The Secrets of Happy Couples

What is surprising, experts point out, is that when you ask loving husbands and wives about the key to their devotion, over and over you'll hear the same things, specific habits that mirror these values. Learning these secrets can make your marriage closer too.

They use terms of endearment

Sure, you may find it cloyingly sweet when you overhear other couples talking like 2-year-olds, but endearments are actually a sign of a healthy rapport.

These feelings of intimacy can also come from using a special tone of voice with each other, sharing silly "inside jokes," or pet-naming your spouse's intimate body parts. The point is to connect with some private message system that's meaningful to you alone, as a couple -- not to the outside world.

When the going gets tough, they don't call Mom or Dad

The first task facing all young couples is separating from their families of origin. This doesn't mean you shouldn't go home for the holidays. But if there's a crisis over whether to have a second child or relocate for a new job, or even if there's good news about a big raise or the results of a medical test, the couple should talk about it together first before dialing Mom.

They stay connected to their parents

This doesn't contradict with the above point. You can talk with your mom every day and still be clear about where your attachment to her ends and your love for your mate begins.

Staying connected to parents, siblings, cousins and the like can be excellent for a marriage because it gives a sense of family continuity. It generates positive feelings, especially when you incorporate your spouse into that family. You're sharing that part of you with each other.

They don't nickel-and-dime about chores

It's no secret that most wives continue to do more in the housekeeping and child-rearing departments than their husbands. Still, when partners become double-entry bookkeepers, adding up every dish washed and every diaper changed, they may be headed for trouble.

Most couples think they should strive for a relationship that's 50-50,but the fact is, they should each give 150 percent. In good relationships, couples give everything they can. They don't nickel-and-dime each other, and they respect that each person gives different things.

They give each other gifts

Couples who are deeply connected often give each other presents or write little notes, says Thomas Moore, Ph.D., best-selling author of Care of the Soul. What they're doing is preserving the rituals, and the magic, of their courtship.

The gift should carry no strings. Sarah sometimes comes home from work to find that her husband has prepared a candlelight dinner. But it's not set up to be a prelude to sex.

They never lose their sense of humor

Humor, as many psychotherapists have observed, is the glue that keeps a couple together. When a couple can no longer laugh together, it's a signal that the soul has gone out of their marriage and they are headed for trouble.

But lighthearted couples never mock each other. They instinctively know what is -- and isn't -- fair game.

They take "for better or for worse" seriously

Contented couples encounter their share of life's miseries -- whether it's the car breaking down, a nasty cold or a missed promotion -- but they help each other get through. You don't, for example, hear them say, "How could you let that happen?" when a spouse loses a job. Couples who do well together tend not to do anything that increases their partner's suffering, like become resentful or criticize. In good marriages, people feel safe from the outside world. Each spouse has the feeling, I can count on you, our world is all right.

The Power of Touch

A study at the University of Virginia showed that holding a spouse’s hand can diminish stress set off by a mild electric shock. A total of 16 couples took part; first the wives received the shocks while their brains were monitored via functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).

Next, each woman held the hand of a stranger during the shock--this dampened the stress response seen in the brain. Finally, the women held their husbands’ hands during the shock and the fMRIs showed that the reduction in stress was even greater.
The Cuddle Hormone

Women who get the most hugs from their partner have the highest levels of oxytocin, a hormone sometimes called the “cuddle hormone,” University of North Carolina researchers reported.

Oxytocin is believed to play a role in social bonding and has a powerful effect on the cardiovascular systems. In the study, the frequent huggers had lower blood pressure. So there you have it, love is good for almost everything. The only exception: it doesn’t help you lose weight.

Fascinating Facts About Cats

Cats have internal GPS systems.

Lost cats really can find their way home. Various experts point to sunlight angles, the earth's magnetic fields and another capability referred to as PSI Traveling. Whatever the case, recorded facts about cats confirm their often long and arduous journeys to reach home and a favored human companion.

Cats can use pet doors.

For families that maintain indoor-outdoor cats, nothing's more convenient than a pet door. Know who came up with the idea? Gravity King Sir Isaac Newton! According to various tales passed down over the years, Newton was experimenting with light in a darkened room and one of his most prized cats kept opening the door and disrupting the experiment. To keep his work intact and allow the cat free roam, he cut a small hole in the door and covered it with cloth. That evolved into what is today known as a pet door, suitable for both cats and dogs.

Cats can use the toilet, and they can flush.

