Kendra Lowe, an Air Force veteran, military spouse, and licensed psychologist, says that military spouses can break the stress cycle by learning to understand, respond to, and manage their stress. After nearing her own breaking point on an overseas assignment, she made the decision to change how she viewed her stress.

“I stumbled across an email for décor words you can place on your wall that read ‘Wake Up, Kick Ass, Repeat.’ I immediately ordered it in the largest, darkest letters and adhered it to our wall where it remained for four years,” Kendra says. “Initially it served as a daily challenge. What I later discovered was that by adding this mantra to the wall, I was actively shifting my negative thoughts to positive ones.”

Understand Your Stress

The first step for Kendra was recognizing she had a stress problem. Once she identified it, she could begin understanding where her stress originated and focus on the causes that she could control. If her stress was internal, she could control it. If it was external—like learning her husband’s tour would be extended from two to four years on the first night of their overseas assignment—should most likely could not control it.

“For military spouses this distinction is profound, as we are required to function in a world with very little control. Take comfort in knowing something, especially something with the potential to have a negative impact like stress, is within your control,” Kendra says.

Respond to Your Stress

Kendra began to take control of her thoughts, feelings, and expectations—her internal stress—which gave her the opportunity to shape her stress into a neutral or even a positive experience. As she reframed her stress triggers, she responded differently to the stressful situations, beginning to break the stress cycle.

Tactics like meditation, journaling, and physical exercise can help with stress management, but learning to identify and address the “thieves” in your day can have a profound impact on the stress cycle as well. “Time thieves” such as excessive social media scrolling, phone interruptions, and procrastination all contribute to later feelings of stress and lack of accomplishment. Kendra recommends creating a priority list for the day and even muting your cell phone for periods of time to eliminate distractions. “Emotional thieves” include individuals who leave you feeling put down, anxious, sad, or even depressed. Kendra recommends limiting time with these kinds of people and, when possible, eliminating them from your life altogether so you can spend more time with loving, nurturing people.

Turn Your Stress into Strength

Though military spouses may dream of a stress-free life, breaking the stress cycle won’t eliminate current stress or stop new stress from developing. Instead, reframing mindsets and reforming habits related to stress responses become tools in managing stress.

“The goal is not to solve the problem, but rather to acquire tools to manage stress you may be experiencing now or as it arises in the future,” Kendra says. “Through better management of stress you can begin to experience challenges without suffering as opposed to remaining calm while suffering. A simple, yet profound difference.”

Kendra, MSC, EdS, EdD, NCSP, LSSP, is the author of Milspouse Strength: Changing the Way You See and Respond to Military Life Stress, a friendly guide to help military spouses assess, respond to, and proactively manage the cumulative stress of military life. The book will release January 11, 2022 and is published by Elva Resa Publishing.

More helpful ideas about self-care and stress management from Military Family Life:

• Take a Deep Breath and Exhale Stress
• Managing Stress: Self-Care is Not Selfish

The post Turn Your Military Life Stress into Strength appeared first on Military Family Life.

In military life, stress is part of every move, deployment, school transition, and career shift. Pamela Stokes Eggleston, a military spouse and yoga therapist, says the best preparation for handling stress on tough days is taking time for self-care every day.

Pamela writes and teaches about the benefits and practice of yoga and is the founder and director of Yoga2Sleep. After her husband was injured during a combat deployment, she says she had to relearn the importance of self-care. As a caregiver, she says, caring for her husband goes hand in hand with caring for herself.

“It’s not either-or. It’s both,” she says. “I’m here for my husband and I’m going to care for myself. I have time for meditation built it into my day, because I recognize I need that. When I’m healthy, I show up better for my husband when he needs me, and I’m happier. It’s a positive in all directions.”

Responses to stress are more important than the sources of the stress, says Pamela, and the practice of yoga increases a person’s awareness of those responses.

“Often, you can’t change what’s happening, you can only change yourself and how you’re reacting to outside stressors,” says Pamela. “It’s those reactions that are firing up the nervous system. Self-inquiry and reflection are helpful to discover how this stress is manifested in your life.”

The practice of yoga combines awareness of the mind and body through focused movement, meditation, and breathing. Even without taking a yoga class, however, it’s possible to apply some of yoga’s helpful concepts to daily self-care and stress management. Deep breathing is one example.

“You can’t change what’s happening, you can only change yourself and how you’re reacting… Self-inquiry and reflection are helpful to discover how this stress is manifested in your life.”

— Pamela Stokes Eggleston

“Taking a deep breath may seem overly simplistic, but it’s a very real way to disperse stress,” Pamela says. “Also, when you are focused on feeling the breath in your body, you have to be focused on the present moment. You can’t be focused on the future, and you can’t be focused on the past.”

Complications created by the pandemic have interrupted and altered life in countless ways, adding even more stress to military life and all its demands. Pamela says it’s natural to grieve what was lost, but it’s more effective to focus on the present than to wish for life to go back to the way it was.

“We’re using this term the ‘new normal,’ but we need to recognize that military life was never normal to begin with. There’s nothing normal about military life,” she laughs. “Instead, we can unpack what we feel and say, ‘I’m lamenting what was in the past and worried about the future.’ Then we need to come back to the present. If you’re focused on the past and future, you are not living in the present.”

Part of living in the present, she says, is looking for the benefits of adversity. Military families, she points out, know how to deal with change. They know how to use creativity and determination to make the best of any situation, even one that’s difficult or tragic.

