A local congestion-avoidance method in a wireless personal area network includes receiving data from a plurality of sensor nodes, generating a congestion-avoidance response signal with respect to the data first received, and broadcasting the congestion-avoidance response signal to the plurality of sensor nodes. The data may include, for example, a source address, a destination address, a sequence number, and a control frame. The control frame may include, for example, congestion-related information, a sequence number, a source address, and a destination address.