While some campfire stories are scary, I hope mine had the opposite effect. In 2001, I spent over three months biking across the country to raise awareness about prostate cancer. My wife was my support team, following in a car while I pedaled along. In the evenings, we’d stay at campgrounds, letting people know about...Continue reading
Unless you’re living completely off the grid (and if you were, you wouldn’t be reading this), you’ve heard about the recent fires that have destroyed hundreds of homes and taken far too many lives. For more than 70 years, Smokey Bear has been telling us about how to prevent forest fires. Clearly we need to be...Continue reading
Gendered expectations in marriage are not just bad for women, they are also bad for men, according to a new study by University of Connecticut (UConn) sociologists. Using data on the same nationally representative group of married men and women over 15 years, the authors examined the relationship between men’s and women’s relative income contributions...Continue reading
Greatness comes in many forms, and this is certainly one of them! Who are your favorite Olympians this year? Gosh, what a panoply of miracles, upsets, world records and letdowns! Maybe it’s the once-in-a-lifetime-stars like motorized Michael Phelps, soaring Simone Biles or unstoppable Usain Bolt. Possibly, it’s the silent but seriously talented home grown Brazilian beach volleyball players Bárbara Seixas and...Continue reading
It was in fifth grade when I first read a handful of James Thurber’s “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.” My teacher, Mrs. Dalton, used Thurber as an example of descriptive writing, what she referred to as “Show, not tell” or SNT for short. I vividly remember writing a story similar to Thurber’s Walter Mitty,...Continue reading
Most of us know that heart disease and cancer are among the biggest killers in the United States. They’re actually numbers one and two, having caused 614,000 and 591,000 deaths, respectively, in 2015, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). But the third leading killer, which takes the lives of about 250,000...
We often want to blame a rise in blood pressure on diet, weight, lack of exercise or family history. All of those risk factors can and do play their part of possibly leading to hypertension. But there is another risk factor each of us experience just about every day that can be shouldering some of...Continue reading
Society as a whole has been late to come around to the idea that mental disorders and diseases can be diagnosed and actively treated. Mental health professionals and healthcare experts have adopted many new techniques and strategies over the years to help mental illness sufferers and their families live healthy, productive lives. Educating Families...Continue reading
Truth be told. No fairy tales here. Gotta believe that biology always wins. I was reminded of this as Kevin Richardson, the Backstreet Boys star of our movie If I Could Tell You, recently revealed his own infertility journey. Given his great performance in the film, it’s no surprise he came into it guns loaded with emotional ammo. Sex...Continue reading
It can be difficult to see our parents age, especially as the aging process starts to limit their capabilities, dismantle lifestyles and, in particular, corrode their independence. Despite this difficult time, your responsibility is to intervene when your aging parent shows signs of behavior that could be a risk to themselves or others, particularly driving....Continue reading