Cat-training experts say and they claim that there's no need for kitty litter. You can definitely train your cat to use the toilet.

Happy Couples do stuff together

When that pheromone-crazy feeling of falling in love passes and happy couples no longer spend all day in bed, they look outward. They start businesses, refinish the attic or take up cooking together.

Of all the variables in a relationship -from commitment to communication- the amount of fun couples have together is the strongest factor in determining their overall marital happiness, according to a landmark study by Howard Markman, Ph.D., codirector of the Center for Marital and Family Studies at the University of Denver. Time spent playing together, says Dr. Markman, is an "investment in the relationship"; it provides a relaxed intimacy that strengthens the bond between two people.

So even if your life is impossibly frantic, make the time for play. And do all you can to eliminate distractions. Leave the kids with a sitter, ditch the beeper and cell phone. The activity doesn't have to be anything elaborate or costly. Exercising together, browsing in antiques stores, or renting a classic movie can help bring the two of you closer.

Why a cup of coffee (or two) isn't so bad?

A couple of cups of joe may perk you up in more ways than you think. Coffee gets a bad rap because of the caffeine, but it may actually help regulate your mood. A recent study published in Archives of Internal Medicine showed that women who drank two to three cups of coffee daily had a 15% lower risk of depression. Photo by iStock

"Caffeine helps activate the brain chemicals involved in mood, like dopamine and serotonin," says study author Alberto Ascherio, MD, a professor of epidemiology and nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health. Coffee is also a rich source of antioxidants and other healthy compounds that may help protect against cancer, according to new research.

One caveat: If you don't drink coffee, don't start (caffeine is a stimulant and can cause jitters or an upset stomach in some people). But if you're a java lover, consider this permission to pour yourself an extra cup.

Expert tips for calming pre-date jitters

Help is here. Here're some tips on how to overcome this common problem. We’ve rounded up advice from experts who teach people how to stay calm in nerve-wracking situations. Try their tips below for putting your best dating foot forward.

Tip #1: Keep a healthy perspective about what first dates are really for “The first and most important step in overcoming the fear is to put your first date in perspective: this is not an appointment with the dentist or brain surgeon who may inflict pain on you; rather, it is a conversation with another person. The worst thing that can happen is that you won’t connect with the person sitting across from you — it’s hardly the end of the world! Second, think of this date as a two-way process. You are interviewing a potential partner as much as your date is interviewing you. Is there a good fit here? What looks good on the surface or on paper may not be what it appears to be for either party. Investigate whether this person is a good match for you and whether you want to invest a significant part of your life and energy in future dates.”

Tip #2: Breathe deeply while counting silently to calm yourself down “Here is a simple (but amazingly powerful) breathing technique you can easily do to manage stress while sitting in the car or on the train before a date. While breathing through the nose only, inhale to the count of three and exhale to the count of six. It only takes about two or three minutes to experience a noticeable, full-body calming effect. The reason? Deep breathing triggers your parasympathetic nervous system to counteract the ‘fight-or-flight’ response that underlies your jitters and results in shallower breathing. And if, during the date, you feel yourself getting nervous again, ask an open-ended question, like: ‘So, what’s working at a college really like?’ and then put a soft smile on your face while you breathe the shakes away!”

Concentrate on the present moment instead of worrying about the future “Dating is like auditioning — the stakes are high, so nerves will undoubtedly come into play. I would tell daters the same thing I tell my actors: When you get nervous, put your concentration into the present moment instead of the outcome. Every time you start to think about the future — “Will this person ask me out on a second date?” — force yourself to focus on the conversation at hand. You stand a better chance of booking another date if you can let someone see the type of person you really are, and that you’d be easy to get along with. You can’t do that if you’re draining your own energy trying to figure out what your date wants and what the result might be.”

Release pre-date tension by working up a sweat in the gym
“Work out first! You’ll have a positive feeling from all the endorphins, you’ll feel more confident about your appearance, and you’ll have released the tension from your muscles. Or, instead of going right to the date from your office or home, socialize a bit first — either by meeting a friend somewhere or otherwise putting yourself in a situation where you’re turning on your most positive personality for others. Doing this will make you walk into the date already feeling engaged and ‘up.’ Just do not talk about the upcoming date while you’re socializing, because that will put your mind back on the subject... and could make you nervous all over again.”

