1. "I am ALWAYS stressed out," complains Bruce. "It's really a challenge to juggle working full time, going to school full time, taking care of my family, and trying to find a few minutes for myself. Reading this chapter made me even MORE stressed because now I know that too much stress can make me sick!" Bruce needs to learn some effective strategies for controlling his stress and using it to his benefit. He can find lots of information about the relationship between stress and health and how to manage his stress at "MoreFocus" and at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center's website for a healthy lifestyle program, where he can even take a test to determine his level of stress:

2. "Do you really think I'm a Type A?" Donald asked Ivana. "Well, you're hard-driving, highly competitive, ambitious, always rushing with a sense of time urgency, and you're often hostile and aggressive, and you get angry easily. You're also a workaholic who never relaxes, and you're a demanding perfectionist. What do you think?" she responded. "Good grief. I always thought those were wonderful traits to have. Maybe I should find out more about Type A personality traits and how they can work for me and against me," replied Donald. He can find lots of information by reading a fascinating interview with Ray H. Rosenman, one of the doctors who first researched Type A personality. He can also take a fun test to give him an idea of where he falls on the Type A/Type B (calm and relaxed) continuum, and he can find some useful "self-help" articles by Vijai Sharma at these links:

3. Charlene sighs and says, "The chapter said that 'person variables,' like how we look at the world, can affect how we're affected by stress. Sometimes I feel so beaten down by everything that's going on in the world. It would be nice to be able to take a better, more positive perspective. Do you think that's actually something that can be learned?" Charlene can get some excellent advice for keeping her mood and her health upbeat by reading the WebMD article, "Happiness May Bring Better Health" at:

4. "Huh!" exclaimed Ricardo. "Who would have thought that there's a connection between stress and your health?" "Well, duh," responds Creighton, "everyone knows that!" They can learn a lot more about the relationship by going to the home page for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) or linking to an agency like the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and searching for such topics as stress and health, or checking out the health-related links at APA's Psychology Matters, and by accessing the official Web site for the American Psychological Association's (APA) Division of Health Psychology:

5. "It seems like most people aren't really worried about AIDS these days because it's relatively well controlled with medications," notes Sydney. "Unfortunately," she continues, "our complacency is putting major segments of the population at risk because they're not taking proper precautions. Although the 'death sentence' may be temporarily commuted, living with HIV and AIDS puts people at risk for many other serious health problems. We really need to take this seriously and do all we can—not only to find a cure, but also to learn how to live with HIV/AIDS and to reduce high-risk sexual behaviors." Two excellent places to find out more are the federal government's website, AIDS.gov, and the website of The National Association of People with AIDS, a nonprofit membership organization that advocates on behalf of all people living with HIV and AIDS in order to end the pandemic and the human suffering caused by HIV/AIDS:

6. Bette was elated to read the Human Diversity section in the chapter on stress and learn that in recent years researchers have been paying attention to the fact that men and women are different—like who couldn't have figured that one out, she wonders. She wants to know more about health issues that are specific to women and so she links to the MedlinePlus site on women's health issues: