With sequestration and furloughs looming, it's hard not to let the stress get to you.
Everyone encounters stress in life. However, not everyone knows how to deal with it in a healthy way. Fortunately, several Army organizations on Fort Belvoir can help.
One of these is Army Community Service, which hosts a free stress management class every quarter, led by Donita McDonald, ACS Family Advocacy Program outreach coordinator.
"Stress is the body's way of responding to any kind of demand or pressure. Stress can be good or bad," McDonald said. However, "if a person feels overwhelmed, anxious, or threatened, those are bad stressors.
"Our goal is to help students keep a balance and teach them strategies to overcome (stress), whether it is through exercise, recreational activities (or) social support," she said.
Stress can come from a variety of areas -- problems at work or home, health issues, deployments and even traffic. It's how people respond to these stressors -- physically, mentally and emotionally -- that either helps them manage it, or makes things worse, McDonald said.
According to ACS class materials, physical responses to stress include a pounding heart, rapid breathing, memory lapsing, sweaty palms, headaches, fatigue, upset stomach, grinding teeth and muscular tension.
To respond to these, McDonald recommends methods of relaxation like getting more sleep and eating a balanced diet, practicing good time management, journaling and even music therapy.
The important thing to remember, she said, is that there is no shame in asking for help if it's needed.
"If you don't get help, of course it leads to other things, like health issues. It also leads to marital problems. The key is learning to keep a balance with it," McDonald said.
The next stress management class is April 30 from 5:30 to 7 p.m. in the ACS Building. Childcare will be provided. To sign up, or for more information, call McDonald at (703) 805-2561.
The Employee Assistance Program on Fort Belvoir, part of the Army Substance Abuse Program, is another resource for government employees.
"The EAP can provide stress management techniques and skills for coping with stress, as well as provide other resources to assist employees who are dealing with reoccurring stressors," said Katina Oates, EAP coordinator. "Medical and behavioral health professionals are one of the utilities often recommended to employees dealing with significant stress issues."
The EAP is located with ASAP in the Directorate of Human Resources building, 5815 20st Street, Bldg 213, on Fort Belvoir. For more information, call (703) 805-5588, DSN 655-5588, or email katina.f.oates@us.army.mil.
Chaplains can also help with stress management.
Chaplain (Maj.) Charles Scott, Fort Belvoir Family Life Chaplain and director of the Family Life Center, said that stress often affects a person on many levels. Through counseling, he and other chaplains attempt to help community members' deal with all of these areas.
"In general, (we) want to look at how they're handling it physically as well as emotionally and spiritually," he said.
"Physically, there are things a person can do to help alleviate stress," Scott added. "We can talk about some of those things -- breathing techniques, exercise, eating right, getting proper sleep."
The worst thing a person can do to combat stress is to engage in "risky behaviors," such as drugs and alcohol, he added, or even just isolating themselves from others.
"Those ways of dealing with stress don't make it go away," Scott said. "They end up, in fact, making the problem even worse or bring a new set of issues into the equation. But everybody has their own defaults. One way we can help them here at the center (is) to understand what they default to and how to maybe correct that or how to change that -- how to try something new.
"Certainly it's better to be proactive and to not let the stigma of getting help get in the way," Scott said.
For more information, call the Family Life Center at (703) 805-2742.
Editor's Note: This is the first installment in a series on stress management.
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