Put any negative thoughts in writing, then put a positive spin on them before leaving for your date “Divide a sheet of paper in half. On the left side of the page, write down how your critical inner voices or negative thoughts are undermining your self-confidence. Write them down as though you are talking to yourself; for example, ‘Don’t get too excited about this date. He/she is not going to find you attractive enough.’ Next, on the right-hand side of the page, write down a more realistic or congenial statement about yourself. Like, ‘I may not be a supermodel, but I have good features and a sense of humor.’ Decide which of these more positive, realistic statements you will act on before your date begins. They reflect the real you.”

Tip for Couples: How to fight constructively

There's fighting and then there's fighting. When couples start yelling and throwing things, when they dredge up every single complaint they've ever had (or "kitchen-sinking," as marital experts typically call it), you can be sure that they won't be celebrating their silver anniversary together. Studies show that the way couples handle conflict is the most important factor in determining whether or not they stay together, according to experts in relationship study.

Happy couples have learned the art of constructive arguing, whose research has demonstrated that it's possible to predict whether or not a couple will divorce after watching them argue for 10 or 15 minutes. In strong marriages, the partners take control of their disagreements by establishing ground rules. They may, for example, call a mutually agreed-upon time-out if the conflict is escalating and unproductive, agreeing to continue the discussion after a cooling-off period.

They also truly listen to each other and won't prematurely try to solve the problem before they've heard each other out. Above all, no matter how angry they get, they don't resort to name-calling and insults - key danger signs.

The Most Used Password

The number one way hackers get into protected systems isn't through a fancy technical exploit. It's by guessing the password. That's not too hard when the most common password used on business systems is "Password1."

There's a technical reason for Password1's popularity: It's got an upper-case letter, a number and nine characters. That satisfies the complexity rules for many systems, including the default settings for Microsoft's widely used Active Directory identity management software.

Security services firm Trustwave spotlighted the "Password1" problem in its recently released "2012 Global Security Report," which summarizes the firm's findings from nearly 2 million network vulnerability scans and 300 recent security breach investigations.

Around 5% of passwords involve a variation of the word "password," the company's researchers found. The runner-up, "welcome," turns up in more than 1%.

Easily guessable or entirely blank passwords were the most common vulnerability Trustwave's SpiderLabs unit found in its penetration tests last year on clients' systems. The firm set an assortment of widely available password-cracking tools loose on 2.5 million passwords, and successfully broke more than 200,000 of them.

Fill half your plate with fruits and vegetables

We're told to eat nine servings of fruits and vegetables, but new rule says to fill half your plate with produce.

A serving of broccoli is about five florets. A serving of raw spinach, one cup. A serving of mango, roughly the size of a fist. It's not surprising that people get confused over what, exactly, a serving is, said dietitian.

Many dietitians say to stop counting and instead make half of every meal produce. You don't need a big mound on your plate. Six asparagus spears at dinner, a spinach salad at lunch, and a sliced banana and some berries at breakfast should do it.

And quality counts: Even two or three daily servings of deeply hued fruits and veggies (like blueberries, bok choy, or red peppers) may help reduce your risk of cancer and heart disease. It's like darts. The goal is to hit the bull's-eye. But hitting nearby is good, too.

What happens when I spend the day sitting around?

The inside story: Remember that old saying "the devil finds work for idle hands"? Spending a lazy day on the sofa may not seem evil to you, but your body finds plenty of ways to make trouble with the sugar, or glucose idling in your bloodstream. Taking a walk or getting any other type of physical activity forces muscle cells to soak up glucose, which it uses to produce energy. On a day when you don't give your muscles enough work to do, glucose goes unused. Over time, a sit-around lifestyle encourages two major problems:

* Your body converts some unused sugar to fat. Build up too much and your butt, thighs, and belly will expand. The latter flab depository is the most worrisome; research shows that fat cells around the waistline produce chemicals that cause insulin resistance and low-grade inflammation, which promotes heart disease and other conditions.

* Having lots of glucose lingering in the blood increases levels of dangerous compounds called AGEs that damage nerves and blood cells. That's why high blood sugar causes diabetes complications such as blindness and kidney disease.

Getting up off the sofa and heading out the door for a walk can help you to avoid these fates, of course. Exercise is a reliable fat burner and research shows that physical activity lowers levels of AGEs, too - among many other benefits.

Conclusion: Sitting around all day may help you get caught up on your favorite cable shows, but it is also a set-up for bad blood sugar, weight gain, and all the problems they can cause.

