If a person feels emotional distress - anger, anxiety or depression - she or he may be experiencing acute stress. That's only one kind of stress, probably the most manageable. Other physical symptoms can include headache, heart palpitations and bowel problems. Chronic stress is worse. It happens when a person never sees a way out of a miserable situation. This can wear people down and even kill them through suicide, violence, heart attack, stroke and, perhaps, even cancer, the American Psychological Association says.
When Melinda Roberts is watching animated movies with her kids -- 7, 9, and 11 -- she'll help them recognize voice actors and talk about the creation process so they won't get scared.
Shortly before last Mother's Day, 28-year-old Lauren Meehan-Machos broke down in front of her startled husband. "This is more than I can handle," she sobbed.
They listen to tales of life's worst moments, but they can't go home and tell their spouses about what they've heard. Sometimes no amount of schooling is enough to shield them from taking on some of their patients' suffering.
The 12-year-old girl plucked cold, slimy potato peels out of the garbage containers in a village in eastern Poland. When those trash scraps became scarce, she ate clover.
The meal you ate the first day you started working. The first exam you aced in high school. The shoes you wore to the prom.
Whether they blame it on the kids, stress, or the lure of the Internet, most Americans feel like they're not getting enough sleep.
By the time you hear your child's early-morning stirrings, you've probably already worked out for 90 minutes, meditated for 30, and enjoyed a healthy, balanced breakfast, which of course included a low-fat pomegranate smoothie. Why, there's nothing left to do besides jog happily over to your beloved offspring's room, sweep him out of bed, and shower him with all the joyous light, wonder, and oneness you're feeling with the universe.
Schizophrenia drugs, increasingly prescribed to children with bipolar disorder and other conditions, can cause youngsters to experience rapid weight gain, according to a new study.
As a large silver balloon floated its way over Colorado, millions of Americans spent hours glued to their televisions wondering if 6-year-old Falcon Heene, assumed to be inside the contraption, was alive.
Post-traumatic stress disorder may be a condition of the mind, but research has implicated it in the ills of the body. Now, a new study suggests it may be associated with death after surgery.
Amid the highest unemployment rate in recent decades and massive job losses around the country, most workers feel happy to at least be employed. What they aren't feeling, however, is healthy.
Amid the highest unemployment rate in recent decades and massive job losses around the country, most workers feel happy to at least be employed. What they aren't feeling, however, is healthy.
If you didn't catch the white coat and the stethoscope, you might take Dr. Mike Miller for a middle-aged rocker, roaming the halls of the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore.
When a marriage is rocky, it can make both partners feel depressed.
When you get angry, the stress isn't restricted to your head. New research shows that anger actually triggers electrical changes in the heart, which can predict future arrhythmias in some patients.
Some children and teens are more likely than their peers to become addicted to the Internet, and a new study suggests it's more likely to happen if kids are depressed, hostile, or have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or social phobia.
Think a little spanking won't do much harm to kids? New research says the effects can be long-lasting.
Facing the world after an isolating and traumatic experience is often stressful, especially for those who have been away for a long time.
A third of military children surveyed who have a parent deployed in a war zone are at "high risk" for psychological problems, according to a new study by military doctors and researchers.
Your therapist's name is ELIZA, and she interacts with you through text on a computer screen. However embarrassing or difficult your problem may be, ELIZA will not hesitate to ask you a question about it, or respond graciously, "That is very interesting. Why do you say that?"
As the storm raged outside her hospital room four years ago, an equally consuming force hijacked Alesia Crockett's mind: deep depression.
Space. Sound. Smell. Humans constantly process a slew of variables in their surroundings. According to new research, the wiring of the brain may be even more complex than we knew.
If you're working in a stressful environment, you and your colleagues may be communicating tension to one another without even realizing it.
Richard Rose used to challenge his wife, Joyce, if he thought she was misstating something, but these days he lets it go.
The American Psychological Association concluded Wednesday that there is little evidence that efforts to change a person's sexual orientation from gay or lesbian to heterosexual are effective.
