If you are a regular audience of my Warriors Den podcast, then you know that I have a long-standing battle with depression. No, I am not talking about the kind that SJWs have because they can’t handle a bad grade or the reality that shitty behaviour can get you fired in the real world and makes you unhireable. I am talking about chronic depression which I have had my whole life. I always recognized that I have experience some problems throughout my life, but I couldn’t figure it out. It took a manic depressive episode several years ago for me to finally realize the issue.
Now, some years later and 2 years on SSRIs have helped me to get my depression to a reasonably manageable point that is allowing me to move forward with my entrepreneurial aspirations.
First off, I would like to say that if you are what I would consider “functional with a diagnosed mental health issue” (by functional I mean employable and or capable of going to school or operating fairly normally), then I don’t think you should ever use your mental health as an excuse to skirt responsibility, which a lot of people do. Sure, it’s ok to have a down day or even a week, but if you use it as an excuse to get out of homework, work or other issues, then you are either just fall into the category of non-functional or you just need to learn better coping mechanisms. At the end of the day, your problems should not always be the problems of those around you. Just saying. Moving on.
Some of you may also know that 2016 was not a great year for me with regards to physical health. Early 2016, I tore the cartilage in my left foot, which made it very painful to run or jump or move properly. Also, I do not believe in medicating the pain away, so it was a great discomfort. When that was finally clearly up, I tore my ACL in my right knee, which basically killed my ability to move forward in my BJJ training. Last December, I finally got surgery and have been recovery rather speedily thanks to the fact I have projectpower.ca attached to my UTKM gym giving easy access to rehab tools and advice. This helped me to keep up with my rehab training, even when I didn’t really want to because it was right there in my regular training environment. Convenience helps!
Recently, I have been amping up my training with running. Finally! After well over a year of no running, I can run again. As well, I’m doing more regular weight training.
Here is where the factor of depression comes in. I noticed that my recovery and increased training coincided with the weather having finally started to warm up and be nicer. I realized, here I am as someone battling with clinical depression and heavily affected by SAD (seasonal depression) and heavily injured and unable to train properly for the last year or so. Man, 2016 was a shitty year! (And not because Trump won because I actually won a bet because of that.)
I have been told by countless people that they are astonished by how unfazed I am by major complications in my life. I am generally fairly steadfast, and while I may be super disgruntled during a moment of crisis or when a problem arises, I always think that I need to keep on trucking. Resilience is a skill that so many people today have forgotten about. Personally, I can’t say why I’m particularly skilled at resilience, but I know now how important it is to general success.
Anyway, I have been thinking about why I am so motivated to train now. I did not realize how much the injuries had affected my general motivation, mainly due to the aforementioned attitude about resilience. I also don’t think I realized how much the seasons affect my motivation.
It’s easy for experts to say, “Exercise helps with depression and makes you happy!” For the most part this seems to be true, but when I am depressed, I generally don’t want to exercise at all. Add that to the fact that I couldn’t do much physically…
A big wake up call for me happened when I was holding my last Yellow Belt Test in March. Most people didn’t notice, maybe a few probably did, but holy shit was I out of breath! I often write about how being an instructor should not be about how great you are as a practitioner, but how great your students become from your training. Yet, I think in this case, my students are my motivation to become better. Realizing how out of shape I was made me think to myself, “For my student’s sake, I cannot be this out of shape.” Not that I was ever really an athlete, but you know…
You guys keep me going.
With my regular depression mildly under control and seasonal depression nearing its end and my crippling injuries behind me, I now find the motivation to train from my students (and the sun), which is something I did not fully appreciate until now.
I am not sure what I am really trying to say about this topic other than that living with depression can be tough, especially when you are high functioning. At least in my case, so many people depend on me and my ability to function. It’s especially hard in this industry when there are so many hyper athletic, super motivated people around me getting better and better as I watch and think, “Man, I wish I could be that motivated.” What is your motivation? No matter what level of intrinsic motivation you have and no matter the condition of your mental health, people still need to find their motivation.
I supposed I have found mine in my students and those who depend on me. It is good to know because without knowing that this motivates me, I would only be a facade of an instructor, telling my students to do something that I struggle to find on a daily basis. Though my students may not realize it, I am grateful that they are there to continue to drive me forward so that I can offer them the best training experience possible.
If you struggle with a mental health issue, don’t let it get you down (pun intended). Don’t let injury cripple you and keep looking for what keeps you motivated. Slow and steady is better than nothing at all. Two steps forward and one step back is still progress.
Pound for pound, the knee has the strongest offensive strike that the human body can generate. But many folks out there, whether athletic or not, find out that with one wrong movement or one wrong hit in the wrong way, this strong offensive weapon becomes as limp as a wet noodle.
In my case, it was the dreaded ACL injury. I am not even 30 and my knees are already going! This can easily make a person feel old. It reminds me of the line in the class of 1999 speech, Wear Sunscreen by Australian producer Baz Luhrmann in which he said:
“Be kind to your knees, you’ll miss them when they’re gone.”