Home Remedies that Actually Work

Do you know that everyday items have secret curing powers too? Below are two items that have the power to cure, and get medical explanations behind the home remedies:

Yogurt to Cure Bad Breath

Bad breath comes from a number of places, the two most common being the mouth and the stomach. The neutralizing powers of yogurt and other probiotics treat the latter cause. "Yogurt shouldn't have any effect at all on the bacteria that live on the tongue because it's not there long enough," says Robert Meltzer, MD, a New York City-based gastroenterologist and attending physician at Lenox Hill Hospital. However, it likely has a neutralizing effect on the acid that resides anywhere between the mouth and the stomach, including the back of the throat and the esophagus, he explains. "I think almost any milk product or food that contains live cultures would have the same effect." While yogurt can get rid of bad breath that results from gastrological conditions, like acid reflux, it won't have any real effect on bad breath that is the product of gum, liver or lung disease, says Ohio-based dentist Matthew Messina, DDS. Photo: Thinkstock

A Spoonful of Sugar to Cure Hiccups

In 1971, Edgar Engelman, MD, conducted a study to find out if a spoonful of sugar really is an effective cure for hiccups. He assembled a group of 20 patients who had been experiencing intractable hiccups for more than six hours, eight of whom had had them anywhere from a full day to six weeks. Each of the test subjects was given one teaspoon of white granulated sugar to swallow dry, and for 19 of the 20 hiccup patients, the cure was immediate. André Dubois, MD, a gastroenterologist in Bethesda, Maryland, noted in The Doctors Book of Home Remedies that "the sugar is probably acting in the mouth to modify the nervous impulses that would otherwise tell the muscles in the diaphragm to contract spasmodically." But don't try this if you have diabetes symptoms.

The Surprising Health Benefits of Love

Love actually can make us healthier, so much so that if you could bottle it, you would have an incredible wonder drug, a Nobel Prize, the thanks of a grateful population and more money than Bill Gates. If a growing body of research is to be believed, love can lengthen your life, ward off stress, boost your immune system, lower your blood pressure, protect you from colds and flu, blunt your response to pain, hasten wound healing, and lower your risk of dementia in old age.

Studies have shown that health-wise, men are a lot better off married than their still-single pals; their wives are less likely to suffer from depression than their unmarried bridesmaids. Let a little romance into your life, and you’re less likely to end up in a nursing home when you’re old and gray. Love and marriage (or even love without marriage) turns out to be really, really good for us. Here are the main reasons why:

Love Defuses Stress

Unchecked stress can undermine your immune system, leaving you prey to all kinds of physical ills. Some studies have shown that happy couples produce less of the hormone cortisol when they’re stressed. This is a good thing because too much cortisol suppresses the immune system leaving us open to colds, flu and worse. It also prompts the body to store fat around the abdominal organs.

This kind of “visceral fat” is linked to diabetes, heart disease and cancer. Marriage appears to be particularly good for health: rates of diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimer’s disease and other chronic ailments are all lower in married people than in single ones.

Love Heals Wounds

A study at Ohio State University used a device designed to leave little blisters on the arm and to enable doctors to monitor the immune system’s response at the tiny wound sites. The researchers used a study grant to pay 42 married couples $2,000 each to agree to the blistering procedures and then to talk about topics that provoked tension and at another time to discuss topics that engendered supportive behavior. The upshot? The blisters took a day longer to heal after sessions when the couples disagreed than when they discussed something pleasant. The wounds took two days longer to heal when there was high hostility during arguments.
Better Brain Health

The give-and-take of marriage—or living with a partner—helps keep your wits sharp.

Living as a couple in midlife was linked to lower risk for cognitive impairment (unusually poor memory and mental functioning) in a Swedish study, while other research shows socializing, including getting together with friends, belonging to a club, or doing volunteer work also helps keep your brain nimble.

Smartphone to Improve Your Mood

Could a phone be smart enough to work out when we’re suffering from depression?

According to researchers at Northwestern University, the answer is yes. The very smart phone being developed by the scientists would work as a virtual therapist and sense the user’s mood.

And it will even offer a cure. The phone would send a text message urging you to get out and do something to feel better. By learning all the user's usual patterns, it can sense when he or she is isolated.

'We’re trying to develop individual algorithms for each user that can determine specific states, so their location where they are, their activity, their social context, who they’re with, what they’re engaged in and their mood,' said psychologist David Mohr.

So if someone is stuck inside for days and feeling down, the 'Mobilyze!' phone could sense it.

