Time to dig through those shoeboxes full of paperwork, tax time is here.

And the more organized and knowledgeable you are about the laws, the easier it will be for you to file.

Military members, and spouses, often have very different tax rules to follow than non-military affiliated Americans. If you are tackling your own taxes this year, you need to know what laws give you a break not afforded to everyone else.

It is best to go to the source.

The IRS has webpages specifically addressing the needs of military families. The pages cover special tax considerations for disabled veterans, combat zone pay, proof of healthcare coverage through Tricare and retirement plan deductions.

Find the pages here:

https://www.irs.gov/uac/Tax-Information-for-Members-of-the-U.S.-Armed-Forces

https://www.irs.gov/Individuals/Military

If you are letting a professional do your taxes, make sure that individual has experience working with military returns and can insure that you get all the benefits you are entitled to.

Military spouses, you need to take advantage of the Military Spouse Residency Relief Act. Though the law is complicated, in its most simple form, it allows spouses to only pay state tax in their state of residency, not the state they currently live in due to military orders.

For complete details, check out this document from the Navy Judge Advocate General’s Corps:

http://www.jag.navy.mil/organization/documents/tax/TIM%2002-10%20Encl%202.pdf

If you have any questions when filing your taxes, the best move is to seek help from the tax office on base. Never guess. A simple mistake could cost you thousands.

There is a reason that high stress jobs are referred to as the "rat race."

Employees are stressed, overworked, drained.

What can an 89-year-old Vietnamese monk teach you about taking your stress-filled job down a notch?

A lot, actually.

Zen Buddhist master Thich Nhat Hanh, practices and teaches the art of mindfulness. He wants people, especially those who claim they are too busy to do this, to stop, relax and work on strengthening communication with our peers as a means of developing more meaningful relationships and lessening stress.

Sounds, stressful?

Luckily, HuffPost has written a guide outlining 15 stress that normal, working, busy people can take to practice the art of mindfulness and bring more peace to their daily routine. Here is the online post's list:

1. Start your day with 10 minutes of sitting in meditation.
2. Take the time to sit down and enjoy eating breakfast at home.
3. Remind yourself every day of your gratitude for being alive and having 24 brand-new hours to live.
4. Try not to divide your time into "my time" and "work." All time can be your own time if you stay in the present moment and keep in touch with what’s happening in your body and mind. There’s no reason why your time at work should be any less pleasant than your time anywhere else.
5. Resist the urge to make calls on your cell phone while on your way to and from work, or on your way to appointments. Allow yourself this time to just be with yourself, with nature and with the world around you.
6. Arrange a breathing area at work where you can go to calm down, stop and have a rest. Take regular breathing breaks to come back to your body and to bring your thoughts back to the present.
7. At lunchtime, eat only your food and not your fears or worries. Don’t eat lunch at your desk. Change environments. Go for a walk.
8. Make a ritual out of drinking your tea. Stop work and look deeply into your tea to see everything that went into making it: the clouds and the rain, the tea plantations and the workers harvesting the tea.
9. Before going to a meeting, visualize someone very peaceful, mindful and skillful being with you. Take refuge in this person to help stay calm and peaceful.
10. If you feel anger or irritation, refrain from saying or doing anything straight away. Come back to your breathing and follow your in- and out-breath until you’ve calmed down.
11. Practice looking at your boss, your superiors, your colleagues or your subordinates as your allies and not as your enemies. Recognize that working collaboratively brings more satisfaction and joy than working alone. Know that the success and happiness of everyone is your own success.
12. Express your gratitude and appreciation to your colleagues regularly for their positive qualities. This will transform the whole work environment, making it much more harmonious and pleasant for everyone.
13. Try to relax and restore yourself before going home so you don’t bring accumulated negative energy or frustration home with you.
14. Take some time to relax and come back to yourself when you get home before starting on household chores. Recognize that multitasking means you’re never fully present for any one thing. Do one thing at a time and give it your full attention.
15. At the end of the day, keep a journal of all the good things that happened in your day. Water your seeds of joy and gratitude regularly so they can grow.

