Fort McCoy
Army Community Service 
School House
"Information and Opportunities"

Stress Management

• Eat Right, Feel Right in Stressful Times

• 10 Ways to Build Resilience

• Stress Reactions

• Big Stress for Small People

• Tips for Simplifying Your Life

• Stress Scale - Adults

• Stress Scale - Youth

• Holiday Stress

• Holiday Do's and Don'ts

Stress Management Workshops are offered by request.  For more information, contact Army Community Service at 608-388-3505.
Click here to register online

Here Come The Holidays, and the stress.  Are You Ready?
As the holiday season approaches, you may be filled with excitement and enthusiasm.  Or just the opposite, you may be filled with anxiety and exhaustion.  If you have a holiday schedule like most people, it’s filled with events you should attend and events you'd like to attend.  Martha Stewart challenges you to decorate with style and serve 7 course meals. Your gift list is overwhelming, and a tower of greeting cards awaits your attention. When you're faced with fitting the season’s obligations into your already busy life, you may be tempted to bi-pass December and move right on to January!

Here are some suggestions to cope with the extra holiday pressures that you and your loved ones maybe feeling.

Communication
Effective family communication is a coping resource not to be overlooked.   The hectic pace of the holidays and our changing schedules can result in ineffective communication with those whom we most need to be communicating with.  With our rushing around from place to place, we don’t have time to talk and when we do have a moment to sit we are to exhausted to care about talking.   When conversations do occur listening tends to be ineffective because thoughts of what we need to do next are running through our minds.

Effective communicating requires families to listen to each other.  Focus on the speaker.  Be open to hearing and respect what the other person is saying.  Repeat what has been said to you to be sure that what you heard is what the other person said.  Finally be open to not only the spoken word but also to the underlying meaning.  

Reduce Your Obligations

• Decide which holiday traditions have true meaning for you and your family and which ones you keep because of habit.

• Which social activities are fun?  Which ones do you attend because you feel obligated?

• Which gifts did you like shopping for and giving and which ones did you feel required giving?

Look at your lists.  Eliminate those traditions that are done out of habit rather than because they have meaning.  Eliminate social activities that you do not enjoy.  When you are faced with an activity that you would like to eliminate and cannot, adjust your thinking and find a way to make it fun.  Develop a gift-spending budget and stick to it.  Eliminate giving gifts that you do not enjoy giving.

Relax
If you feel like there’s so much to do that it’s hard to get to sleep.  Learn to relax!  Buy some relaxation tapes or do some visualization.  Give yourself some quiet time.  Imagine yourself on a tropical beach, listen to the waves, feel the wind on your face, and the sun warming you.  If that’s just too weird for you, take a warm bath before bed.  Let the warm water rinse away the tension of the day.

Laugh  
One of the best ways to deal with holiday stress is to find humor in things.  Tell a funny story about yourself; learn to laugh with your family.  Laughter helps us let go of the tension from our bodies and minds. 

Mental Health Day           
If you are feeling weighed down and need a breather, plan a day off from doing.  If you feel the need to plan, plan to relax.  Plan a quiet walk in nature, a massage; an afternoon with your favorite movie and pair of sweatpants.

Helpful websites for information on coping with holiday stress:
Military OneSource
My Army Life Too
State of Wisconsin Dept of Health & Family Services