Falls are common for people living with:
- Balance challenges
- Muscle weakness
- Visual impairment
- Long term health condition like low blood pressure, which can lead to dizziness
As a result of repeated falls many people loose confidence in their ability to stay upright. They become afraid to move around freely and often rely on aids and family members to support them. Loosing confidence in our bodies and our capability to move freely impacts our identity and independence, as well as our physical and mental health and well being.
So alongside all the work we do with our clients around posture, gait and muscle strength, we can also offer support by working with them around their confidence and mindset.
This mindset work has 3 distinct outcomes:
- A positive reconnection with our physical body and it’s ability to balance and move freely
- A trust in our own capability to balance
- A desire to move and know that we are safe
We’ve found that the most effective way of doing this mindset work is to weave it into the conversations we have with our clients before, during and after physical exercises and activities.
Here are two of our favourite pre-exercise activities which help clients relax, connect to their bodies and activate their imagination and thinking in service of their rehabilitation
Belly Breathing – clients who have lost confidence are nervous and agitated and so we use belly breathing as a quick and simple way of lowering anxiety levels. A lovely way of introducing this is to do this with them as a preparation for exercise. We find that when we practice this with clients they get a double dose of relaxation. We all know the power of mirror neurones, so if we have built rapport and connection, when we relax and focus our clients will automatically follow us into a state of relaxation.
Awareness – we often use diagrams and images, to guide our clients around their own bodies and help them connect visually to the changes they need to make in their gait and muscle tone. This awareness results in a reconnection by cementing an image of the internal workings of their body and is invaluable when we come to using conscious movement and visualisation in the physical
exercises and activities.
We encourage our clients to move with intention and attention during their exercises and activities.
Intention – we use intention language to help our clients set a balance intention to pay attention to during movement. Intention language embeds confidence and distracts what might otherwise be an anxious mind.
“In a moment you are going to move your right foot and as you do so, you know that your body knows how to balance and stay upright. So you will be able to lift your right foot off the ground and place it down again and stay upright and safe”
Attention – we use attention language to help our clients develop an awareness of what is happening in their bodies right now. The majority of us move without paying any attention to the emotions and feelings in our bodies. Having a metal experience of a movement can be as powerful as a a physical experience of a movement, because our mind doesn’t know the difference between construction and reality.
This attention practice activates a:
- Conscious connection with a specific part of the body
- Mental experience of the movement
“In a moment you are going to lift your right foot a few inches off the ground, and when you do, I’d like you to bring your awareness into your calf muscle, the muscle we looked earlier in the diagram, I invite you to notice what you notice about how your muscle feels when you lift your foot”
Once the exercises and activities are complete, it’s important to affirm and reinforce the experience to help our clients:
- Reflect on what they have experienced
- Reinforce the memory of the experience
- Celebrate what they have achieved
A two minute affirmation visualisation is a really lovely way to relax and embed the experience.
You can use a breathing visualisation with words that reinforce the success and achievement.
“Take a moment or two to connect to the feeling of safety and freedom that you experienced as you lifted your foot off the ground”.