Helpful ideas after a stroke (they work for me)

Here are some useful practices I used and still do after my stroke:

Journal or Diary

The key is to keep it simple! Use faces to express yourself... Smiley : ) or frown : ( face or no emotion face : |. You write it down or add to your phone. I started off writing it in my physical journal then it morphed into a note on my phone. This is helpful because when you say "I had a bad week," you can look back to see if that's really the case. Also, the writing down part helped with my hand exercises, ugh, which I hated and still dislike doing.

Inspirational/ Motivational Quotes

Find a few, put them in different places & refer back to them. This helps because there are times when you don't want to get out of bed! I totally agree we should often sleep, especially in the beginning BUT doing things can help too.

Examples:

• "For things to change, YOU must change!" – Jim Rohn

• "We cannot discover new oceans until we have the courage to lose sight of the shore." – Muriel Chen

• "It's not whether you get knocked down, it's whether you get up." –Vince Lombardi

• "Failure will never overtake me if my determination to succeed is strong enough." – Og Mandino

• "The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today." – Franklin D. Roosevelt

Exercise

Easier said than done, but something is better than nothing. It does not need to physical, it can be mental. Maybe reading (or trying to), crossword puzzles (I'm terrible at them), word searches, listening to TED talks or audiobooks or podcasts, etc.

Communication

Communicating can be frustrating, but it is essential for our recovery. Talking or writing with family, friends, therapists, neighbors, or anyone that will listen is beneficial. Communicating assists us with repetition and so much more. Doctors try their best to tell us the importance of repeating the same movements for improvement for brain rewiring (neuroplasticity), but we do not realize, maybe some of us do, the importance.