson. Maybe you’ll become more empathetic not only towards brain injury patients but to humanity.

As stated by a report that a stoic and a workaholic person before an injury changed to be more emotional after the injury.

Modify Your Way of life

Pair your positive thoughts with conformational changes in your lifestyle. When you willingly thrive on recovering completely, things seem to fall into place automatically. You will feel as if therapies are more effective each day. You would want to get out of sulking in bed and go for a casual stroll. However, things can still depress you like the new inabilities you possess that were once your go-to place, for example, swimming, random adventures. For this reason, try finding a group of people going through a similar phase of life. You’re not a patient, you’re a warrior, and you can help yourself recover more than any other power in the world.