About 1 in 7, or 13.5 percent of adults who encountered intense dust clouds after the collapse of the World Trade Center on September 11 were later found to have asthma, compared with just 8.4 percent who had no dust cloud exposure, researchers in Atlanta and New York City reported on Tuesday.
Kim Mickens, 49, has always been the caregiver among her eight brothers and sisters. So when her mother, Delphine Mickens, was told she had Alzheimer's disease, Mickens took care of all the arrangements for her mother's care -- among them, she chose a nursing home not far from her place in Baltimore.
When Holly Betten, 28, came home from the hospital after a rough delivery, she had one day to adjust to her new life as a mom before her husband went back to working 12-hour days as a computer-software architect.
Divorce causes more than bitterness and broken hearts. The trauma of a split can leave long-lasting effects on mental and physical health that remarriage might not repair, according to research released this week.
There may be a reason that children's asthma rates are so high in urban areas. Youngsters with stressed-out parents and exposure to air pollution have a higher risk of asthma, according to a study in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Christina Pearson was half-bald at age 13. She just couldn't stop pulling her hair, and ended up taking out every lock from the tops of her ears to the crown of her head.
Two popular anti-smoking drugs will now carry warnings about the risk of severe mental health problems, the Food and Drug Administration announced Wednesday.
Amir was a salesman before being arrested and taken to the infamous Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq in 2003. During his time there, he says, he was forced to lay down in urine and feces, stay naked in his cell for days, and "howl like dogs do" while being pulled by a dog leash. According to his accounts, he was also sodomized with a broomstick and had his genitals stepped on.
Ken Gehle first noticed something was wrong about a year ago: He'd sit down to dinner and the first bite of food seemed to get stuck in his throat.
Henry Joseph Madden was a good student and track team member in high school, but he had a secret: He sometimes wore his mother's pantyhose and underwear under his clothes.
A University of Georgia professor shot and killed his wife and two other adults in Athens, Georgia, in late April, according to police. A U.S. soldier fired on fellow troops in early May at a counseling center at a base outside Baghdad, Iraq, killing five comrades, according to authorities.
Although it may have been Jon and Kate Gosselin's unusual family that landed them a reality show, it is their marital problems-- to which much of their audience can likely relate-- that have made them a household name in recent weeks.
"Just the facts" has always been Lillian Waugh's motto. A historian and former professor of women's studies at West Virginia University, Waugh is a stickler for facts and details. And because she was always the "go to" person at WVU, she was constantly in demand -- and busy.
How do working moms balance work and home life? CNN's Judy Fortin reports.
A five-eyed monster under the bed isn't what worries most kids. Experts say young people fear a lot of what's in the news -- from kidnappings to murders to salmonella.
The state you live in may affect your state of mind, according to new report that shows that rates of stress, depression, and emotional problems vary by geographic region.
A middle-of-the-night fight, a surprise pullout from the Grammy Awards, leaked photos, a police investigation -- new pieces of the puzzle of the alleged assault of pop singer Rihanna by her boyfriend Chris Brown have been emerging since early February.
If you're lying awake at night, feeling angry or fatigued, because of stress, you're in the majority, according to a nationwide report released Tuesday.
Just days after giving birth to her second child, Dr. Jane Dimer drove herself home from the hospital to find her then-husband in bed with another woman. He threw Dimer down the stairs, and she never saw him again until court.
Yes, Americans are stressed over the economy.
Erin Krebs, M.D., once had a patient who spent the first eight minutes of his appointment telling her everything that was wrong with the past four primary care doctors he'd seen -- including one she knew personally and considers a "lovely person." "We know that doctors are not perfect," said Krebs, an assistant professor at the Indiana University School of Medicine. "But it's not a good start to spend a lot of time complaining about the past."
When she heard news of the Continental Airlines plane that plunged into a house in suburban Buffalo, New York, on Thursday night, killing 50 people, Jenny Gomez experienced a familiar feeling creep deep within her psyche. "It definitely sparked those old feelings of anxiety," she said.