Want to read the entire HuffPost story? Check it out at this link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/practical-ways-to-find-your-zen-at-work_568aa168e4b014efe0dafc4e?section=parents&  

Words matter. And with social media, texting and other casual, short-cut means of communicating, professionals unknowingly use language that could cut short their careers. To keep your career on track, consider eliminating these four phrases from your workplace interactions, especially with the boss. 

“We tried that before and it didn’t work”

Nothing kills a productive meeting, brainstorming session or someone else’s excitement about an idea than a stick-in-the-mud who says: “We tried that before and it didn’t work.” Whether you say it to your boss or your peers, you aren’t doing anybody any favors. In fact, people may think you are uncooperative, lazy or uncreative. Others may be willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, but it still isn’t helpful.

“That statement could contain useful information,” said Stevie Puckett, personal development consultant, “but it still requires the boss to dig a little for the details. It might be better to lead with what was learned from the last attempt.”

For example, why not say: The biggest difficulties we had last time around were a, b and c. This time, we could try x, y and z and see if that works better.

“Certain phrases demonstrate resistance,” Puckett said. “They put a stop to conversation unless the boss is willing to ask follow-up questions to dig for useful information.”

“I can’t”

When your boss and co-workers need you most, that’s the last thing they want to hear.  As children we learn to never utter those words and are encouraged to be confident in our abilities. As adults at work, it no longer comes across as a lack of confidence.

"I can't" more often delivers a vibe of "I could but it's too hard and I don't want to," Puckett said.

The message is clear: You won’t.

“That’s not possible”

Creative problem solving is a critical skill in today’s collaborative workplace. Your willingness to brainstorm and share ideas can make the difference in whether your boss sees you as an asset to projects that introduce new ideas or a change agent when things must be done differently.

"’That's not possible" is a very negative stance and a sure cue for a busy boss to move on to someone else for ideas,” Puckett said.

The boss probably won’t call on you when leadership is needed, either. If you can’t motivate yourself to get something done, surely you can’t be counted on to motivate others.

“I don’t have time/I have too much work”

Most of us have times when we feel overworked and underpaid, but only a fool would say out loud, and to the boss, “I don’t have time/I have too much work” to do what you are asking me to do.

What you are really saying is you don’t understand your role.

For example, your boss may be a generalist and has to look at the big picture when making decisions about what has to be done. It is very possible that he or she needs your expertise as a specialist to determine how to make it happen.

It is up to you to gain clarity from the boss. Then, together you can discuss priorities and resources. In other words, it’s almost never a matter of ‘if’ it will be done, it is a matter of ‘how’ it will be done.

“Strive to be one who helps keep momentum going forward with relevant information and fresh ideas and you are more likely to be kept in the loop for the long run,” Puckett said.

By Christine Cioppa

 Sitting at a desk all day for work and classes (on top of the sporadic noshing on snacks) sets many of us back with our weight goals. Now, the New Year is approaching and resolutions are being made for weight loss.

A Nielsen survey of the top 2015 New Years’ resolutions (from January of this year) found that “staying fit and healthy” and “losing weight” were the top two New Year’s resolutions (69 percent of people polled).

If losing weight or maintaining your fitness and health ranks as your top priority for 2016, here are some health sites to get you started, and more importantly, keep you on track.   

Assess Your Weight

Are you overweight? Underweight? Plug in your height and weight at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s Body Mass Index (BMI) calculator to find out. http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/educational/lose_wt/BMI/bmicalc.htm

Choose your Goal Weight

Once you know what your healthy weight range is (from the above BMI calculator), you can choose your goal weight. Plug in your goal weight and the number of days in which you’d like to reach that goal at the USDA’s SuperTracker calculator. You’ll find out how many calories you need per day to reach your goal, and then maintain it.  

https://www.supertracker.usda.gov/bwp/

Figure in Fitness

If you’re not into cutting calories, how about burning them off? The Calorie Control Council has an excellent calculator for tracking the calories you burn, based on activity.

http://caloriecontrol.org/healthy-weight-tool-kit/get-moving-calculator/

Track Your Goals for Free

Now keep track of everything you’re doing. Load your top five goals into the USDA’s SuperTracker site and monitor how you’re doing with:

*Weight Management

*Physical Activity

*Calories

*Foods (See if your diet has imbalances across food groups.)

