TerpHealth: Prevention and Management of Interpreting Related Injury

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TerpHealth: Prevention and Management of Interpreting Related Injury

Dr. Diane Gross, DOM, L.Ac., CI/CT (retir
"Sign Safely - Interpret Intelligently"
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TerpHealth(TM) offers prevention and management strategies for interpreting related injury, including ergonomic, nutritional and oriental medical interventions. TerpHealth also provides interventions for emotional stress concerns, workplace analysis and improvement, business, profitability and morale, Life Coaching, and general health and well being.

03/23/2026

As an interpreter there is something insidious that can make you feel that:

- You interpret far worse than you actually do.

- Life and the upcoming day of work is just going to be pain and a struggle.

- The calls you interpret, or the situations you encounter as an interpreter are generally more negative than positive.

- People are just hard to deal with.

- The job is overwhelming.

What is it that can cause these perceptions? Lack of sleep. Studies show lack of sleep impacts the emotional memories you lay down. You tend to remember more negative events and emotional things and fewer positive ones when you don't get enough sleep. This affects your overall experience of life and expectations of what your upcoming day is going to be like.

03/19/2026

Studies show that daily use of a rocking chair has many health benefits, especially as we age.

Rocking increases circulation in the legs and can help reduce low back pain by strengthening the core and relaxing back muscles.

Since it stimulates the body’s vestibular system, it decreases the risk of falling. It helps us maintain equilibrium, balance and coordination.

The vestibular system also helps regulate the nervous system, so daily use of a rocking chair has been found to reduce anxiety and depression, as well as promote better sleep.

The rhythm of rocking promotes neural synchronicity and alpha brain waves, which helps relax the mind.

Rhythmic rocking reduces the stress hormone, cortisol, and releases endorphins, which elevates mood and reduces pain.

Rocking helps to regulate our breathing and slow our heart rate.

The gentle, rhythmic motions of rocking are predictable, which signals safety to our nervous system and brain. It can help us break out of a chronic state of ‘fight, flight, or freeze.’

To put it simply, rocking absolutely rocks! It’s a simple way to support our overall well-being.

**Pro tip** If you order a rocking chair online, make sure to order one that is a good fit, otherwise it will be too awkward to use effectively. Find a chair in your house that is a comfortable fit and measure the seat depth and width. Measure from the floor to the seat, so that you can be sure your feet will touch the ground. Also measure from the seat to your head, if you want a high back rocking chair. Order accordingly.

03/18/2026

The psychological aspect, along with the ergonomic, bio-mechanical and physiological risk factors, is one of the possible predispositions to injury for an interpreter. Years ago I assumed that ergonomic and bio-mechanical factors were the most significant for sign language interpreters. However, after almost 20 years of teaching workshops and performing diagnostics, I now see that the psychological actually is the most impactful.

The psychological factor determines how you take care of yourself physically, how the interpreting task is approached, how you manage your predisposing factors, whether you advocate for yourself or accept unhealthy work terms and conditions, and how you respond if you experience discomfort from interpreting. All of these can impact risk of injury. Some examples of high risk psychological predispositions to injury include:

- External locus of control: An external locus of control means to approach life as if it happens to you. An internal locus of control acknowledges that your personal choices determine how you experience life. An external locus of control increases risk of injury because an interpreter is unlikely to take needed action to take care of themselves and to address issues of concern if they view themselves as powerless.

- “Savior” mentality: Sometimes interpreters find themselves constructing their lives and schedules around what they believe their consumers need – to their own detriment. It is not healthy or helpful to work from a martyr stance, Doing so may result in personal injury.

- Stressful thinking: When you engage in chronic stressful thinking it affects every bodily system. In addition to inhibiting blood circulation, upsetting your body’s hormonal balance, and causing physical muscle tension, chronic stress can also affect the ability of your cells to receive nutrition from the food you eat! The cell receptors can actually get “hijacked” by the stress hormones. Obviously this impacts the ability of your body to repair and nourish itself.

- Perfectionism: I think an “Achilles heel” of many sign language interpreters is demanding perfectionism in their work. This is not to imply that your goal should be anything less than producing work of the highest quality. However, perfectionism is an unfair and unrealistic demand. Approaching the task of interpreting with a need for perfection increases stressful feelings and increases risk of injury.

03/16/2026

Sometimes interpreters deplete their energy because they overextended themselves with their interpreting schedule. But, while that may seem expedient and efficient at times, in the end it can significantly contribute to burn out, emotional exhaustion and interpreting-related injury.

Remember:

- Self-care is your first professional and personal responsibility. You can't continue to give from an empty vessel.

- Your interpreting career is a more like a marathon, than a sprint. You have to remember you are in this for the long haul. Make sure you don't spend yourself too early.

