How to begin your recovery before surgery

When you have an upcoming planned surgery, you may be busy scheduling time off work, determining who will drive you home from the operation and brainstorming what TV shows you’ll watch during recovery. Another item that you should add to the list is prehabilitation.

Exercising before surgery, referred to as prehabilitation, decreases the risk of surgical complications and often shortens recovery time. Many experts expect it to become standard protocol for many orthopedic, cardiac and cancer surgeries.

“Surgery taxes every system in your body — cardiovascular, respiratory and metabolic,” explains Dr. Laura Peck, a general surgeon at Aurora Health Care. “Prehab raises your baseline health, so the body absorbs the physical stress more gracefully.”

A BMJ study analyzed data from more than 15,000 patients in 186 randomized trials. Researchers found that patients who completed exercise-based programs — often paired with high-protein diets and mental health coaching — had shorter hospital stays, reported less pain, returned faster to work and had greater confidence navigating stairs or carrying groceries sooner than those who didn’t do prehabilitation. Exercise was the single most powerful component, followed by nutritional support.

“Think of prehab as training camp for your body,” Dr. Peck says. “Just like athletes condition their bodies before a season, patients who build strength, stamina and good nutrition before a surgery give themselves a head start on recovery.”

Other prehabilitation steps include:

• Setting measurable goals. This may be hitting 8,000 steps a day, holding a wall sit for 60 seconds or adding 20 grams of protein at breakfast.
• Addressing lifestyle risks. Quit smoking, manage your blood sugar if you have diabetes and review medications that might impair wound healing.
• Including a mental workout. Visualization and breathing exercises can reduce pre-surgery anxiety and improve sleep.

You should ideally start prehabilitation at least six weeks before a scheduled procedure, but even a few weeks can help. A lot of the prehabilitation steps are general healthy habits that you should maintain despite an upcoming surgery.

So, although resting before an upcoming surgery seems ideal, it’s best to get started on your recovery now.

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