*Nutrients (Need more Vitamin D? Iron?)

https://www.supertracker.usda.gov/mytop5goals.aspx

Wishing you a healthy and happy 2016!

If you are considering transferring your Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits to your children or spouse, do it now.

Congress set a new rule this week: children who use their parents Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits will receive half of the housing allowance.

Currently, the bill gives students the active duty housing allowance for an E-5, family of four at the location of the college or training facility where the student is enrolled. Full-time online students receive a set rate for their housing.

Transfers of benefits made prior to 180 days from the legislation date, roughly June 11, will be grandfathered into the program and receive full housing allowance. The change does not apply to anyone who has already transferred their benefits.

Military members who transfer their benefits are still able to use their benefits for their one educational needs if they decide to use them instead of passing them on to their children or spouse.

The call for cuts came after a Congressional study found that the housing allotment was often too generous, far exceeding local housing costs. Original drafts asked for money to be taken from both military spouses and military children using their sponsor’s educational benefits.

Members of the Veterans Affairs Committee kept the housing allowance for military spouses intact.

To learn more about transferring your Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits to your spouse or children, visit the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs website at:

http://www.benefits.va.gov/gibill/post911_transfer.asp

When a servicemember is recovering from a serious war injury, having a baby is usually not an immediate concern.

But, as they recover, and military couples try to return to a regular routine, often they find that the next step, having children, is impossible to do naturally.

So far, the government has refused to help veterans whose injuries have stopped them from having children. At least three bills have been sent to Congress since 2012 to provide fertility services to wounded veterans. Officials estimate that roughly 2,300 veterans with spinal cord injuries or wounds to their reproductive and urinary tract systems would be eligible.

Each effort was sidelined as Congress wrestled with the enormous task of delivering basic medical needs to wounded veterans who were already waiting months, sometimes years for service. Tricare will cover the diagnosis of issues that cause infertility but will not cover the cost of in-vitro fertilization services, a cost that can range from $15,000  to $35,000. 

Now, the American Society of Reproductive Medicine and the Society for Assisted Reproduction Technology has stepped in to take the lead. The organization has enlisted the help of 103 clinics across the nation who have agreed to offer deep discounts to injured veterans who need IVF services.

To read more about the program, check the full story by Military Times at http://www.militarytimes.com/story/military/benefits/veterans/2015/11/12/fertility-clinics-offer-discounts-wounded-veterans/75648244/

By Christine Cioppa

The Department of Defense (DoD) is using acupuncture and has been for a while. In fact, the U.S. Air Force even has an Acupuncture and Integrative Medicine Center at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland.

Retired Air Force Colonel Richard C. Niemtzow, M.D., Ph.D., MPH, is leading the military’s research on using acupuncture for pain on the battlefield. Still, it is not a treatment that is typically covered by most insurance companies, including Tricare.

While acupuncture gains ground within the DoD and Veterans Health Administration, there are other places to try it out. Through the Acupuncturists Without Borders (AWB) Military Stress Recovery Project, veterans, active military (including reservists) and their families can seek out free treatment for chronic pain and post traumatic stress (PTSD).

“We have about 35 clinics in various parts of the country run by volunteers that we’ve trained to do trauma treatment,” says Carla Cassler, DAOM, L.Ac., Co-Director of Acupuncturists Without Borders. She says many veterans have a combination of pain, PTSD and some reliance on medications. “Some are also taking a lot of medications. Medications cause a whole set of problems in and of itself,” adds Cassler. “So the acupuncture is a simple treatment that works with all three things—pain, PTSD and substance dependence.”

The organization was created a decade earlier after Hurricane Katrina, where volunteers provided free acupuncture to treat stress and trauma to those who needed it.

“After that, it was the height of the Iraq war,” says Cassler. Many people were coming back with very little assistance for serious traumatic stress, she said. “So we started The Military Stress Recovery Project as a way of providing some services that we had provided in New Orleans.”

Currently, AWB clinics throughout the country do about 40,000 treatments collectively per year. To find a location, go to http://www.acuwithoutborders.org/veteransprogram.php.

How It Works

“The pathways that are involved in pain, chronic pain, and trauma activation are shared neural pathways. So in other words, the network of nerves that are involved in pain patterns and trauma patterns are shared to some extent,” Cassler says. This is why people with PTSD often have worse pain problems and vise versa, she explains.

