In the years following World War II the health and well-being of the nation was of primary concern to the British government. The essays in this collection examine the relationship between health and stress in post-war Britain through a series of carefully connected case studies.

To-do: Stop the bad guys. Rescue the wizard. Find the perfect outfit for New Year’s Eve. At last, Owen Palmer, the dreamboat wizard at Magic, Spells, and Illusions, Inc., has conjured up the courage to get Katie Chandler under the mistletoe at the office holiday party. But just when it looks like Katie has found her prince, in pops her inept fairy godmother, Ethelinda, to throw a wand into the works. Ethelinda’s timing couldn’t be worse. A plot hatched by MSI’s rogue ex-employees, Idris and his evil fairy gal pal Ari, threatens to expose the company’s secrets–and the very existence of magic itself. Even worse, it could also mean the end of Katie’s happily-ever-after. Now Katie and Owen must work side by side (but alas, not cheek to cheek) to thwart the villains’ plans. Braving black-magic-wielding sorceresses, subway-dwelling dragons, lovelorn frog princes, and even the dreaded trip to meet Owen’s parents at Christmas, Katie and her beau are in a battle to beat Idris at his own sinister game. All mischief and matters of the heart will come to a head at a big New Year’s Eve gala, when the crystal ball will drop, champagne will pour, and Katie will find herself truly spellbound. Praise for Shanna Swendson’s Once Upon Stilettos “Magical and totally delightful . . . [a] quirky, lighthearted romance.” –freshfiction.com “A fast and funny read. Chicklit meets urban fantasy.” –Mary Jo Putney, author of The Marriage Spell

The stress of war tries men as no other test that they have encountered in civilized life. Like a crucial experiment it exposes the underlying physiological and psychological mechanisms of the human being. Exceedingly valuable lessons can be learned from it regarding the methods by which men adapt themselves to all forms of stress, either in war or in peace. Under sufficient stress any individual may show failure of adaptation, evidenced by neurotic symptoms. Such symptoms then are pathological only in a comparative sense, when contrasted with the symptoms of those still making successful adaptations. While the material in this book concerns flying personnel almost exclusively, the psychological mechanisms under discussion in this book are those that apply to Everyman in his struggle to master his own environment. In this realm, a hair divides the normal from the neurotic, the adaptive from the non-adaptive. The failures of adaptation of the soldier described herein mirror Everyman’s everyday failures or neurotic compromises with reality. The book’s material is roughly divided into a discussion of war neuroses appearing overseas and those in combat veterans returned home for relief from flying or for rehabilitation. “Men under Stress” covers a vast array of topics, beginning with the background and selection of flight personnel, followed by seventeen chapters on the combat environment and reactions to it—which include the subjects of morale, combat stress, psychodynamics, emotional disorders and neurotic reactions, guilt and depression, aggression and hostility, psychosomatic states; psychotic-like states, and the treatment modalities of psychotherapy, narcosynthesis, and adjunctive treatment. The book closes with two chapters on civilian applications, including civilian psychiatry and general social implications.

In this volume the authors examine the variety of ways in which gender affects the stress process.

The world is a dangerous place and recent events have served to make it less safe. There are many arenas of conflict and even combat across the world. Such situations are the quintessential expression of stress; you stand in imminent danger and live with the knowledge that you may be attacked, injured or even killed at any moment. How do people perform under these conditions? How do they keep a heightened level of vigilance when nothing may happen in their immediate location for weeks or even months? What happens when the bullets actually start flying? How is it you distinguish friend from foe, and each from innocent bystanders when in immediate peril of your life? Can we design technology to help people make good decisions in these ultimately hazardous situations? To what degree does your membership in a team act to dissipate these particular effects? Can we generate sufficiently stressful field exercises to simulate these conditions and can we train and/or select those most able to withstand such adverse conditions? How will the next generation of servicemen deal with these inherent problems? These are the sorts of questions that Performance Under Stress addresses. This book is derived largely from a multiple-year, multiple university initiative (MURI) on stress and soldier performance on the modern, electronic battlefield. It involved leading researchers from many institutions who have brought their individual expertise to bear on these crucial, contemporary concerns. United by a common research framework, these groups attacked the issue from different methodological and conceptual approaches, ranging from traditional laboratory modeling and experimentation, to realistic simulations; from involved field exercises to personal experiences of actual combat conditions. The insights generated have been distilled and presented as a benchmark of current understanding and provide future directions for research in this arena. Although this work focuses on soldier stress and soldier performance, the principles that are derived extend well beyond this single application. Their findings can be applied to people facing the demands of the business world or research as much as to those who meet life or death situations, such as homeland security, first responders, and law enforcement personnel.

Stress. Everyone is talking about it, suffering from it, trying desperately to manage it-now more than ever. From 1970 to 1980, 2,326 academic articles appeared with the word "stress" in the title. In the decade between 2000 and 2010 that number jumped to 21,750. Has life become ten times more stressful, or is it the stress concept itself that has grown exponentially over the past 40 years? In One Nation Under Stress, Dana Becker argues that our national infatuation with the therapeutic culture has created a middle-class moral imperative to manage the tensions of daily life by turning inward, ignoring the social and political realities that underlie those tensions. Becker shows that although stress is often associated with conditions over which people have little control-workplace policies unfavorable to family life, increasing economic inequality, war in the age of terrorism-the stress concept focuses most of our attention on how individuals react to stress. A proliferation of self-help books and dire medical warnings about the negative effects of stress on our physical and emotional health all place the responsibility for alleviating stress-though yoga, deep breathing, better diet, etc.-squarely on the individual. The stress concept has come of age in a period of tectonic social and political shifts. Nevertheless, we persist in the all-American belief that we can meet these changes by re-engineering ourselves rather than tackling the root causes of stress. Examining both research and popular representations of stress in cultural terms, Becker traces the evolution of the social uses of the stress concept as it has been transformed into an all-purpose vehicle for defining, expressing, and containing middle-class anxieties about upheavals in American society.

Depression, fatigue, chronic pain, sexual dysfunction, anger, and irritability: these are just some of the toxic effects of stress. Stress Relief for Men introduces energy healing techniques based on ancient wisdom and cutting-edge science that are designed to neutralize stress so that you can regain inner strength and power in your life--without talk therapy or drugs. According to preeminent heart surgeon and author Mehmet Oz, MD, "The next big frontier in medicine is energy medicine." This essential resource provides the most scientifically sound tools from this emerging new field applied to the most pressing problems facing men today. Learn how to: • Eradicate depression, anxiety, anger, and irritability • Improve your love life--including better communication with your partner • Eliminate chronic pain, reduce inflammation, and sleep better • Develop peace of mind, greater well-being, and a passion for life This book teaches you how to apply these proven energy healing "power tools": • Earthing (Grounding)--healing through connection with the Earth's surface energy • Heart Coherence--heart-based breathing and visualization techniques • Attachment Love--activating healthy connection in relationships • Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT/Tapping)--described as an emotional version of acupuncture The ultimate goal of these practices is health, vitality, and empowerment--so that you can successfully navigate relationships, skillfully face life's challenges, and enjoy your life!