Christina McMenemy's husband called her on a Monday afternoon last June to say he was coming home early. She was overjoyed -- some extra, unexpected time with her husband on a lovely summer day.
Until recently, the Bilson household was under siege. Thirteen-year-old daughter Marissa, who has autism, ruled the roost, screaming shrilly until she got her way and enjoying special privileges that didn't extend to her siblings, Brittany, 15, and Brendan, 6.
The Bilson family is like many other families: three kids, a cat, and a small, lovely home with lots of family photos and carved wooden wall signs with sayings like "Live, Laugh, Love."
Stacey Rosenberg, a former marketing manger in Boston, knows the catastrophic feeling of a layoff. She has lost her job twice in the midst of the recession.
Smoking is bad for you, and by now, most of us know it.
As a parent, you wake up in the morning thinking about what you should fix for your kids for breakfast. What time do they need to get to ballet or soccer practice? Who should pick them up from school? Then, they're your last thoughts as you go to bed.
In early October, Starla Darling was just days away from giving birth to her second child. The 27-year-old mother from Polk, Ohio, had a well-paying job with good health insurance at the Archway Cookie plant in nearby Ashland.
CNN's Elizabeth Cohen looks at the effects of stress in the midst of tough economic times.
Stress-induced analgesia occurs when an injured person can ignore the pain of an injury because of other stressful situations going on at the same time. For example, if you bang your shin while hiking, it stops hurting if you see a mountain lion. Researchers say a stress hormone, noradrenaline, also known as norepinephrine, which floods the bloodstream during stressful events, numbs the brain's pain-processing pathway. Previous studies have shown that adrenaline is also part of the reason that certain forms of stress can boost the immune system and help fight off the flu. A study on rats explains how someone injured in a car wreck can still manage to save other people.
Love 'em or hate 'em, every mom clashes with her in-laws. Scroll down any message board and you're bound to read hair-raising tales like the ones on Parenting.com's in-law board.
There won't be any brightly wrapped packages under Annette Peterson's Christmas tree this year.
There won't be any brightly wrapped packages under Annette Peterson's Christmas tree this year.
After the fire, all that was left of Jonathan Reyes' massive Hot Wheels collection was a piece of metal that once was part of a toy car.
Experts are predicting a record voter turnout for tomorrow's presidential election.
Experts are predicting a record voter turnout for tomorrow's presidential election.
To kill time in the obstetrician's waiting room, Lora Jacobsen and her husband, Dustin, discuss names for their future child. Then they read old parenting magazines left in the waiting room. As the minutes tick by -- 30 then 45 then more than 60 -- they play games and check e-mail on their cell phones.
Marquitia Fell isn't sure how she got to the Web site -- she linked from one site to another to another -- but finally, in black and white, she found the promise she'd been looking for: a promise to make her mortgage problems go away.
Marquitia Fell isn't sure how she got to the Web site -- she linked from one site to another to another -- but finally, in black and white, she found the promise she'd been looking for: a promise to make her mortgage problems go away.
Presidents need a break. Really.
If you're lying awake at night, feeling angry or fatigued, because of stress, you're in the majority, according to a nationwide report released Tuesday.
If you're lying awake at nights, feeling angry or fatigued, because of stress, you're in the majority, according to a nationwide report released Tuesday.
If you're lying awake at night, feeling angry or fatigued, because of stress, you're in the majority, according to a nationwide report released Tuesday.
These are times not for the faint of heart. Not for the faint of wallet either. With the stock market seemingly out of control and with prices on goods and services taking a page from Buzz Lightyear's playbook and going "to infinity and beyond," it's a tense time for many.
These are times not for the faint of heart. Not for the faint of wallet either. With the stock market seemingly out of control and with prices on goods and services taking a page from Buzz Lightyear's playbook and going "to infinity and beyond," it's a tense time for many.
Rosa Foster sat down at the kitchen table with a plate of fried chicken and a salad. Before taking a bite of food, she bowed her head and prompted her grandchildren to say the blessing.
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