Acupuncture helps in several ways. First, it promotes blood flow, which helps damaged tissue heal. Second, it helps nerve pathways reset where pain signals are misfiring. With chronic pain, Cassler says that the nerve pathways that were firing in the initial stages of the pain keep firing. In three or four months, after the injury is healed, the pain is still there.

“So you have to treat the nervous system when you are dealing with chronic pain. You have to bring it back to where it can self-regulate and it only fires when it really should,” she says.

Thirdly, acupuncture helps with substance dependence.

“It is really important to keep pain under control and to try to do it without opiates, which is unfortunately part of the picture for a lot of veterans. They are being given really, really strong opiates, then they become addicts. That is not a good configuration,” Cassler says.

The DoD & Acupunture

So why doesn’t Tricare cover it?  Or, does it? At least one base offers it. Cassler is hopeful.

“We are in the middle of trying to integrate this practice into mainstream healthcare. It is definitely more advanced in the DoD than it is in the VA,” she says.

Retired Air Force Colonel Richard C. Niemtzow, M.D., Ph.D., MPH, works for the DoD and studies battlefield acupuncture in the U.S. military. Last month he published research on battlefield acupuncture with two other doctors in the journal Medical Acupuncture. He is credited with the development of a type of ear acupuncture that reduces pain in minutes. The researchers concluded that this type of acupuncture is “an ideal technique” that provides “rapid pain relief in a few minutes with almost no side effects.” 

Currently, the DoD has one, full-time acupuncture center, located at U.S. Air Force Acupuncture and Integrative Medicine Center at Joint Base Andrews. Active duty and retired military personnel are being treated there. The center also provides training to healthcare professionals on battlefield acupuncture.

The VA, which is under congressional control and separate from the DoD, offers limited acupuncture.

There are some acupuncturists in the VA who are MDs. They can offer acupuncture if the medical director says yes. What is getting in the way of acupuncture being offered is an occupational code. While medical doctors can do it under their medical doctor code, not all doctors know it.

But, Cassler says things are changing with the addition of a labor code for acupuncturists. Soon, medical directors will have the option of hiring acupuncturists and providing acupuncture programs.

In the meantime, acupuncture for chronic pain and PTSD can be sought throughout the country through Acupuncturists Without Borders, for free. But it is just a matter of time before things change, and Cassler is content with that.

“We’d like to be out of business so to speak so the veterans can get it through their regular medical care. That is not quite accomplished yet,” she says.

Find a Military Stress Recovery Project center near you: 

http://www.acuwithoutborders.org/veteransprogram.php

Read “Battlefield Acupuncture in the U.S. Military: A Pain-Reduction Model for NATO,” published in Medical Acupuncture, Volume 27, Number 5, 2015 at: http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/pdf/10.1089/acu.2014.1055

By Christine Cioppa   

Once a year many people take a special moment to appreciate what they have. It feels good to get together with family and/or friends and go around the table and give thanks. But when the turkey leftovers are long gone and that spirit of thankfulness slips from the foreground of our minds, thoughts of gratitude can be replaced with thoughts of to-do lists, everyday happenings and whatever annoyances that arise.

Do you leave room for gratitude? (Take this quiz to find out: http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/quizzes/take_quiz/6)

Researcher shows that continuous gratitude has physical, psychological and social benefits. According to The University of California Berkeley, the health benefits include less aches and pains, stronger immunity, lower blood pressure, more restful sleep, feelings of happiness, and reduced feelings of loneliness and isolation.

Ready to get started for better health? Here are two steps:

Think differently. “Gratitude makes us appreciate the value of something, and when we appreciate the value of something, we extract more benefits from it; we’re less likely to take it for granted,” said Robert A. Emmons, Ph.D., of the University of California Berkeley’s Greater Good—The Science of a Meaningful Life.

And when you’re focused on the good, you’re not focused on the bad. As simple as it seems, training ourselves to think differently on a daily basis can lead to greater happiness. How so?

“Gratitude blocks toxic, negative emotions, such as envy, resentment, regret—emotions that can destroy our happiness,” Emmons said.

