COVER STORY  “Change is hard,” says Dr. Laura Asbell, a Spokane psychologist. “We see it in our culture as a willpower thing, but it is actually a neurological thing. We create habits — standard ways of doing things that are much more efficient. So when we try to get our brain to put in a new habit, our brain is going to fight us like crazy.  That is just normal. It just means we are trying to get our brain to grow new neurons and new synapses.”

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ALT MEDICINE  Who can ignore those Facebook ads? Sting, Denise Richards, and champion surfer Kelly Slater all love it. Açaí (“ah-sigh-EE”) has been featured on The Rachel Ray Show. CBS owner and media mogul Sumner Redstone, who’s 85, has publicly credited acai for his vigor and promotes it to his influential friends. Research dermatologist and media darling Dr. Nicholas Perricone has named açaí “the world’s top superfood” for its ability to fight aging. Read More>>

SENIORS  Esther Walter brings a lifetime of wisdom with her when she comes to help kids in Kathy DuCrest’s second-grade class at Hamblen Elementary practice their reading. Read More>>

LIFESTYLES  Nine years ago, Chef Duane Sunwold, department chair of the Inland Northwest Culinary Academy, dragged himself back from his summer break. “I just couldn’t get over this fatigue. By Fridays, I looked like a walking cadaver,” he sighs. “Then I got a massive migraine… and the right half of my face swelled to ‘Elephant Man’ proportions.” Read More>>

PARENTING  Oversleeping. An unexpected blizzard. Icy roads. A missing glove. A broken binding. A lost ski-rack key. Any of these circumstances can derail an introduction to skiing. Read More>>

COVER STORY  When Kammy and John Doerschlag’s second son, Joey, was born in 2005, they had a happy, healthy infant — for a day. By Day Two, they began to see changes, especially when Joey was breastfeeding. Read More>>

COVER STORY  To understand why she was fat, Mary Jo Kringas went back to the beginning and documented her life year by year. Her scrapbook begins with pictures from 1963 — when she was a cherub with pinchable cheeks. Unlike many babies, though, she didn’t outgrow her baby fat. She just kept getting bigger. Read More>>

COVER STORY  Kari Kelly doesn’t look like a meth addict. At least, not anymore.

The before and after snapshots of Kelly’s life couldn’t be in starker contrast. They may seem to belong in different albums for different lives entirely. Read More>>

FROM THE EDITOR  With three kids, I always say I never have time to sit down. That’s not exactly true, but it is the only reason I am not completely out of shape. No matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to stick with an exercise regimen. That’s why I took heart from a study I read about recently. Researchers told half of a group of 84 hotel room attendants that the exercise they got on their jobs satisfied the Surgeon General’s recommendations for an “active lifestyle.” The other half was not given this information. Four weeks later, the two groups were tested, and the informed group believed they were getting significantly more exercise than they had before the study, even though their jobs had not changed. What’s fascinating is that this group had lost weight and body-fat, improved their waist-to-hip ratio and even showed a decrease in blood pressure. Read More>>

GUEST COLUMN  How much radioactive gas are you and your family breathing in your home? The answer probably isn’t “none”; in fact, in many parts of the Inland Northwest, the answer could be “quite a lot.” Read More>>

INNOVATION  Over the last 10 years, the concept of stem cells has become common fodder for many a conversation around dining room tables and on talk shows. The arguments tend to rage around issues of ethics, law and defining our concept of life. While in human medicine much of the research (and all of the controversy) is focused on embryonic stem cells, in veterinary medicine there’s a completely different focus. In vet medicine, the focus has mainly been on adult-derived stem cells. These adult stem cells have led to a different set of arguments, mainly surrounding issues of effectiveness, what the best source is, and how and where to apply the treatment. Read More>>

LIFESTYLES  You just smacked the snooze button on your alarm clock for the fourth time, and finally you decide it’s time to get up. How can you get your blood pumping, your brain awake and your mind sharp without breaking a sweat or spending too much time? Stretching in the morning is a great way to revive your body from its deep slumber. Stretching increases blood flow to your muscles and resets your mind for a successful day. Read More>>

NEWS  Heather Audel-Neal remembers a specific moment from last March pretty well. She was sitting in a doctor’s office with her husband, awaiting the results from a fresh round of exams: blood tests, an MRI, a spinal tap. Read More>>

PARENTING  Q: I have three kids and someone is always sick. Yet now I read that I’m not supposed to give them over-the-counter cold medicines. Why not? What should I do instead? Read More>>

PEOPLE  George Thompson can tell you exactly how long it’s been since his last recurrence of cancer: “It was 55 months ago. But who’s counting?” Read More>>