Stress

At the beginning of Barack Obama's second term, magazines and newspapers are looking back at how he's aged over the first four years. One time-lapse video, according to Gawker, shows the president "Age 10 Years in 5 Years in 2 Minutes. " The Washington Post had photos of Obama "Then & Now," with former White House physician Connie Mariano describing presidents as looking like they "fast-forwarded eight years in the span of four years," presumably because of the stress of the job. Can chronic stress really cause early wrinkles and gray hair?

Kevin Horrigan is a columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Welcome to Your Insurance Company's 24-hour-a-day Wellness Website, designed to let YOU take control of your health-care needs through a morale-boosting program of education, counseling, and aw-shucks neighborliness. Plus, if you're really, really lucky and persistent, you can save some money, though you shouldn't count on it, because every dollar you or your company saves is a dollar we don't get. And we're not in the health-insurance racket for our health.

Most of the 250 people displaced by the MOVE fire, as well as many of those living near the 6200 blocks of Osage Avenue and Pine Street, have been adapting to the enormous stress they have been living with since before the May 13 confrontation, mental health officials said yesterday. But the stress is so great that the threat of serious psychological problems is always there, particularly for some of the groups said to be "at risk" - children, the elderly, people already in therapy and others who suffer a major personal or job loss.

Q: My father complains of a stomach pain he thinks might be an ulcer. Since he leads a stress-free life and we have always been told ulcers are related to stress, we question this diagnosis. Can an ulcer be treated by our family doctor, or should he see a specialist? A: Although the classic teaching has been that stress causes ulcers, this dogma is not necessarily true. People with stress often have cast-iron stomachs, and patients without stress frequently develop peptic ulcers.

The holidays are stressful enough just coping with seasonal chores. A few tips can help turn that holiday frown into a smile. Don't wait until the last minute to put that toy or bicycle together for your child. Chances are you'll be too busy and too tired to do a good job. Don't serve red wine at your party if you have a light-colored carpet. Cleaning a spill can be extremely difficult or impossible. Keep a few wrapped "generic" gifts on hand for surprise guests who bring a gift.

Stress is a natural part of life that gives many of us a certain edge. But when it morphs into "distress" that's when you'll find yourself walloped by sciatica, sleepless nights and indigestion. Besides, it's hard to stay centered when you can't stop weeping in the Wheaties every morning. There are ways to monitor your stress level, and keep it lowered. Maintain a sense of humor. Life only comes around once and you might as well have a few yucks and giggles as you power-drive one kid to basketball and another to Girl Scouts, as everyone eats dinner in the car. Walk out the door.

Last summer the Gloucester County Cultural and Heritage Commission held an Italian festival at Gloucester County College to promote the importance of learning other cultures. This year, the commission is focusing on learning again, but this time its programs shift the emphasis to theater and art. From July 5 through Aug. 6, there will be a workshop called Learning Stages for children 8 to 14 that deals with musical theater. It is designed to give children confidence and experience on stage.

Think of a rubber band. It can stretch and stretch - but then you s-t-r-e-t-c-h it too far and it breaks. The body's bones work the same way. When they are called on to endure too much stress, they crack. "Stress fractures," the medical term for such injuries, are faced by runners and other athletes. "We've seen a rash of stress fractures in the tibia (shin bone) and the pelvis in the past few weeks," said Dr. Phillip Marone, M.D., director of the Thomas Jefferson University Sports Medicine Center, 9th and Sansom streets, which opened four months ago. In recent days, Marone has treated shin stress fractures in a 15-year-old soccer player and in two recreational runners, ages 21 and 26. A 40-year-old attorney, also a runner, came in with a stress fracture of his pelvis.

Scripture-based discussions on how to handle stress while coping with the challenges inherent in contemporary life will be the focus of a series of four workshops set to begin Sunday at the Church of the Brethren, 351 E. Butler Ave., Ambler. The 9:30 a.m. workshops, "Faith Resources to Cope With Stress," are being sponsored by the church's ministry of adult elective classes, and will be led by Peter Bridge and the Rev. Kenn Haring of Samaritan Counseling Center in Ambler. "Stress and Our Inner Selves," Sunday's inaugural workshop, will center on Mark 6:31, and touch on the use of self-discovery and self-awareness to identify individual sources of stress.

Discovering stress on the job is about as much of a revelation as finding toes on feet, but recently there was an hour-long television special on the subject and one of the major weekly news magazines published a cover story that estimated the economic impact of job-related stress at $150 billion a year. The seemingly sudden increase in interest in the subject is not a matter of accident or coincidence. It's a matter of simple demographics: The baby boomers are moving into their middle age, and when a population cohort of that size does anything, it attracts attention.