'It can provide them an automated text message, or an automated phone call to make a suggestion to give somebody a call or get out of the house,' he added.

Tests on eight volunteers have shown the phone doctor has helped boost their moods.

Computer That Can Decode Your Thoughts and Put Them into Words

It sounds like the stuff of science fiction dreams - or nightmares. Scientists believe they have found a way to read our minds, using a computer program that can decode brain activity in our brains and put it into words.

They say it could offer a lifeline to those whose speech has been affected by stroke or degenerative disease, but many will be concerned about the implications of a technique that can eavesdrop on thoughts and reproduce them.

Neuroscientists at the University of California Berkeley put electrodes inside the skulls of brain surgery patients to monitor information from their temporal lobe, which is involved in the processing of speech and images.

As the patient listened to someone speaking, a computer program analysed how the brain processed and reproduced the words they had heard. The scientists believe the technique could also be used to read and report what they were thinking of saying next.

In the journal PLoS Biology, they write that it takes attempts at mind reading to 'a whole new level'. Robert Knight, professor of psychology and neuroscience, added: 'This is huge for patients who have damage to their speech mechanisms because of a stroke or Lou Gehrig’s [motor neurone] disease and can’t speak.

Is This The Best Candidate Yet for A Second Earth?

Astronomers have found a planet which is one of the best candidates for life ever found by telescopes on Earth. The planet is rocky, like ours, and orbits its sun within the 'habitable zone', where temperatures are just right for liquid water to exist on the planet's surface.

The temperature on the surface could be close to Earth's. 'This planet is the new best candidate to support liquid water and, perhaps, life as we know it,' study leader Guillem Anglada-Escudé said.

The planet was detected using data from the European Southern Observatory's telescopes, which was analysed to look for 'wobbles' in a star's motion caused the gravitational 'tug' of planets orbiting it.

The new planet has a mass around 4.5 times the Earth, and orbits a star called GJ 667C, 22 light years from Earth - just next door, in galactic terms. The new planet absorbs around the same amount of light as our planet.

'This was expected to be a rather unlikely star to host planets. Yet there they are, around a very nearby, metal-poor example of the most common type of star in our galaxy,' said Steven Vogt, a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at UCSC.

'The planet is around one star in a triple-star system. The other stars are pretty far away, but they would look pretty nice in the sky.'

Drinking Water: It will help you de-stress

Being sure to sip water throughout a stressful day can soothe stress-induced symptoms as diverse as headaches, tense muscles, fuzzy thinking, a pounding heart, and low energy. That's because stress taxes all your basic body systems and when you're dehydrated, the effects are magnified.

Given that more than half your body weight is water, just a 2-percent reduction in hydration has a dramatic impact on energy levels and cognitive function and dehydration further raises levels of cortisol, the "stress hormone.

Water won't wash your stress away. But it can provide you with more energy, ease tension, slow breathing, and reduce the strain on your heart.

Eight by eight -eight 8-ounce glasses a day- is a good general rule of thumb, but it's a myth that's the magic amount for everyone, because there are so many variables. The "right" amount for you depends on factors including your age, your activity level, your health level, medications you're taking, and the weather. So how do you know if you're drinking enough? Follow your thirst, and know that you're on the right track if you have straw-colored urine.

Don't skip breakfast!

When you wake up after a long night's rest, your body has gone as much as 12 hours without a meal. That means one thing: You need fuel. More precisely, it means there's probably a shortage of glucose in your bloodstream. If you don't eat breakfast and head out the door with low blood sugar, one organ in particular won't be operating at full speed: your brain, which requires a steady flow of blood sugar to run effectively. And even a mild case of low blood sugar can leave you queasy and jittery. You may also feel less sharp-witted. Studies of school children have shown repeatedly that kids who eat breakfast have better memories and learn more than their classmates who don't.

What's more, blowing off breakfast is a set-up for pigging out later on. "Breakfast is important for keeping your appetite under control the rest of the day," says endocrinologist Suma Dronavalli, MD, of the University of Chicago Medical Center. In other words, skip breakfast and by noontime your groaning stomach will convince you to skip the salad and order a Dagwood-size sandwich, instead. Most people more than compensate for the calories they miss at breakfast by overeating at lunch and dinner - especially foods high in saturated fat, the kind that plugs arteries.