- Don't be a martyr. Overloading your schedule so that assignments don't go unfilled doesn't serve anybody in the long run. Ignoring your own needs for physical and emotional rest will ultimately put you at risk.

- A more balanced schedule - that includes significant rest and recovery time - allows you to refresh your mind and body so that you are able to continue to do your work with quality and safety.

- You can't sustain a schedule that is not in balanced without something ultimately falling apart.

- A balanced life inherently requires balance between work, activity, leisure/fun, friends, family, community and self.

• Make sure to incorporate rest, recovery time and fun into your life! If you don’t, as one of my acupuncture colleagues has stated, “the body will force recuperation with illness....Illness forces capitulation to the body’s needs.” It is often a signal that you have been pushing yourself too much, for too long.

03/15/2026

The goal of stretching is to lengthen and relax muscles. But this can be counter-productive if the nervous system is stimulating that muscle to stay tightly contracted.

Trying to force a muscle to lengthen through aggressive stretches can, and often does, cause the muscle to contract again soon after the stretching in a protective reflex. This reflex protects your muscles from trauma. It's called muscle reactivity.

In order to resolve chronic muscle tightness you have to actively re-set muscle length at the level of the central nervous system. This means that the brain must be engaged in teaching the muscle how to relax. This can be accomplished through pandiculation. It can sometimes be more effective than stretching for chronic muscle tightness.

Imagine a cat or dog when it first wakes up. It arches its back, pulls its belly up tightly, lengthens its muscles, then drops its belly...relaxes everything and then goes about its day. That is pandiculation.

To pandiculate, tighten your arms and legs, feel a yawn coming on, and then slowly reach your arms above your head, then reach one leg down and then the other. First contract your muscles, then lengthen them in the middle of the contraction, then completely relax.

"Pandiculation is a contraction followed by a slow lengthening and full relaxation. The action of pandiculation is how our brain resets our muscle length and reminds our muscles that they don't have to stay stuck in a contracted state. Pandiculation "turns on a light" in the sensory motor system and improves proprioception, which helps you sense your own body more accurately. When you contract a muscle tighter than its present contraction rate, the brain (the command center of the muscles) receives strong feedback, allowing it to “refresh” its sensation of those muscles. By slowly lengthening from that initial contraction, the brain can then lengthen the muscle past the point of habituation into a new, fuller range. The result is a more relaxed muscle and greater voluntary muscle control and coordination." Essential Somatics 2014

03/14/2026

There is great power and potential in the question "What if?".

Many times people (including interpreters) down-spiral their "What ifs." "What if I mess up this assignment?” "What if my team thinks my skills are awful?" "What if I don't understand the Deaf consumer?”

Down spiraling “what ifs” can be disempowering and increase feelings of stress. This, of course, can increase risk of injury. And the question is actually a complete mental fabrication from imagining a projected future outcome anyway. Interestingly, that question also increases the likelihood of a negative result. Try up spiraling "what ifs" today and see what happens! (Why not...you're making it all up anyway! Why make up something that makes you feel lousy? )

Up spiraling “What ifs” can open your eyes to potential solutions and outcomes that are empowering and uplifting. It reduces feelings of stress, worry and fear. And you may also find yourself more excited about possibilities, and even producing work of higher quality.

What if today you rock? What if all day your interpretations feel inspired? What if your interpretations are spot on?

What if?

03/13/2026

I’m posting my Substack here today because I’ve had many interpreters over the years ask me what the difference is between boundaries and walls. So I think it’s relevant for this page…

There is a huge difference between setting healthy boundaries and erecting defensive walls.

A boundary arises from a place of strength and understanding of one’s own value; from a place of self-respect and respect for others.

Healthy relationships require healthy boundaries. Without them what poses as a relationship is simply a relational entanglement. Boundaries make healthy relationships with ourself and others possible. Boundaries are evidence that we value the relationship enough to do the work that authentic relationships require.

Interestingly, the only people who tend to object to a healthy boundary are those who are intent on crossing it.

Putting up a wall is not the same as establishing a healthy boundary. Walls often come from a place of insecurity and lack of trust in oneself. It is a common strategy to try to block out, rather than address, pain and conflict. Walls may keep things out (including pain), but they also prevent us from giving and expressing all of what we have to share.

Walls divide. Boundaries define.

Walls are born out of fear. Boundaries are born out of respect.

Walls block communication. Boundaries foster it.

There is nothing unkind about having healthy boundaries. As Brene’ Brown says, “Boundaries are kind. Lack of boundaries is unkind.”

Establishing healthy boundaries doesn’t have to be done in an antagonistic manner, but it does need to be unequivocal and clear.

