Blaming Yourself for Failure Can Increase Your Risk of Injury
A healthy mindset not only strengthens your brain, but also protects your body from injury. Runners in a recent study were more likely to develop injuries such as tendonitis if they took themselves seriously after poor performances. The author of the study told Runner’s World:
“If a runner uses self-blame as a coping strategy, he blames himself for not enduring enough during training,” says study author Toomas Timpkin, M.D., from Linkoping University. “Self-blame can serve an athlete very well in the short term – it may be correct that the athlete really didn’t put in enough effort before the competition. But the point is, if this self-blame turns into pathological negative thinking, then it becomes a problem. “
Negative thinking can have its benefits , but athletes should use it with caution. Runners who blame themselves for failure are less likely to back down when they feel pain. Eliminating minor injuries can turn them into more serious problems. “The problem is not the training load in absolute numbers, kilometers, miles or anything else – the problem is training when the body needs rest,” Timpkin says.
“Self-blame” Psychological Factor Predicts Overexertion Among High-Class Swedish Athletes: A 12-Month Cohort Study | British Journal of Sports Medicine via Runner’s World
Photo by Tony Alter .
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