Blog posts with the tag "Staff Perspective"

Staff Perspective: Reintegration Experiences of Service Members and Veterans - Challenges and Changes!

By Erin Frick  on 22.05.2019 1:00 pm
Erin Frick ,Psy.D.

While there are a variety of challenges during the reintegration process, the most commonly reported ones included determining where to live, career/educational pursuits (i.e., Do I go into the workforce or go back to school? What kind of job do I want now?), and establishing new routines. One thing that most all Service members will say is that the military provides a structure to life that simply isn’t inherently found in a civilian lifestyle. One friend noted, “Going from a set schedule and working outside the home to being a stay-at-home parent and fulltime student has been challenging.” Another noted, “I wasn’t sure if I could do the same job in the same place with the same people year after year.” He indicated that the intrinsic changes associated with military service was one aspect he valued and during the reintegration process he was struggling with fears of stagnancy possible in a traditional civilian career field.

Staff Perspective: Around the Web - 8 May 2019

By Christopher Adams  on 08.05.2019 1:54 pm

We're going to mix things up a bit this week. Instead of our usual one topic, we're going to take a quick look at a series of relevant stories from around the web. The articles we'll be looking are:

  • Prolonged exposure therapy is more effective in treating veterans with PTSD, alcohol use disorder
  • Virtual Reality as Therapy for Pain
  • Frustrations mount over lack of progress on preventing veterans’ suicide

Staff Perspective: Two Weeks in Australia - A Memoir on Mitigating Jet Lag and Feeding Kangaroos

By Carin Lefkowitz  on 01.05.2019 8:57 am
Carin Lefkowitz, Psy.D.

I don’t have to tell you that jet lag can impact the first few days of travel, regardless of whether you’re on vacation or a deployment, and even if you’re only traveling through a couple of different time zones. Many of our physical and cognitive functions are regulated by our circadian rhythm, including alertness, logical reasoning, and appetite (Kryger, Roth, & Dement, 2016). So symptoms associated with jet lag – grogginess, mood changes, fatigue – result from a systemic mismatch between our personal circadian rhythm and the local time. In general, it takes about one day to adjust to each hour of time change when traveling across time zones. However, a recent trip to Australia, which is (on average) 16 hours ahead of my Eastern US time zone, would take some serious adjustments ahead of time.

Staff Perspective: Sleep's Importance Highlighted at Risk, Resilience, and Recovery Conference

By David Reynolds  on 24.04.2019 8:34 am

Renowned sleep researcher, Dr. Anne Germain from the University of Pittsburg, reviewed her and others’ research at the 14th Annual Amygdala, Stress, and PTSD Conference on April 16th in Bethesda, MD. Dr. Germain’s talk, “Wake up to Sleep! A Translational Perspective of the Role of Sleep in Readiness and Resilience" was presented to over 300 clinicians, researchers and graduate students. 

Staff Perspective: Let’s Talk About Insufficient Sleep - An Interview with Neuroscientist Dr. Tracy Jill Doty

By Diana Dolan  on 17.04.2019 10:18 am
Diana Dolan, Ph.D., CBSM

Insomnia among Service members receives a lot of well-deserved attention, as evidenced by the need for the Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I) workshops CDP provides. That said, insufficient sleep or sleep deprivation is arguably more common. Data shows while approximately 20% of soldiers score above the cutoff score on an insomnia screener (Taylor et al, 2016), 69-72% of Service members obtain six hours or less sleep nightly (Mysliwiec et al, 2013; Luxton et al, 2011). In other words, only a little over a quarter of Service members get into the recommended range of 7-8 hours of sleep nightly. Personally, I would go so far as to say that even seven hours of sleep is insufficient for the majority of people based on my evaluation of sleep research.

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