5 Tips for Getting Back Into Workouts After Chronic Illness, Burnout, or Trauma

I didn’t do any form of working out for a good 8 years due to being too sick. There were a few times during that period that I tried to start working out again, but I couldn’t ever get past a couple workouts in a row before I crashed again. Eventually, I found a brain retraining program that ended up helping more than any protocol, therapy, diet, or treatment ever had in 8 years of searching (without that none of what follows would have been possible!). As I started to see positive shifts and learned to do life differently, one thing I really wanted to get back was the ability to workout consistently and get strong. I knew from all that I had learned retraining my brain and regulating my nervous system that I would have to approach working out differently than I had before.

Here are five things I learned in the process of getting back to workouts after years of chronic illness (that still benefit me today):

1. Shift the Intention

The intention behind actions you take matters – hugely. Neuroception means our nervous system feels deeply any intent to push or punish out of fear or not feeling enough.

Before I got sick I was very active, but workouts were about burning calories, changing my body, examining it to find what else to try to change about it, criticizing what I didn’t do well, pushing my body without listening to it or providing all it needed to work hard and recover well…

After years of sickness my perspective on working out changed completely. When you lose the ability to do something, you see how precious it is. Before, working out was about pushing and changing and burning. This time, I knew it was a gift. I knew what it was like not to have it. Many days over the years I was laying my way through life I had the thought that if I came out of this I would do it differently. Laying there on the couch with a body that wouldn’t do what I wanted it to, I wasn’t thinking about how to change it or what it looked like – I was thinking, “I want to be strong.” When I got a second chance, I knew I had to take care of myself this time.

My reason for working out shifted naturally because of my experience, but as I got back into the world of fitness I realized I had to be conscious of old patterns and thoughts that would come up and remind myself, “This is a gift! I get to do this! And it’s amazing.”

When I first started running again I had a moment where I started to really push – because I always had before and it was such a familiar feeling to me – and I felt my body tighten up with an old symptom. I told myself in that moment, “I won’t push you too hard this time. I promise I’ll take care of you,” and I physically felt the symptom leave. I finished the run and did push myself hard, but that internal shift from fear to love changed the experience entirely. It was an eye opening moment that I’ve carried with me.

Cultivating an intention for doing what you do that brings you joy, a why that fills you with gratitude, will change your workouts AND the results you get from them. You may be amazed at how much physical progress you make with a different internal dialogue – you can still push hard (and HARD)! Only this time, not because you don’t feel enough but because you know you’re capable, you know the life you want is worth it, and you know you’ve built the trust with yourself to know you’ll take care of you this time.

As far as running goes, after brain retraining for a while and picturing myself running every day, feeling it, changing the reason for why I wanted to, I ran my first run in 8 years. It was a trail run with lots of hills and I ran that thing faster than I had ever run a race pre-sickness and the only thing I did different in between (besides be a complete couch potato year after year) was retrain my brain. My nervous system was in a different place, and I was able to push harder with less effort – and a lot more joy – than before.

Intention changes everything.

2. Cool the Hustle

If you went balls out with high intensity music, an all-or-nothing attitude, and pre-workout before, consider easing back into workouts now with a little more gentleness.

Sometimes it helps to change the environment and your metrics of success. I listened to classical music or a podcast instead of fast-beat music for a time to help gently change my internal associations with external stress as I got back into workouts. Now, I listen to whatever I want, but it was helpful for a time to let my body know: you don’t have to push so hard all the time, you don’t have to rush, you can work hard AND take time.

I learned to focus on quality over quantity, to value connecting with my body over pushing it to do the most in the shortest amount of time. There’s no rush – you’ve got your whole life ahead of you to get stronger and learn new things and you’re already completely worthy. There’s no reason not to slow down and enjoy the journey of getting stronger, feeling what it’s like to live in this body, valuing consistency over push, making sure you’re rested and well-fueled before asking your body to work, and not living life from a place of constant stimulation.

