Stress

SALT LAKE CITY -- Utah residents are among the nation's most stressed out.

OGDEN — The mother was in handcuffs, but her family cried with her when she turned to apologize in open court. She tried to kill her 10-year-old son last Thanksgiving.

It’s a jammed courtroom. But the small talk stops, leaving tears as the only backdrop.

LAYTON — “If one person goes out of their way to show compassion, then it will start a chain reaction.”

These words by Rachel Scott, the first victim in the Columbine High School disaster, were the theme for the seventh annual Davis Youth Summit held Saturday at Northridge High School.

JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, Wash. -- Mary Coghill Kirkland said she asked her son, 21-year-old Spc. Derrick Kirkland, what was wrong as soon as he came back from his first deployment to Iraq in 2008.

He had a ready answer: "Mom, I'm a murderer."

He told her how his team had kicked in the door of an Iraqi house and quickly shot a man inside. With the man now lying wounded on the floor, "my son got ordered by his sergeant to stand on his chest to make him bleed out faster," Kirkland said. "He said, 'We've got to move, and he's got to die before we move.' "

LOS ANGELES — Could stress play a role in the development of breast cancer? Researchers from the University of Illinois at Chicago wondered about this. After all, the components of what experts call “psychosocial stress” — including fear, anxiety and isolation — could take a toll on the autonomic nervous system, which helps regulate heart rate, respiration and other important bodily functions.

A growing number of men are now suffering from the seductive promise that they can have it all: the comforts and rewards of a fulfilling family life, a job that brings satisfaction and a paycheck big enough to support the needs of the aforementioned family, and freedom from conflict between the demands of each.

LOS ANGELES -- Think it's easy at the top? Turns out chasing females, putting down underlings and generally maintaining one's social status can be very stressful.

If you're a baboon, that is. A nine-year study tracking five troops in Kenya found that the top-ranked alpha males had more stress than the second-place beta males. In fact, the top dog -- er, baboon -- was just as on-edge as those unfortunate primates at the bottom of the totem pole.