Meanwhile, breakfast skippers are also more likely to snack on junk food between meals. One study found that women who usually nixed breakfast were able to take off four pounds - simply by adding a nutritious meal in the morning. Eat breakfast regularly and you'll not only lose weight, but your blood sugar should shape up, too.

More than three quarters of people who lose weight and keep it off eat breakfast. Sitting down for the morning meal may also make you up to 50 percent less likely to develop insulin resistance, the problem that causes type 2 diabetes.

Omega Supplements and Body Weight

There are two types of polyunsaturated fats that are essential to your health and must come from your diet: omega-6 and omega-3.

Both types are required by our bodies and both are found in large amounts in our brains. Omega-3 polyunsaturated fats are unquestionably beneficial, because they reduce both weight and inflammation and are very critical to healthy brain function.

However, while our bodies do require some omega-6, the excessive amount in the average American's diet has been shown to increase appetite and weight, and also promote inflammation in your body tissues. Extraordinarily heavy dose of omega-6 is not good for us, inflammation plays a critical role in coronary disease.

What is it about the modern diet that's leading you to eat too much omega-6? Like omega-3, omega-6 fats occur naturally in small amounts in plants and in the meat of animals that eat plants, while nuts and seeds tend to have more omega-3. The problem for us today is that there is more than 20 times as much omega-6 as omega-3 in the our diet.

The culprit? Industrially processed vegetable oils, like corn and soybean oils, which according to Lassek, are added to most prepared foods. A problem arises when the balance of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids is off. Omega-6 is easily found in the standard diet, while omega-3 is not. Our body needs a ratio of 1:1 omega-6 to omega-3, but the typical of us consumes at least 15 times as much omega-6 as omega-3.

What happens when you don't have enough sleep?

No one knows for sure why sleep is necessary, but there's no doubt that getting too little throws a wrench into your body's works. For example, studies show that a sleep debt lowers levels of the hormone leptin, which helps keep your appetite under control. Implication: Sleep too little, and there's a good chance you'll be soon overeating. Sleep deprivation also boosts levels of stress hormones, which prompt your body to send more glucose into your bloodstream. Too little sleep also makes your body less sensitive to insulin.

But that's just the beginning. Research shows that sleeping too little shuts down production of certain chemicals in the immune system that defend your body against germs. Shortchange yourself on shut-eye and you may want to have a box of tissues and cough medicine handy: A 2009 study found that people who sleep less than seven hours a night are up to three times more likely to develop a cold.

Other studies show that even modest sleep deprivation - cutting back from your usual eight hours a night to six hours, for instance - can turn up levels of chronic inflammation, which increases the risk for many conditions, including heart attacks, strokes, and osteoporosis.

Then, there are the immediate effects. When the alarm clock blares you out of a deep sleep, you're apt to start the day in a sour mood. As the day passes, you're also likely to feel dull witted and foggy. Some neurologists believe that one purpose of sleep is to give your brain a chance to build and strengthen the wiring between neurons. Studies show that well-rested people learn new information faster and have sharper memories. Short sleep reduces your reaction time, too, making you at risk for car accidents and other mishaps.

While some people can get by on relatively little sleep, most of us need seven to eight hours a night. Experts say one sign that you're getting adequate sleep is that you can wake up on time every day without using an alarm clock.

What happens when I spend the day really angry?

There's nothing wrong with getting angry - it's perfectly natural and healthy to get ticked off now and then. Staying angry is another matter altogether: It's terrible for you. Apart from wrecking your mood and alienating others, fuming all day can make it much harder to manage diabetes. Anger is a form of emotional stress, which causes your body to release adrenaline and other related hormones. One effect of these "stress" hormones is to raise blood sugar. Also, stress may make you indulge in bad habits, such as eating junk food, which can make matters worse.

There's more. Letting your anger boil all day can damage your heart. Do you get irked and annoyed now and then, but you're able to shrug it off? No big deal. But scientists now know that clinging to anger raises blood pressure. While that's not a big surprise, a recent Yale study found that people who tend to let their anger stew also have high levels of a substance called endothelin, which is known to trigger heart attacks by causing plaques in the arteries (clumps of fat, cholesterol, and other gunk) to burst open and form blood clots. Other research has found that intense, sustained anger can actually cause an arrhythmia, or irregular heartbeat, which can stop your ticker from ticking - permanently.

Day-long anger can be toxic, so find a way to let it go. Write down your rage in a journal. If a friend or family member made you mad, tell 'em. Or just go outside and scream - whatever helps you blow off steam.