How Americans manage stress:

• Listen to music: 52 percent
• Exercise or walk: 47 percent
• Read: 44 percent
• Spend time with friends or family: 41 percent
• Watch TV or movies two or more hours a day: 41 percent
• Nap: 38 percent
• Play video games or surf the Internet: 37 percent
• Pray: 37 percent
• Eat: 34 percent
• Hobby: 30 percent
• Church or religious services: 21 percent
• Drink alcohol: 18 percent
• Shop: 18 percent
• Smoke: 16 percent

In 2009, the Ketchum Global Research Network asked 1,000 U.S. adults (ages 25–54) what they think about the most while they shower. Here were the top four responses:

1. To-do lists
2. Problems, worries
3. Daydreams
4. Work

What an interesting glimpse into what we obsess over as we wake up in the morning or wind down in the evening—the two times most of us take a shower. While we clean ourselves to start the ...

In a 2009 article for Christianity Today magazine, author Jocelyn Green gave readers a glimpse into the lives of different military officers suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder—with special attention given to the responsibility the church has in ministering to those officers. She writes:

Nate Self's military record was impeccable. A West Point graduate, he led an elite Army Ranger outfit ...

The image of an apron-clad matriarch delivering a home-roasted turkey to the table on Thanksgiving Day (as immortalized by Norman Rockwell) is increasingly an icon of the past.

The National Restaurant Association reports that in 2006, 53 percent of American households used restaurant-prepared takeout items to supplement their Thanksgiving dinners, and 6 percent purchased fully prepared meals from restaurants, ...

The Fantasy: As your little ones sit quietly at the kitchen table and hum along with Beethoven, they absorb their age-appropriate encyclopedias. Meanwhile, you recreate the map of the U.S. using homemade sugar cookies. Ahhh, you think to yourself. This is what life's all about.

The Reality: Your little darlings simultaneously shriek, "Mine!" as they rip the latest Bob the Builder coloring book in two. ...

A transformation occurred in me with the birth of my children. I traded in that professional look for sweatpants. I found myself at the park with my children, looking at working women and thinking, I'd like to be doing that.

But the transformation went deeper than trading my business suit for a pair of sweatpants. There was something else going on when I had children. I knew my life had been invaded ...

A quick look at our culture shows that idealized images of motherhood are inaccurate, and Scripture reveals the same. Ruth was left childless and widowed at a young age. Rachel, Hannah, and Sarah were infertile. Eve and Mary lost sons under terrible circumstances. Two mothers of two kings, both named Ahaziah, encouraged their sons to be wicked and unjust. The Prodigal Son acted with terrible disrespect ...

I was in line at the grocery checkout. A few feet in front of me, a mother guided her toddler ahead, anchored her baby on her hip, and elbowed her checkbook open to pay the clerk. In what seemed like one single gesture, she retrieved her toddler's hand from the candy rack, tore the check from her book and offered it to the clerk while placing a comforting smooch atop her baby's head. The baby drooled ...

Several workplace-related studies in 2008 suggest that the majority of working Americans aren't all that fond of who they work with.

• When asked if a colleague has ever tried to make them look bad, 50 percent of respondents said yes; 48 percent said no; 2 percent said they didn't know.
  
  
• When asked to identify which causes more stress at work—co-workers or workload—51 percent of respondents said co-workers, while 49 percent said workload.
  
  

[My daughter], Allison,* came home for the weekend. She opened the door, didn't speak, and dropped her duffel bag. Smudges of mascara circled her eyes. I whispered a "God-please-no" prayer.

"Come tell me about your classes." I patted the sofa.

"Gotta take a shower."

As she clomped upstairs, I analyzed the recent changes in her: complaints of not having any money, rarely answers the phone, weight loss, ...