Just in case you needed another reason to be nice to Dad today: New research out of the University of Pennsylvania's medical and veterinary schools found stressful experiences can be transferred to sperm, increasing the odds that offspring will have blunted responses to stress. That, in turn, is known to be linked to anxiety and depression. OK, it's a mouse study. But the findings, according to the research last month in the Journal of Neuroscience , are the first to show an epigenetic link - a genetic change caused by outside influences - to stress-related diseases passed from father to child.

The United States risks "snatching defeat from the jaws of something that could still resemble victory" if it speeds up its withdrawal from Afghanistan and fails to make long-term financial and military investments in the country, according to a new report coauthored by a former U.S. military commander there. The report, written by retired Marine Gen. John Allen, former undersecretary of defense Michele Flournoy, and defense analyst Michael O'Hanlon for the Center for a New American Security, calls on Washington and Kabul to clarify as soon as possible the size of a continuing U.S. military presence in Afghanistan after combat troops withdraw at the end of next year.

ANNAPOLIS, Md. - With a growing sexual assault epidemic staining the military, President Obama urged U.S. Naval Academy graduates Friday to remember their honor depends on what they do when nobody is looking and said the crime has "no place in the greatest military on earth. " The commander in chief congratulated the 1,047 midshipmen graduating at the Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium, telling the 841 men and 206 women that they have proven themselves morally by meeting rigorous standards at the academy.

You could call it a pause for the paws. Students at Eastern University, in the midst of finals week, get a break from the anxiety, courtesy of a few four-legged stress relievers: Darla, 95 pounds and friendly; Georgia, the cancer survivor; and Stanley, who once scored a walk-on in a Chekov play. For two days, the canine trio, their handlers, and several colleagues set up shop at Eastern's Warner Memorial Library for "De-stress With Dogs," an effort to help students unwind.

NOTED FEMINIST Gloria Steinem took the podium at the National Constitution Center on Tuesday night, addressing a crowd of 500 spanning four generations at Planned Parenthood Southeastern Pennsylvania's annual Spring Gathering. Steinem's talk came at a time when illegal-abortion doc Kermit Gosnell's trial is highlighting the uglier side of the abortion issue in Philadelphia, and as state legislators are considering measures to limit abortion access under future government-funded health-insurance plans.

TOKYO - The United States and Japan opened the door Sunday to new nuclear talks if North Korea lowered tensions and honored past agreements, even as the saber-rattling government rejected South Korea's latest offer of dialogue as a "crafty trick. " U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters in Tokyo that North Korea would find "ready partners" in the United States if it began abandoning its nuclear program. Japan's foreign minister, Fumio Kishida, also demanded a resolution to a dispute concerning Japanese citizens abducted decades ago by North Korean officials.

Here's what you won't see in Trance , Danny Boyle's flashy, frantic thriller about a missing Francisco Goya masterpiece and the thugs and mugs trying to find it: a flurry of scenes from great art-heist movies like The Thomas Crown Affair (the 1999 remake, that is) and some classics of the genre. "We actually had a montage of a lot of movies - you know, all the ones you'd expect - culminating with that scene in Dr. No where Sean Connery sees the stolen painting in Dr. No's lair - and of course it's a Goya painting of the Duke of Wellington!"

HILLSBOROUGH, N.J. - A missing College of New Jersey senior whose purse was found on a walkway of the George Washington Bridge had been feeling a lot of stress, said her father, who worried her disappearance may have had something to do with her birthday. Paige Aiello, whose 22d birthday was Thursday, was reported missing two days earlier by her family in Hillsborough after she apparently took her mother's car without permission, authorities said. That night, a passerby reported finding her purse, cellphone, and car keys on the south walkway of the bridge.

Jenny Roca sat with her legs dangling off the stage as she urged 300 educators to close their eyes, clear their minds, and pay attention to their bodies. In the span of minutes, the teacher from Arise Academy Charter High School in Philadelphia hoped, those attending a summit Monday on the impact of poverty and violence on children's ability to learn would better understand how the body is stimulated and reacts. Children can learn to recognize physiological changes to fear, anger, or other emotions, Roca said.

Taxes complicate our lives every year, but changes in the rules may be making this year especially difficult. These sites explain the changes and tell you how to plan and how to cope with tax stress. Higher taxes on dividends, capital gains, and estates didn't turn out to be as steep as feared by some, but there are many changes for 2013. Tax "must-knows" for 2013, detailed by the investment site Morningstar, include reminders about the changing contribution limits to IRA accounts.