SPECIAL SECTION  Stress happens. A lot. And when you’re in the eye of the tornado, it’s all you can do to keep from being sucked into the vortex of insanity. The last thing crossing your mind — as you watch your house fly away — is the fact that heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States. Read More>>

SPECIAL SECTION  “One of the things I teach is that we’re not physically designed to live the type of lifestyles that we do,” says Jeane Plastino-Wood, director of the American Institute of Clinical Massage. “As a result, we see more stress disorders in clinic than ever before.”
Her practice and teaching clinic in Post Falls, Idaho, treats more than 150 people each day. Plastino-Wood attributes an onslaught of disorders that plague not only working generations, but also youth and elderly, to the over-stressed nature of modern life.
“I don’t know how we survive sometimes,” she says. “Collectively, we are fatigued. We have the largest amount of digestive disorders and the highest number of reproduction disorders.” Read More>>

SPECIAL SECTION  Remember the 1999 cult comedy Office Space? Remember Milton Waddams, that mumbly, pock-faced little mole who was constantly dissed, downgraded and demoted until (spoiler, 11 years later!) he burned the place down?
Christina Geithner’s research would suggest Milton’s story isn’t that far from reality. Geithner, an associate professor in Gonzaga’s Exercise Science department, has written two papers (she also spoke at the recent Working Women’s Survival Show) about the importance for both workers and bosses to strike a balance between life and work — and the consequences for both if they don’t. Read More>>

SPECIAL SECTION  As it turns out, much of what you think about the state of the American marriage is wrong: Half of marriages don’t end in divorce; married people don’t have less sex than their single counterparts and — surprise! — fighting can actually be beneficial to your relationship. That’s what Tara Parker-Pope, a health journalist and the woman behind the New York Times’ “Well” blog, discovered while researching her new book, For Better: The Science of a Good Marriage.” In the book, Parker-Pope argues that the marital bond isn’t nearly as mysterious as you might believe, and unlike the vast majority of authors on the subject, she uses credible scientific research to back up her claims about everything from sex to housework. Read More>>

SPECIAL SECTION  Peeing your pants during jubilant laughter is one thing. Peeing your pants because you chuckled, coughed or went for a jog something else entirely. Urinary Incontinence doesn’t get a public face. Where testicular cancer has Lance Armstrong and osteoporosis has Sally Fields, there’s no relatable spokesperson for loss of bladder control.
But it’s fact: UI is no less common than parking tickets. Read More>>

SPECIAL SECTION  “If you took them away, I would kill you.” That’s what Christie Hoffman said, when I asked her about hormones. The 58-year-old director of community relations at Riverview Retirement Community says hormone replacement therapy has granted her sanity through hellish hot flashes and unbearable insomnia.
“Until you experience it, it’s like having a newborn baby and being up all night,” she says. Read More>>

SPECIAL SECTION  A German study (published in Pediatrics last April) recently caught my attention. Three thousand second- and third-graders were weighed and asked what they drank. Then, over the course of one year, their teachers were given lesson plans to educate students on the value of drinking water. The students were also given water bottles and encouraged to use them. The results? Kids in the schools where drinking water was encouraged were 31 percent less likely to be overweight than those who were not. Read More>>

SPECIAL SECTION  No, your eyes are not deceiving you. Our children are the heaviest they have ever been, with three times as many obese children and adolescents compared to the 1970s in the United States. Read More>>

SPECIAL SECTION  First Ladies always have a pet project. Laura Bush championed children’s reading programs, and Hillary Clinton helped to pass the Children’s Health Insurance Program. Nancy Reagan famously just said no to drugs. Lady Bird Johnson formed The Society for a More Beautiful National Capital. Jackie Kennedy re-upholstered half the White House. Read More>>

SPECIAL SECTION  It begins as innocently as a proud mom handing a gummy bear to a precocious 3-year-old for saying a letter sound correctly. Then — time is short! — dinner via a drive-through on the way to T-ball, and out for ice cream cones to celebrate a win. A week without a timeout? Pizza party!

And suddenly, close to one in four children are overweight. Read More>>