Stress Management Important Throughout Military Careers

Stress Management Important Throughout Military Careers
WASHINGTON, Aug. 11, 2008 - The Naval Center for Combat and Operational Stress Control is teaching sailors and Marines how to deal with everyday and combat-related stress starting at the beginning of their military careers, a senior Navy official said.
The center recently was established at Naval Medical Center San Diego to address the issues of psychological health by improving care for post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury, but also how to effectively teach sailors and Marines to recognize the signs of stress.

"The idea of the center is ... not only to help sailors and Marines in distress, but to promote good stress management and promote psychological health so it starts when ... people come into boot camp and [lasts] all of the way until they graduate from war college," Navy Capt. (Dr.) Paul Hammer, the center's director, said Aug. 7 in an interview on Dot-Mil-Docs radio show hosted on BlogTalkRadio.com.

"The idea is that we get past the concept of just dealing with things when they are in crisis and hopefully promote a system of addressing stress and addressing our ability to cope with it so we rarely get into a crisis mode," Hammer said.

According to the Navy Bureau of Medicine's Combat/Operational Stress Cell, the signs of operational stress can be sudden or build up over time. Combat stress can happen suddenly when a sailor or Marine encounters immediate danger or it can build up from things such as lack of adequate sleep, loud or constant noise, extreme heat or cold -- things that make life in combat stressful. Stress can have harmful effects on a sailors' or Marines' bodies, minds and actions, he said. It also can directly affect how sailors or Marines deal with others—friends or enemies.

"Combat stress, of course, is the stress that occurs when you are in combat -- the extreme set of circumstances when your life is in danger and when you have to [make] life and death ... decisions quickly ... and when you are under extreme pressure," Hammer said.

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