Blog posts with the tag "Service Members"

I began thinking about the issue of Veterans talking about their military experiences after watching a 2014 TED talk titled “How to talk to Veterans about war.” In this talk, Wes Moore (an Army Veteran) suggested that when he returned from an overseas combat tour, he wanted people to ask him about his experiences and ask how he was doing and what his transition back to the US was like for him. He said many people were hesitant to ask questions which led him to feel that his service wasn’t acknowledged and that people didn’t care.

Depledge & Bird (2009) described the “blue gym” as an approach to promote well-being through being active in water environments such as surfing, kayaking, swimming, or walking along the beach. Being active can be stimulated by being near natural water. Stronger communities, stress reduction, and increased physical activity are three benefits from regular contact with natural environments. The blue gym helps us to connect to each other and the value of nature and our aquatic environments. There are some recent reports looking at the positive impact of surfing on PTSD symptoms for Veterans.