Try These Gentle Exercises to Help With Your Recovery

After an accident, it can feel like your body will never be the same. The most common injuries following a car accident include muscle strains, spinal injuries, head injuries, and whiplash, and each come with their own effects on daily function for the injured person. The following exercises can benefit your health without aggravating injury, however, and even allow you to boost your recovery yourself!

Tai Chi

Though rest is important to recovery, stagnation is not. You still need to be gently moving and stretching muscles to help an injury heal, and learning tai chi is a great way to do this. Though popularly it is advertised to be mostly a mind-calming method, this exercise increases strength and flexibility in all parts of the body while still being low impact. It’s perfect for any body type and, in this case, injury. If you’re in the recovery phase where your physician is recommending you begin to exercise, definitely consider tai chi!

Swimming

Another gentle but effective exercise for recovering persons is swimming. Like tai chi, it is low-impact and perhaps even easier thanks to the lack of gravity you’re dealing with in the water. If you’re not sure how to truly swim or do the right exercises in the water, consider taking a lesson. How your body moves in the water is one of the first things you learn in swimming lessons. Once you have that mastered you can do a lot of helpful stretching and body strengthening exercises to promote healing.

Yoga

Further into recovery, another great form of exercise is yoga for its low impact, strength-building, and flexibility aspects. Specifically yoga for injuries can help with back pain and chronic pain. Yoga movements induce the body to move and heal injuries instead of strain them. It is important to do yoga at your own level, of course, and make modifications as needed. Even people without injury can’t do all of the poses perfectly on the first try, and that isn’t the point—yoga is all about balance in the body and in the mind.

Your health will return in time and with care from both your chiropractor and your own exercises. Being proactive in stretching and exercising your muscles is a great way to expedite the healing process. Make sure you’re choosing exercises that will benefit and not strain your current injuries, however, so that you feel better and not worse afterward!

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