Here I am, supposedly in my prime and my ACL is torn on one side and I feel like an old man as my other knee is going too. Ironically, I’m surprised they lasted this long. As a rifleman, light machine gunner, and sniper in the IDF, I often carried far too much weight for my little legs and knees to handle. Add to it all the roadrunning I used to do… I guess my knees had a good run (pun intended).
People are consistently shocked by how I recover post-injury and post-surgery, and get back into regular activities. I’m usually met by skepticism and rolling eyes when I tell people, “don’t worry I heal fast!” As the doctor said, it’s people like you I worry about the most.
I’m not Wolverine, and I don’t have healing powers or other magic abilities. In fact, I don’t really even consider myself very athletic – one of the reasons I was drawn to Krav Maga. So why should I heal any faster than anyone else?
The truth is I don’t heal any faster than the average person. But I have a theory as to why people think and say such a thing.
First, let’s break down the injury and recovery.
First, I would like to be critical about the medical system. Even in Canada, we have a broken medical system in my opinion. Generally, doctors are experts in acute injury diagnosis and treatment, but when it comes to post-injury recover they are almost clueless. They do not have a holistic approach and they rarely understand, to the level that they should, the other aspects of medicine and healing. In Canada, though our medical is largely covered (I say largely, since there are still costs…) there is a serious shortage of qualified individuals and equipment. In my case, when I got injured I knew it was something more serious than “just a sprain” that the doctor claimed it to be.
The day after my injury, my doctor was overbooked (it happened late at night). So I went to the ER instead, which had a long wait time as usual due to overcrowding. Finally, I see a doctor several hours later only to be told they think it’s just a sprain. They sold me crutches and prescribed me light painkillers. A week later, I finally managed to see my doctor and was told something similar. The idea of an MRI scan wasn’t even mentioned until I went to a physiotherapist, which was covered by WorkSafeBC. This is appalling to me because, as far as I know, the faster a proper and accurate diagnosis is made the faster a surgery or rehab can happen and the faster I can heal and recover. All these things would lead to a better experience for both the patient and medical professionals, and less costs for the system.
The idea of an MRI scan wasn’t even mentioned until I went to a physiotherapist.
So why didn’t I get sent for an MRI right away? Well, if you are unaware, the whole nation of Canada has less MRI machines than some cities in America. This results in a long waiting list, and even when you can get bumped to the front of the line through WorksafeBC, there is still a resistance to send you.
ACL Injury
If I had been sent for an MRI within 2 weeks of my injury, as it should have happened, they would have discovered that I had seriously torn ACL and meniscus. But since it took about 2 months to get the MRI, albeit it was faster than the normal 6-9 month wait if not for the rush, they would have discovered it sooner and not wasted time thinking it was something less serious.
This means that even in a country like Canada with a so-called advanced medical system, there are serious problems and you really cannot rely on the advice of just one so-called medical professional. A lot of times, these people are tired, overworked, and too accustomed to patients who exaggerate their symptoms. Although in my case, I was under-exaggerating my injury since I have a high pain tolerance, so they assumed it was nothing despite what I was verbally telling them.
Once I finally had the MRI, I was referred to a specialist. Once I saw the specialist, things moved forward rather quickly. Her question was basically, “so when do you want the surgery?” Great, right?
Back to the main topic about my not-Wolverine healing abilities
Here is my theory as to why people think and say I heal faster than average. One of the biggest problems in the medical system is the over-prescription of pain killers. In my opinion, this is one of the biggest hindrances in how fast a person can get back to their normal activities.
When I am teaching my kids Krav Maga classes, often every little bump and every little scrape becomes a big deal. I always teach these children the same simple lesson:
There is a difference between pain and injury.
Pain is your body’s natural way of giving you feedback to whether something is a possible threat. However, it is a very simplistic system and doesn’t always know the difference between something that is actually harmful and something that is not. As a reasonably developed species, we should be able to use our conscious mind, based on our experience and the mechanism of the pain, to know if it just hurts or is an actually injury. I always tell my students that pain is good and injury is not. You should fight through pain when it is just pain, but stop when pain is related to an injury and take care of injuries seriously.
Pain is your body’s natural way of telling you there is possible danger. (Image source)
Thus, I am not a fan of pain killers prescribed by doctors. Generally, medication should only be used when necessary, such as taking acetaminophen for a fever, or NyQuil and DayQuil for a serious cold. It should also only be used a long as needed, which is usually a day or two. Yet, doctors often prescribe 2 weeks to a month or more of serious heavy duty painkillers, which can be highly addictive to a lot of people. They tell you the maximum you should take, which means that you should not take all the pills you are given, but people still do.