“I’ve known people who died from COVID, and I know people who recovered from COVID, so I’ve seen both sides,” says Pamela. “It’s still possible to look at the blessing side of this. We can sit in what one of my friends calls the joyful discomfort and ask ‘What is the positive I can find, even in that discomfort?’”

Those positives can include personal growth, greater awareness, and compassion. Pamela also says it helps to recognize that military life teaches useful skills and qualities for navigating all kinds of uncertainty and upheaval.

“I need to have compassion for myself and for other people who aren’t like me, who see things differently from the way I do,” she says. “The military community is diverse, so we’ve learned how to handle some of this. But not everyone has lived this way, and we need to have compassion in that. This is what I believe America can aspire to be. Our differences and our diversity are what make us magnificent.”

Take Time for Self-Care

From her expertise as a yoga teacher and therapist, Pamela offers these self-care tips to recognize stress and manage its effects:

Feel Your Breaths. “Take five deep breaths and feel the breath in your body. Feeling and experiencing your breath creates space for self-inquiry. Ask yourself ‘Why do I feel this way? What am I doing to do about it? Why don’t I have compassion for myself or for someone else?’” 

Listen to Yourself. “Pay attention to what is going on in your body and mind. A lot of times we don’t want to be curious about our pain, because it means facing something that might be wrong. We dull our pain, turn it off or trudge through it. Instead, be curious about what that pain means, explore the reasons, practice compassion for the pain you are experiencing.”

Get moving. “You need to move your body, because stagnant energy stresses us out. Sit out in the sunshine and breathe that fresh air. Go when no one else is out there and walk.”

Take Ten Minutes: “You don’t have to take a yoga class, but you can take ten minutes. When people say they don’t have time, I ask, ‘Does your bathroom door have a lock?’ You can sit on the floor of the bathroom and take ten minutes behind a locked door. Put your headphones on and meditate. We’re all busy, but there’s twenty-four hours in the day. Make time for what is really important.”

Accentuate the Positive: “I don’t believe in depletion or restriction. I believe in crowding out the bad stuff with good. Look at what you ingest, both in your diet and your energy. What are you feeding your body and your soul? Fill up with the good stuff.”

Terri Barnes is a military spouse and author of Spouse Calls: Messages From a Military Life, based on her long-running column in Stars and Stripes. She is also the editor of several award-winning books from Elva Resa Publishing.

More helpful ideas about self-care from Military Family Life:

• Take a Deep Breath and Exhale Stress
• Rest Well: 5 Paths to Better Sleep

The post Managing Stress: Self-Care is not Selfish appeared first on Military Family Life.

“As military spouses, we’re used to taking one for the team, when it comes to change,” says Judy. “We put our own needs aside and often pay a price. We have to own our feelings and find ways to navigate through change rather than resist it.”

In her book, Right Side Up: Find Your Way When Military Life Turns You Upside Down, Judy recommends a three-step method of dealing with change: accept, regroup, and approach.

She offers three practical tips for putting these steps into action:

1. Acceptance begins with expressing your concerns about change. Have a conversation with your spouse about the coming change, reinforcing your team approach to the change.
2. Regroup and determine what works best for you and your family in any situation. For example, when taking advice from friends who have experienced similar changes, realize your experience will be different. Evaluate your own situation and decide what guidance will be helpful.

“While it is important to ask for advice when you need it, it is just as important to listen and implement that advice with a ‘what’s best for me’ filter,” writes Judy in Right Side Up.

3. Approach change knowing there are options. Options include how to manage the change, as well as how to handle the emotions it will bring. Look for the positive ways you’ve reacted to change in the past. Share your experiences with friends and listen to theirs.

“We can all benefit from the experiences of others whether they have managed change successfully or not,” Judy says. “Sometimes we have no control over the changes in our lives, but it’s important to remember we are in control of our responses to change.”

Photo credit: Karen Pavlicin-Fragnito

The post Navigating the Emotions and Choices of Change: 3 Positive Strategies appeared first on Military Family Life.

Life coach and author Judy Hissong often asks her clients, “Are you breathing?”

It’s a serious question, because focused breathing is an effective method of stress reduction.

“Of course we are always breathing,” Judy says, “but stress and a busy schedule may be keeping us from breathing correctly.”

Newborn babies breathe very deeply, using all their diaphragm power and lung volume. Their pulse is rapid, and their abdomens rise and fall quickly, as their growing bodies gather needed oxygen. Judy explains that adults tend to lose this breathing technique, but it can be cultivated.

“Why not stop and take some deep healing breaths for no reason at all?” Judy says.

Judy offers these tips for deep, focused breathing:

• Sit with one hand on your abdomen and the other on your chest.
• Be sure your back and neck are straight; shoulders are down and relaxed.
• Inhale slowly through your nose, using your diaphragm to fill your lungs. If you are breathing correctly, the hand on your abdomen should move outward as your abdomen expands, but the hand on your chest should not move.
• Then begin a slow exhale of the same duration.
• Repeat this process for at least three breaths.
• On your third exhalation, blow the air out through your mouth, and emphasize emptying your lungs.
• Now, you know the number one stress-reliever in the world. Please, practice often, and share this gift with others.

Judy Hissong is a professional life coach and the daughter of a soldier. Her poem “Best Friends,” appears in Military Life: Stories and Poems for Children.

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