PEACE and LOVE

Remember the old RICE method for taking care of soft tissue injuries? Rest, Ice, Compress, Elevate?

Turns out that passive methodology of healing wasn’t helping us to meet our full potential. Decades of research and advancements in the healing fields have brought us a new acronym to take care of ourselves after trauma and injury. Welcome to the future; it’s the PEACE and LOVE method.

For your healing pleasure:

P – Protect: Give the body a couple of days. Avoid activities that aggravate. Prevent re-injury.
E – Elevate: Keep the injury higher than the heart as often as possible to keep the fluids flowing.
A – Avoid anti-inflammatories / Avoid ice: Don’t slow the body’s natural healing process.
C – Compression: Wrap the affected area to reduce swelling.
E – Educate: Educate yourself about what’s happening inside your body and what it’s capable of, and allow it to do what it does best.
L – Load: Slowly add load to the injury site to promote healing. Light activity, with your body and your pain leading the way.
O – Optimism: You’ve got this. A positive attitude leads to a faster and more thorough recovery.
V – Vascularization: Find pain-free ways to get that heart pumping in order to increase blood flow and speed healing.
E – Exercise: Stretch, strengthen, balance. Restore mobility through mobility.

If I’m honest, I never paid much attention to even the RICE method until recent years. But injury comes easier and healing slower these days. Aging’s a bitch.

As I’ve now got so much more practice, I’m learning the ins and outs of the PEACE and LOVE method. Give me a bit and I’ll be a pro.

But what if PEACE and LOVE isn’t just for injury to the soft tissues, for trauma to the body, but also for trauma to the whole of our person? What if PEACE and LOVE is rehabilitation for more than we give it credit for? The road to recovery for our very beings?

It doesn’t take much of a perspective shift. Just squint one eye and you’ll get there…

P – Protect: Take some time, hole up as needed. Avoid adding insult to injury. Find some nourishment.
E – Elevate: Open your chest, deep breaths. Lift your eyes, look up, peer outside of yourself.
A – Avoid anti-inflammatories / Avoid ice: Don’t numb. Don’t mask. Don’t bury.
C – Compression: Swaddling isn’t just for babies. Warm blankets and hugs are medicine. Find some family, some friends, some neighbors.
E – Educate: Your mind and spirit are bottomless wonders. Read some books, find good therapy, and learn how resilient you really are.
L – Load: Slowly add load to your healing self. Reach out. Give of yourself. Experiment with empathy. Let your heart lead the way.
O – Optimism: You’ve got this. A positive attitude leads to a faster and more thorough recovery. No translation required.
V – Vascularization: Find ways to strengthen the web, to step into the river, to allow the flow. Make your heart work. Spiritual cardio.
E – Exercise: Stretch, strengthen, balance. Fake it ’til you make it if that’s all you’ve got. Get outside of yourself. Push every now and again. Feel the burn.