The issue with painkillers and other meds
By taking painkillers for longer than you need just because you were prescribed them, it dulls your body’s natural pain responses and you can no longer hear to your body’s feedback. Eventually, if you take them too long, your body’s pain threshold will have shifted and your overall tolerance to pain without painkillers will have dropped. Also, by the way, this is the start of addiction when it comes to painkillers, as you will constantly be trying to reach your new pain baseline, which is only achievable through the pills themselves. This is why heroin, when medically supervised by doctors in hospitals, is a better pain alternative than morphine and is less addictive. Yes, you read that right, but I won’t get too science-y. The fact remains that the layperson’s understanding of painkillers and other meds is dramatically limited.
Addiction issue aside, there are two main problems. Either, you start to not be able to feel when pain becomes injury and you push yourself too hard. Or, you become docile and don’t know when it’s ready to begin rehab because you don’t know the difference.
This is why post-injury and post-surgery, I rarely take painkillers for more than 2-3 days. I usually only use them to help me sleep and overcome the initial acute pain, which is a bit more than I would like to deal with. However, even if I have to walk with a limp, I would rather get rid of the medication as soon as reasonably possible, than to rely on them like crutches and lose my body’s natural senses and abilities.
Generally, in both studies and anecdotes, evidence shows that the faster you get back to regular movement (within reason) the faster you can heal yourself. The body is both an inefficient piece of junk and an amazing machine. If you take painkillers longer than you need to and cannot receive the appropriate pain feedback, then you cannot properly heal yourself. Many also go wrong by using painkillers to “push through” pain, which is not advisable because then you cannot know when the body moves from pain to injury, and this is a crippling mistake many athletes make.
Listen to your body
If that means you don’t do anything that day, then you don’t. If you can push another day, then you do. But the sooner you get back into simple things like walking, moving, and doing regular day-to-day activities the better.
Have you heard of those people who work their entire lives, and then in their late-70s or 80s, they just stop or are forced to retire and then die? The concept of atrophy is like this to me.
If you don’t use it, you lose it.
Have you heard of that? Surprisingly, muscle atrophy can kick in very quickly, usually within no later than 72 hours. Which means if you take most doctors advice and rest up to six weeks, you will see major muscle loss and the recovery will be harder. Often, doctors and physiotherapists hesitate to push people, and thus continues prescribing fairly basic exercises, which may be great for office workers, but not for the athlete.
As an athlete, sometimes safe yet serious strength training is required. For me, the resutls of my post-injury recovery were not happening as fast as I would have liked. It was my first experience going to physio, and I did everything they said. However, my impatience comes from being told to do very boring exercises with minimal results. What’s more, I would have to stop my day 4 times a day for 20-30 minutes to do the exercises. It became a hindrance to my work with no benefit to my recovery.
So I started doing my own exercises, which basically involved light squats and deadlifts. Two months after my initial injury, I was doing 200lb deadlifts no problem. Of course, I was wearing my knee brace and would stop a set if there was any discomfort. However, by doing this, I saw far quicker recovery than when I had just listened to the so-called experts.
I am not trying to discredit medical professionals at all, it is not at all what I am trying to say. The problem is that, due to the system or like lack of experience or money, there is often a disconnect between injury and recovery. The faster rehab starts, the faster people can get back to normal activities, the faster and better the overall recovery.
How do I know when my doctor is right or wrong?
Sometimes, of course, you should listen to professional advice when it is legitimate. In my case, I listened when the doctor specifically asked me not to bend my knee more than 90 degrees for 6 weeks regardless of pain. This is to allow the fixed areas, specifically the meniscus, time to properly heal and become as strong as required. However, all that it means is simply that I should be careful and modify my exercise to adhere to that specific limitation. I can still attempt light squats with limited range of motion, despite what the doc might think.
Healing and returning to normal happens faster when I listen to both my body and the
How I’ll feel when I finally get to do BJJ after all these months…
advice of the doctor and physiotherapist. Your body knows itself best. As long as you are fairly self-aware and attuned to your body’s messages, you should let your body guide you. And seriously, don’t rush. As an athlete, I know that pushing too much too quickly because you want to get back in the game and prove yourself is not a good idea. For me, this has meant no Krav Maga and BJJ for at least 2 months, and no rolling or sparring for 3-4 months.
There is still a dispute as to whether it makes more of a difference to get surgery ASAP and then do physio, or vice versa. It is my opinion, as an athlete, that surgery should happen as soon as possible, and you should do physio before and after surgery. It is fairly conclusive that doing physio and rehab to get back to regular activities ASAP means a better recovery. In my case, the longer I had to wait for my surgery, the worse my other (uninjured) knee got. Having a surgery done ASAP means your body will not have to go through multiple healing processes and can get back to what you love to do with less risk of degradation of your other areas of the body due to compensation.
So stay off the painkillers when you don’t actually need them. Get moving and get healing. When it comes to injury recovery, push when there is no pain, and rest or stop when you feel pain. Through time, you will know if the pain is related to the injury or whether it just hurts. Remember…
I supposed I have found mine in my students and those who depend on me. It is good to know because without knowing that this motivates me, I would only be a facade of an instructor, telling my students to do something that I struggle to find on a daily basis. Though my students may not realize it, I am grateful that they are there to continue to drive me forward so that I can offer them the best training experience possible.