For more on gratitude from California Berkeley, visit: http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/why_gratitude_is_good/.

Start a gratitude journal and write down what you are grateful for each day. Oprah has kept a gratitude journal for more than a decade.

Not into writing? You can get an app for that! Go to https://www.azasu.me for the Gratitude Journal App for iOS and Android. You can privately type in a sentence a day.

Christmas is still nearly four weeks away. Plenty of time to bake, shop and make plans.

But, if you are mailing cards and gifts, your deadline is now. If those gifts are going overseas, your deadline was last week.

While the U.S. Postal Service can still guarantee delivery by Christmas Eve for domestic items, overseas shipments, especially those going to forward deployed troops, need to be sent asap.

Here are your deadlines:

Shipping to any APO/FPO/DPO/AE zip codes: You will pay domestic prices but the delivery time is longer. And, once the item leaves the post office’s hands and is given to the military for delivery, there is no guarantee when it will arrive

Standard post:  Nov. 7

Space available (the least expensive option):  Nov 25

Parcel airlift mail: Dec. 3

Priority mail: Dec. 10

First class mail (Christmas cards with stamps and small packages):  Dec. 10

Priority mail express military service: Dec. 17

International: Sending gifts to friends you made overseas? You have a little more time though the shipping rates are larger

First class international service (small items): Dec. 1

Priority mail international service (cards): Dec. 1

Priority mail express international service (3 – 5 days): Dec. 8

Global express guaranteed service (1 – 3 days): Dec. 21

Domestic:

Standard post service (2 – 8 days): Dec 15

First class mail (1 – 3 days for smaller items and cards): Dec. 19

Priority mail service (1 – 3 days for larger items): Dec. 21

Priority mail express service (overnight): Dec. 23

Happy Shipping!!

I recently saw a picture with an accompanying quote, “Remember: Nurses are like icebergs. At any one time, you are only seeing about one fifth of what they are actually doing.”

Thinking back to my orthopedic days, this is quite accurate. But, the world of nurse case management is an even more incognito way for nurses to help others outside of the stereotypical hospital shift, and, without people even seeing what is involved.

Floor nurses in the hospital take care of patients while they are admitted. Hospital nurse case managers work on discharge planning and coordinate with the floor nurses and the physicians to ensure the patient is taken care of once they leave the hospital.

Not only do they deal with insurance approval and other communication that may be stressful to a patient but they also provide a smooth transition for the patient from hospital to home. They do this by arranging home health, physical therapy, medical equipment such as walkers or crutches. This ensures the patient is safe to be home and recuperate in the best way possible.

When the Army relocated my family, I began searching for this type of work. Not only was it another way to assist patients in their recovery, but the hours are a more typical 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. schedule. Nurses who work in a ward have to volunteer for their share of night, weekends and holidays.

A nurse case manager position can often require years of previous experience. Even as a new nurse, I was able to earn a Nurse Case Manager position outside a hospital with a worker’s compensation management company, which allows me to do the same type of work, but on a smaller scale.

Here, I am still helping the patient recover after an injury. However I work strictly over the telephone with patients who become injured at the workplace. I help coordinate follow-up visits and care for the patient, as well as communicate with the providers and the employers to keep their recovery plans as streamlined as possible. I take all this information and communicate it to the insurance adjusters so that the claims can be taken care of and the employees are back at work in an efficient amount of time based on their injuries.

The range of injuries varies from simple, uncomplicated and reported but not treated injuries to severe injuries that may require surgery or physical therapy, resulting in my following them for a much longer time period.

As a former orthopedic nurse, if a patient with a shoulder injury rolled up to me on a bed, I know what to do for them. Since this is strictly telephonic, I have been learning the “under the water” part of the iceberg side of this type of nursing. Dealing with their visits, incident reports, diagnostic orders and even surgery reservations, I am still able to aid them in their recovery but from an entirely different angle than what I originally learned.

I am also fortunate enough that this particular company allows me to work from home. I was thrilled at this option and thankful that I literally stumbled upon such an amazing opportunity that allows me to be flexible for my family and still have the satisfaction of having a career helping others. I’m only two weeks in, but I’m thoroughly enjoying helping patients from this side and I look forward to continuing to learn more about nursing “on this underside of the iceberg.”