How to bounce back from a sports injury

Being an athlete comes with a lot of sacrifices and blessings but one of the toughest things to overcome are injuries. Injuries don't just mean we have to take a break from the sport. They also mean a change of our daily routine, social interactions, a possible change of athletic goals, which often is accompanied by feelings of anxiety and some level of depression plus uncertainty about the future. While non-athletes in most cases know how to rest and give their body time to recover, athletes are a different breed. Often athletes do not not know how to take a break after an injury. Their brains, which are trained from a young age to ignore pain, play tricks on them by directing inner self-talk towards "I can play through this.", "It is not as bad.", "I have played through worse.". This mentality leads them to ignore the body's pain signals to stop and as a result causes more severe injuries. 

I am guilty of training and playing through certain pains and injuries myself which resulted in a dislocation of my shoulder and various ankle sprains. Yes, I am one of those crazy athletes who competed with a broken bone justifying it through the irrational thought of "my team needs me to win". But, now being somehow wiser through experience, I appreciate this article which gives general guidelines on how to overcome injuries the healthy way. I wish I had more coaches, counselors, therapists, etc. who had taught me a balance between pushing oneself and listening to my body's signals.