TerpHealth: Prevention and Management of Interpreting Related Injury

10/14/2026

"Self-care means pausing and paying attention. It’s asking yourself a lot of questions: How am I? What’s working? What’s not working? Why am I stressed, sad, mad, overwhelmed, feeling ashamed, etc.? What can I change? If I can’t change it, how can I cope? If I can change it, what do I do first?" ~Ethan Somerman

10/12/2026

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.

10/06/2026

Many interpreter’s sign space is too high (especially in VRS). This can cumulatively overtax the muscles in the arms and shoulders.

Ask yourself, "If I were to look this sign (or these signs) up in a Sign Language Dictionary - where in space would the sign be shown?" "Go" for example is not up by the chin - but I often see interpreters sign it there. "Friend" is not up by the chin or neck either - but again, that is often where I see interpreters sign it.

A healthy sign space is an important part of minimizing the risk of interpreting-related injury.

Be aware of where you are producing your signs today.

10/05/2026

Interpreters often consume far too much coffee. I am not opposed to a cup or two of coffee per day. There are actually a number of studies that have shown some tremendous health benefits to coffee, including a significant reduction in some types of cancer, less depression, greater mental clarity and a reduction in heart disease. Too much, however can be problematic. Here are a few of the reasons that interpreters should avoid overconsumption of coffee.

- Too much caffeine in the morning is one of the most common causes of mid-afternoon fatigue because too much can tax the adrenal glands. In other words, much like sugar gives you an initial 'high’ - later causing a blood sugar 'crash, too much caffeine will initially give you energy, but later cause fatigue.

- Too much caffeine can dehydrate you. For an interpreter this is significant since hydration is vital to flush out pain-causing metabolic wastes that build up in the muscles and joints from interpreting. Proper hydration is also necessary for optimal brain function. Dehydration can cause fatigue, mental fogginess and lethargy.

- Too much coffee, especially late in the day can contribute to insomnia.

- Too much caffeine can mess with your hormones. Because it taxes the adrenal glands it can interfere with the production of DHEA, one of the master hormones of the reproductive system. Too much can also increase insulin resistance.

10/02/2026

The intensity of stretching should remain below the level the body perceives as a threat. Pain/discomfort = perceived threat.

09/30/2026

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.

09/25/2026

Self-care is an integral part of loving and serving ourselves, others, and our entire community. It is an interpreter’s first and primary personal and professional responsibility. It makes everything else possible in a more balanced and healthy way - including the work.

09/20/2026

Making decompression and processing painful emotional experiences and stressful feelings triggered by interpreting is non-negotiable if an interpreter wants to remain in their chosen field AND remain emotionally and physically healthy. It may not be able to happen immediately after an assignment, however it time should be allotted later to unpack the experience and process the attending emotions.

There are a number of ways in which to decompress from an emotionally triggering interpreting assignment. Here are some helpful approaches:

- Make sure that when you talk about the trigger that you do so in a way that truly helps with decompression - rather than just ‘reliving’ or ‘rehearsing’ what happened. Many times people traumatize themselves repeatedly by just going over and over the events, without really processing what happened. So essentially, to borrow a phrase from one of my workshop participants - ‘Vent with intent’. Make sure your conversation is geared toward recognizing how what happened is impacting you, understanding your own response, processing, integrating, and healing.

- Meditation is a wonderful strategy. It helps us to become aware of our own internal dialogue and state of being. Research has shown that meditation can help heal our brain and significantly reduce stress when practiced regularly. You can read some of the research on the National Institute of Health website, as well as PubMed.

- Doing your own emotional work on a regular basis goes a long way toward reducing emotional vulnerability. As we begin to address our own unresolved pain, there is less to become ‘triggered’.

- Make sure your dietary choices support your emotional health. For example, studies of survivors of post catastrophic natural events (tornados, earthquakes, etc.) have shown that only 18% of those who are given significant and high levels of nutritional support following an event experience PTSD, compared to the 65% who do not receive enhanced nutritional support. Good nutrition increases emotional resiliency.

- Make sure you get enough sleep. People who are sleep deprived lay down twice as many negative memories as those who get enough sleep. Chronic lack of sleep negatively impacts our ability to see the world with a positive outlook.

- Journaling can help us get in touch with our residual feelings.

- Alternate nasal breathing has been shown to significantly reduce stress because it helps to balance the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems.

- Focus on your breath while you think about the situation from which you are decompressing. Make sure you are breathing in the abdominal area, rather than the chest. This helps to lower the stress response. Also focus on and accentuate the OUT breath rather than the in-breath. This helps to calm the flight, fight and freeze response because it stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system, which calms.

- There are a number of acupressure points that can be utilized to help calm the body and mind. You can find these online.


- Yoga and other types of movement ‘therapies’ can help prevent and help get stuck emotions out of your body. Some of these can include TRE (Trauma Release Exercises) which can be found online, somatic exercises, etc. Emotional pain, including vicarious trauma, is not just mental. It involves physiological responses that need physiological release.

- Tapping, including EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) has been found to help quickly release emotional pain from the body. It works quickly and I have found that it is one of the fastest way to process an emotionally triggering interpreting assignment. You can read some of the research on the National Institute of Health website on its effectiveness. You can find an example and free tutorial online at emofree.com.

- There are therapists who specialize in EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing). There is significant research that supports this method for quickly and effectively processing painful and stuck emotions.

Palace of Possibilities offers EFT and Optimal EFT (OEFT) and the Unseen Therapist created by Gary Craig for guidance to emotional freedom, to release stress, heal trauma, and support deep emotional and spiritual transformation.

09/18/2026

Many interpreters have significant neck and shoulder (trapezius) pain. This can be a result of a number of factors. Some common ones include:

- Utilizing sign space that is too high, especially without sufficient micro-rest breaks. This can lead to static loading, which means your muscles will tighten in an effort to sustain the strain and ‘load’ they are being required to bear.

- Initiating lifting the arms from the shoulders rather than simply bending the elbows to raise the arms to an interpreting position. Again, this creates static loading.

- Poor posture.

- Overuse of smart devices and/or poor posture when using such devices. Looking down at phones, IPads and computers can result in substantial physical stress. When the neck and shoulders have to support the full weight of the head (an average of 12 pounds) for extended periods, the muscles become fatigued and begin to tighten and/or spasm. If you find you are using some of these devises, or reading for more than a few minutes at a time, make sure you use props to bring them to eye level. When I am sitting on my couch and reading or using my IPad, I put pillows on my lap to elevate them so that I don't stress my neck and shoulders.

09/12/2026

Be mindful of high-risk ergonomics and biomechanics in your everyday activities as well as in your interpreting, because you take you wherever you go! If you sign forcefully, for example, then you probably do many things in your life in a forceful and ballistic manner. This would include such activities as typing, writing, driving, chopping food, etc.

Beginning to address unhealthy biomechanics can help support new habits and muscle memory.