Type 2 Diabetes In Young People; Rockettes Get Good Exercise
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Before the break we asked, what is the biggest cause of stress for most people? The answer? Money. 73 percent of Americans say it's their number one stressor.</s>GUPTA: That's not too surprising considering the National Retail Federation is estimating Americans will spend $439.5 billion, with a B, dollars this holiday season. That amounts to $700 per person. I think that could stress just about anyone out. Helping us to de-stress in these weeks before Christmas is psychologist Darlene Mininni. She's the author of "The Emotional Toolkit." And we've been talking about this this morning, Darlene. Let's get back to some viewer questions.</s>MININNI: Yes. OK.</s>GUPTA: David from New York writes this. "It seems that this time of year when some companies reduce their workforce. What advice can you give to help people and their families cope with job loss at this otherwise festive time of year?" You know, and job loss is a hard one...</s>MININNI: Yes.</s>GUPTA: ...especially at this time of year.</s>MININNI: Absolutely.</s>GUPTA: Do you run into that? What's your advice?</s>MININNI: You know, it's a hard thing at any time of the year to lose your job. But this time, it's kind of a loaded issue. I think there's two things that you really need to deal with. One is the feelings of anger and loss that come along with losing your job. And the other is the financial aspect, because as you just said, finance is the number one stressor for people. So let's start with the first part, the feeling part. This is going to sound kind of silly, but a tool that has been proven to work is to write about your feelings. Get out a journal and just write for three or four days in a row for 15 minutes about your feelings about losing your job. And let me tell you why we know this works. There was -- a while ago, there was a computer company in Texas that had laid off a whole bunch of engineers that had worked with the company for over 30 years. And they treated them in a very poor way. They kind of told them they were going fire them and escorted them to the door and that was the end of it. So they took half these engineers and they asked them for five days in a row write about your feelings about the experience for 20 minutes. The other group, just do whatever it is you're going do. And what they found is that at the end of eight months, a large percentage, 53 percent of the engineers who had written had gotten jobs, whereas 14 percent of the ones who hadn't written, hadn't gotten jobs. Now they were both equally qualified. So that wasn't the issue. The issue was that in writing, they were able to make sense of their feelings and move on. And a lot of times people tell us, you know, if you're feeling down, let go of it, just move on, get past it. But they never tell us how to do that. And writing can be one of the ways to do it.</s>GUPTA: Great advice. Yes. And the financial stuff?</s>MININNI: Yes, the financial stuff, I think you kind of alluded to it a little bit earlier, but that is to kind of rethink what gift giving really means.</s>GUPTA: Yes.</s>MININNI: You can give somebody a gift certificate to spend time after the holidays together or exchange a holiday letter. This is something my husband and I do. We write out letters telling each other what it is that we love about each other. And those kinds of things people remember a lot more than a sweater.</s>GUPTA: I hope my wife is listening to this, by the way.</s>MININNI: So - yes.</s>GUPTA: But listen, you know, beyond job loss and money woes, some people find the holidays difficult because of the loss of loved ones.</s>MININNI: Yes.</s>GUPTA: And that can be very difficult. Darlene, does that ever get better for someone who may have lost someone during a holiday season?</s>MININNI: It's a hard thing, because the holiday, anniversary, a birthday they're all reminders that you kind of look back on. So it can be a hard thing. Especially with this time of the year, holiday functions are so much a part of -- family functions and so much a part of what we think of at the holiday. And I think that what we need to do is first understand that sadness is really just a message to ourselves that we really value this relationship and acknowledge that. And it's OK to say I miss my grandma, I miss my husband. But don't also forget to focus on the relationships that we do have that are here.</s>GUPTA: Let's keep going here. We got another e-mail now from Donna in Wisconsin. "Every holiday, someone in my family creates problems. It's like clockwork. Instead of attending get-togethers and appreciating one another, they choose to stay at home. What can I do?" And I guess, Darlene, you already sort of mentioned this, but family...</s>MININNI: Yes.</s>GUPTA: ...just family alone can be a big stressor.</s>MININNI: I think this question speaks to a lot of people. A lot of people come to the holiday time and they deal with family issues. Again, it's not that these issues probably didn't exist the rest of the year, but we have a certain expectation that now that it's Christmas, now that it's Hanukkah, we should all get together. And I don't know that that's really realistic, that suddenly our relationships are magically going change because it's the holiday.</s>GUPTA: Right, right.</s>MININNI: So again, we need to kind of just go back and assess what's realistic and realize that we can't control anybody else. I think a lot of us try to do that, try to make people get along and be happy...</s>GUPTA: Right.</s>MININNI: ...but you really can't control anybody but yourself. So focus on what makes you happy. And if your family does get together to alleviate tensions, try to not bring up issues that you know are touchy in your family. Or if people really don't get along, instead of having everybody sitting around talking, get out a board game.</s>GUPTA: Right.</s>MININNI: Get out something that can, you know, divert...</s>GUPTA: Something to bring - yes, the people together.</s>MININNI: Yes, so that you're not talking about things that you talk about every year that upsets everybody.</s>GUPTA: Really good advice.</s>MININNI: Yes.</s>GUPTA: And important advice for the holiday season. Unfortunately, we've got to say good-bye to you. Thank you so much today for your time.</s>MININNI: Thank you. Thank you, Sanjay.</s>GUPTA: Destressing strategies, nothing can be more important than that. Don't go away at home. We've got more tips for easy and healthy gifts as well.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: From tasty meals, to comfy clothes, we're taking you shopping for stress-free gifts guaranteed to please. And the secrets of the Rockettes, what these high-kick women can tell you about staying in shape. But first, this week's medical headline in "The Pulse".</s>CHRISTY FEIG, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The American Heart Association released new CPR guidelines this week because more than 90 percent of people who need CPR outside a hospital died. The new resuscitation guidelines call for twice as many chest compressions as before, 30 compressions followed by two breaths. The old standard of 15 compressions is too often failing to get enough blood circulating throughout the body. And disturbing news surrounding this year's World AIDS Day. The World Health Organization predicts that some 10 million people in China will have HIV by the year 2010. In recent years, Communist Chinese societies have become more open. And experts say rampant IV drug use is the cause for the increase in most cases. Christy Feig, CNN.