The days that follow after having a heart attack are crucial to your recovery. In the beginning, you may not have control over your physical health. If you choose to focus on what you do have control over, it will allow for greater hope and less frustration.
You have great power over how you think. How you think contributes to how you feel and how you feel can impact your physical health.
In time there is a process that loops as your physical health has a big impact on your overall happiness. How then do you find ways to think that allows for hope, optimism, and positivity when it feels so difficult and hopeless?
You will have a lot of time on your hands and a lot of questions going through your mind. Here are a few that I experienced in the first few days of my hospital stay. Why me? How did this happen? When can I drive again? How will I pay the bills? When can I go back to work? What will happen to my family?
Worry left unchecked can grow and I used the time in the hospital to tackle my questions. Luckily I had my iPhone and a stack of hospital napkins to use. I found a few ways to work through my questions; I reached out to people I knew that could help with the difficult things, such as how to make a will from my hospital bed. I found support groups on Facebook and LinkedIn and began to research what worked for others.
I googled stories of others that had been in the position that I was in. I devised plans to do all the things I had dreamed of and never made time for in the past, found life coaching exercises from others and began working on them, found ebooks that supported my dreams, ideas, and visions and began reading them. I ended up receiving a bill for using so much data and will warn you to increase your data or keep an eye on it!
Once given the physical clearance there can be a long road to recovery. There are programs to help, such as, The Healthy Hearts Program. The important part is to celebrate your wins, no matter how small. If you choose to focus on the small victories they will begin to snowball until becoming a big victory.
Once you are allowed to leave the hospital and your doctor gives you the clearance, get yourself outside every day. Take time to enjoy lakes, rivers, oceans, mountains, trees, to think, meditate or pray. Being outside improves physical and mental health and will be positive to your healing journey. Keep on going, you are on your way to living a life that thrives.
Resources
https://www.businessinsider.com/why-spending-more-time-outside-is-healthy-2017-7
Photo by Theodoris Katis on Unsplash