Mind-Body Mental Fitness

SIGONELLA, ITALY

07.18.2022

Courtesy Story

Naval Air Station Sigonella

Story by Jennifer Arellano, Work and Family Life Specialist at FFSC Sigonella

The lifestyle of active duty service members and their families comes with unique stressors that can often be compounded by living overseas. What most people don’t realize is that stress is a normal part of life. The feelings of stress are just indicators that something in our life needs attention, and even presents a possibility for positive change and growth.

The Fleet and Family Support Center is happy to offer a new program to not only address the stressors of military and OCONUS life, but to give people and commands the tools to increase their overall ability to handle new stressors when they arrive.

Mind-Body Mental Fitness (MBMF) is an exciting new program designed to help service members, their families, and their commands better understand how to cope with the stressors that are presented in the military lifestyle. Why is this exciting? This program is a major shift in the way the Navy addresses stress and stress-related injuries. While MBMF provides many tools for dealing with day-to-day stressors, the program has a greater focus on building up resiliency. This proactive approach allows one to maintain a healthy level of functioning despite exposure to stressors. The idea behind MBMF is to give people the ability to learn and grow from the stressors they face; to not only bounce back, but to bounce forward.

The primary goal of Mind-Body Mental Fitness is to enhance the mind, body, spirit and social domains in one's life. MBMF teaches proactive pathways to achieve mental fitness, find balance within these domains, and gain practical skills that can be utilized daily. Some of the practical skills are problem solving, goal setting, mindfulness, meditation, and quick recalibrations to adjust your physiological state. When we increase our resilience, stressors can be seen as a challenge to overcome, rather than a threat.

Over the course of six sessions, MBMF can help you and your command by teaching service members and families that neuroplasticity and mental toughness can be strengthened with consistent practice to create a culture of resilience. The six sessions can be taken together as a series, or any one session can stand alone. One of the six sessions will be offered monthly at The Fleet and Family Support Center but this training can also be brought to your command by request!

The MBMF modules are: Stress Resiliency, Mindfulness and Meditation, Living Core Values, Flexibility, Problem Solving, and Connection.

For more information, questions, or to sign up please contact The Fleet and Family Support Center at 095-56-4291 or email Jennifer Arellano at [e-mail]

• Date Taken: 07.18.2022
• Date Posted: 07.18.2022 08:44
• Story ID: 425181
• Location: SIGONELLA, IT