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The demands of military life are challenging. Whether at home or abroad, service members regularly face difficult situations that can cause stress and anxiety.
When left unchecked, these feelings can last weeks or months, get worse, or interfere with your duties at home and in uniform. For this reason, it is important to reach out to your health care provider if you feel intense or lasting stress or anxiety. Your provider can work with you to manage your symptoms and keep you mission ready. Use the following resources to learn about stress, anxiety and other related topics.
Maintaining physical fitness is critical to support mission readiness. In this article, learn why psychological fitness is also important for mission readiness and find tips that may help you manage your psychological health to reach peak performance.
Whether you are preparing for deployment or reintegration, it’s important to consider how mind and body practices may assist you in staying mission ready. Research has shown that these practices, like yoga and meditation, may be helpful for a variety of conditions. They may help reduce the severity of occupational stress, relax your mind, assist in your recovery, facilitate a boost in performance and help you maintain a healthy lifestyle. In this article, learn the basics of mind and body practices, how they may benefit your health and tips to get you started.
Deployments and Permanent Change of Station (PCS) are an important part of military life. These transitions can be filled with new opportunities and experiences. However, the challenges of moving and separating from family and friends may contribute to loneliness and social isolation. In fact, loneliness can happen to anyone at any time and may negatively impact your health and well-being. Fortunately, there are steps you can take to connect with others and feel more engaged.
From how we socialize with friends, to how we perform our jobs and manage finances, COVID-19 has changed our daily lives in many ways. Many families, now cooped up together under one roof, may experience challenges with juggling childcare and work from home. Meanwhile, those living alone may be struggling with the isolation and lack of in-person human interaction.
Stress can be a big part of military life, no matter which branch you’re in. While we might wish our jobs or lives were less stressful, research shows that some stress at work can actually boost our performance and productivity. However, too much stress can impair mission readiness.
The holidays are a great time to reconnect with family and friends and spend time with your loved ones, but the holidays can also be difficult. For service members who are coping with invisible wounds, the holidays may be stressful – especially for members of the National Guard and reserve who may not have the same deployment support networks as their active duty counterparts. Read the following tips for warriors and families going through the reintegration process this holiday season, which can help keep you and your family healthy and strong.