03/10/2026

Many people perpetuate their pain by attempting to stretch and strengthen their chronically painful muscles. While stretching and strengthening is a great idea, it can create pain if it is not done at the right time and in the right way. Sometimes the issue is that your body needs to know it’s safe enough to not have to self-protect. I frequently have patients whose attempts to stretch and strengthen a tight muscle just makes things worse. Why?

- The stretch reflex. The stretch reflex involves shortening and contracting a muscle to protect it when the brain and nervous system thinks a muscle is in danger of being overly stretched and possibly torn. It's a self-protection mechanism.

- Contraction multiplied. If you try to strengthen a muscle (which involves 'tightening' it) that is already chronically contracted, it can exacerbated the problem.

What is the answer? Balancing muscle strength and flexibility with kinesthetic awareness. If you have a compromised kinesthetic sense, you may be unaware than you are chronically tightening certain muscles, compensating with other muscles, and moving in ways that are essentially dysfunctional. That must be corrected in order to ensure that you aren't adding to chronic muscle tightness when you do strengthening exercises, or causing the muscle to contract as a defensive response when stretching.

"If you think of a muscle as an object that is tight, you might conclude that you have nothing to do with its behavior, as if it had a mind of its own. This faulty impression often gives rise to the feeling that you are a victim of circumstances beyond your control. On contrast, if you think of a muscle as something being tightened, the implication is that someone is tightening it. That someone is you, even if you are not aware of it and do not wish to do so. Muscles do not have minds of their own - they have your mind. Even though you have unconsciously trained your muscles to be tight, you can consciously retrain them to relax. " Muscular Retraining For Pain-Free Living, by Craig Williamson

03/08/2026

Mimicking the facial expression and body language of the person(s) being observed can strengthen emotions that may be being triggered for the observer. Of course, using body language and facial expression is a core part of effective interpreting. That's one of the reasons why interpreters are at a high risk for being emotionally affected by their work.

One easy thing you can do to interrupt and decompress is to make sure you do not continue to mirror their body language and facial expression once your interpretation is complete. Many interpreters don't realize that they continue to do so when the interpretation is done - even if subtly. If, for example, you were interpreting for someone who was experiencing profound grief, you may continue to express the emotion of grief in your body language and facial expression even after you are finished the interpretation. Your body chemistry will continue to respond with stressful hormones and chemicals - perpetuating the stressful response - UNLESS you interrupt it! How? Quickly and definitively changing your body language and facial expression can be extremely helpful - as can physically discharging the emotion by shaking it off.

Literally shaking your entire body (when appropriate - maybe when you are back in your car....) can help to begin to 'reset' your emotional state. After you shake it off, deliberately upgrade your facial expression and body language to ones that reflect a happier, more relaxed attitude. For example, if you have interpreted for a consumer who looks or sounds stressed-out or angry, when the assignment is complete you can deliberately choose a more pleasant facial expression and relax your body. Special attention should be given to softening the lines between your eyebrows. Breathe softly into your abdomen. This helps stimulate the vagus nerve, which can help to calm the nervous system. Relax your shoulders and buttocks. These body and expression changes can begin to help interrupt and/or reduce the stress response.

03/07/2026

Self-care is not selfish. It is actually the most loving, compassionate, and even professional, thing we can do for ourselves AND others. We can’t give from that which we don’t have. We must nurture the resources that enable us to feel healthy, strong and able to be present for ourselves and others as needed. Self-care helps us to be far more effective interpreters - for the long haul.

Think about what the airlines tell passengers to do when the oxygen masks drop in the case of an emergency. They advise people to put their own masks on first - not because they are promoting an ‘every person for themselves’ agenda, but because they know that if you run out of oxygen you will be rendered helpless to assist anyone else. Putting the oxygen mask on yourself first isn’t selfish, it is exercising wisdom and foresight.

Making time for self-care is a pro-active choice. Many people wait to take time until they are physically, emotionally and/or emotionally spent. Responsible self-care needs to be an ongoing, regular and active part of life. Imagine running a full marathon at the pace of a sprint. You wouldn't be able to finish, and would likely hurt yourself. Interpreting is like running a marathon. If you keep an unreasonable schedule, interpret assignments alone that should be teamed, accept assignments you know you should turn down because your body is screaming for rest - but nobody else is available and you feel guilty saying "no" - then you run the risk of exhausting yourself. This can actually limit the time and quality of the services you are able to provide. In the long-run it serves nobody for you to overextend yourself.

Putting self-care first is an act of healthy self-regard, but it also is a sound professional choice. It also demands that we do the powerful work of letting-go of any residual co-dependent or "savior" attitudes and behaviors. It pushes us toward a healthier relationship with ourselves and with those for which we provide services.

03/06/2026

Self-care is your first professional and personal responsibility. You can't continue to give from an empty vessel.

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Castalian Springs, TN
37031

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+13363378448

Website

http://www.TerpHealth.com/

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