As a side note: the need for pre-workout may be your body asking for minerals (electrolytes) or sleep. Not everyone uses pre-workout as a band-aid, but when it is used that way for a long-time – a way to stimulate your body and force it to do what you want instead of listening to the messages it’s sending – it can eventually lead to burnout (and that can be a long road to recover from, especially if it compounds with other things in life and affects your nervous system).

Listening, nourishing, connecting > hustle.

3. Sandwich Workouts Between Regulating Practices

As I was building my capacity for more stress, I used my brain retraining practice every day both to visualize myself exercising again and to cool down my nervous system after I’d pushed during a workout. Workouts are stress, so sandwiching them in between brain retraining or breathing exercises or somatic practices can be helpful to change the brain’s association with stress and safety and bring the nervous system back into a parasympathetic state after a push. In the brain retraining world, we call this “incremental training” (introducing a stressor and immediately following it with regulating practices to change the brain’s default reaction to it).

On the same note, don’t skip the cool-down portion of a workout! It’s an important cue to the nervous system to come back into a parasympathetic state after exertion. Valuing recovery just as much or even more than working out is one of the best things you can do to for performance, whether you’re recovering from a chronic illness or not.

4. Think Greater Than How You Feel AND Pay Attention to Biofeedback

There’s a time and a place to “think greater than how you feel” in life, especially when it comes to workouts or brain retraining or recovering from chronic illness or anything else you don’t feel like doing because it’s uncomfortable – but it’s important to pay attention to how the nervous system in particular is responding over time. 

Regardless of how hard a workout is, over a period of time they should collectively leave you feeling stronger/more energetic. If over time you feel the opposite, it’s a signal to change something.

If you get nothing else from this post, I hope this sinks in: it’s so worth it to stop and listen when your body starts talking so it doesn’t have to scream.

Sometimes expelling energy is a relief (like when your nervous system is in a sympathetic state); other times there is so much energy being used internally that it’s necessary to take a step back from pushing so hard externally to support what’s happening inside first (like when your nervous system is in a dorsal/shut-down state).

Even if you do scale back on workouts – whether it’s one workout or for a longer season – the practice of continuing to show up in some capacity (even if it’s just to stretch) is SO valuable. Movement is healing and showing up for something consistently is priceless in terms of what it does for your confidence, self-concept, and brain.

Honor where your nervous system is at, invite it into things you’d like to do, gently, keep showing up in whatever capacity you can (knowing it’s very normal for that to change daily).

And know that seasons are temporary and everything can change.

5. Celebrate Everything

Coming back to workouts after a chronic illness and becoming stronger than I’d ever been before taught me that there is an inner strength in the human spirit that is always present. We get a fun chance to see that strength sometimes during workouts but always, it’s there inside – for all of us. I mentioned at the beginning of this that after all that time off, my view of workouts completely changed. Like, do you know what an insane GIFT it is to even HAVE a body that allows you to run or lift something? Two arms, two legs, the ability to do hard things… and recover?! It’s so easy to take for granted when you have those things but the truth is, so many don’t have that – so many people can’t. I couldn’t, for a long time.

Celebrate everything. Just because you get to have it every day doesn’t mean it isn’t precious. Celebrate consistency. Celebrate any form of progress (internal and external). Celebrate others. Celebrate how far you’ve come, and every/any way you get to show up for your beautifully imperfect life.  

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If you’re in a season where you can relate to any of this, I hope this post encourages you.

And if you’re not, maybe one of these will encourage you to take care of what you have now and recognize some signs ahead of time and change some things to avoid going down a more painful road later.

If you’re reading this and aren’t able to workout and do the things you want to do right now, please know it can change. I was there, and now I’m the strongest I’ve ever been. I LOVE my workouts. I truly believe we can age in reverse when we take care of ourselves, body and soul (nervous system included!).

You are worthy,

Your are loved <3

Kristin

~ready to finally end the confusion around nutrition and work WITH your nervous system to heal and reclaim your life? complimentary discovery call for 1:1 coaching and 1x consults linked here

#healingiscoming home