Anxiety

As a child, Steve Thompson displayed outsized reactions to ordinary events and intense mood swings. By age 12, doctors diagnosed him with bipolar disorder. The idea that he had a chronic mental illness - one typically marked in adulthood by manic periods followed by depression - frightened him. "It's something you think you'll have your entire life," said Thompson, a 23-year-old student at Massasoit Community College in Brockton. But over the past year, with the help of his longtime psychiatrist, he has weaned himself off mood-altering medication.

More than 4 million babies are born every year in the United States. About 2.5 million people die. And in a 2011 study of its 15 million smartphone owners, security firm Lookout determined that 9 million phones went missing in that group alone. That's one phone lost every 3.5 seconds. Last summer, on the beautiful Greek island of Santorini, Alex Iacobacci was one of the unlucky ones. He and his partner had enjoyed a lovely evening of shopping and dinner, but when they returned to their hotel, Iacobacci, owner of the Avanti salon on Newbury Street, realized his iPhone was gone.

As a child, Steve Thompson displayed outsized reactions to ordinary events and intense mood swings. By age 12, doctors diagnosed him with bipolar disorder. The idea that he had a chronic mental illness - one typically marked in adulthood by manic periods followed by depression - frightened him. "It's something you think you'll have your entire life," said Thompson, a 23-year-old student at Massasoit Community College in Brockton. But over the past year, with the help of his longtime psychiatrist, he has weaned himself off mood-altering medication.

SEX AND PUNISHMENT: Four Thousand Years of Judging Desire By Eric Berkowitz Counterpoint, 456 pp., illustrated, $26 No matter how fervently some may believe in eternal, universal rules regarding sex and family life, history makes clear that what's considered normal in one time or place is taboo in another. As Eric Berkowitz writes in this enormously informative and entertaining book, "the harmless fun of one society becomes the gravest crime of another.

Days after state environmental officials found unacceptable noise levels from wind turbines in Falmouth, they are considering new regulations that would require the state to review potential noise issues before wind turbines are built in Massachusetts. The state might also conduct sound studies in other communities, such as Fairhaven and Kingston, where residents, as in Falmouth, have complained about newly installed turbines, officials said. A panel of independent scientists and doctors, convened by the state to look at the effects of wind turbines on the health of nearby residents, urged the...

VINEYARD HAVEN — “Annie Hall’’ is not just Woody Allen’s masterpiece. It also functions as an indelible time capsule of 1970s New York and Los Angeles. But career anxiety, cultural pretension, romantic yearning, the competing claims of fidelity and lust: Matters such as these know neither time nor place. And these constitute the stuff of Sam Forman’s “The Rise and Fall of Annie Hall,’’ a small-scale but engaging comedy now playing at The Vineyard Playhouse and starring the playwright himself as a showbiz striver who is determined to break through on...

Boston boy Matt Damon did press for his movie "Contagion" over the weekend. He told reporters that his wife calls him "Red Alert" because he's so overprotective with his children. "I sometimes check to see if the kids are breathing," he confessed.

More than 4 million babies are born every year in the United States. About 2.5 million people die. And in a 2011 study of its 15 million smartphone owners, security firm Lookout determined that 9 million phones went missing in that group alone. That's one phone lost every 3.5 seconds. Last summer, on the beautiful Greek island of Santorini, Alex Iacobacci was one of the unlucky ones. He and his partner had enjoyed a lovely evening of shopping and dinner, but when they returned to their hotel, Iacobacci, owner of the Avanti salon on Newbury...

Then We Came to the End By Joshua Ferris Little, Brown, 387 pp., $23.99 A thousand years from now, if future generations turn to contemporary fiction as a window into the past, they will wind up with a rather skewed portrait of America. People, they might surmise, spent very little time in cars, resolved many disputes with violence, almost never slept with their spouse, and, in spite of pulling in regular incomes, never, ever went to work. In real life, many of us know all too well, an enormous percentage of our waking life is spent on our phones, in our cars, getting to and from a...

T he room was dark and New Age music played softly as Sara Hallor worked: Five stainless steel needles were pushed gently into the outer ear. Six patients sat on chairs and sofas in the wood-paneled library at St Andrew's Church in Framingham, their eyes closed. All were veterans or relatives of veterans, hoping the acupuncture would help relieve stress, anxiety, and physical problems. Emilio DiBenedetto, a Vietnam War veteran from Danvers, is a regular. "You have these wounds, physical and emotional, that need to be dealt with," he said.

As a child, Steve Thompson displayed outsized reactions to ordinary events and intense mood swings. By age 12, doctors diagnosed him with bipolar disorder. The idea that he had a chronic mental illness - one typically marked in adulthood by manic periods followed by depression - frightened him. "It's something you think you'll have your entire life," said Thompson, a 23-year-old student at Massasoit Community College in Brockton. But over the past year, with the help of his longtime psychiatrist, he has weaned himself off mood-altering medication.

As a child, Steve Thompson displayed outsized reactions to ordinary events and intense mood swings. By age 12, doctors diagnosed him with bipolar disorder. The idea that he had a chronic mental illness - one typically marked in adulthood by manic periods followed by depression - frightened him. "It's something you think you'll have your entire life," said Thompson, a 23-year-old student at Massasoit Community College in Brockton. But over the past year, with the help of his longtime psychiatrist, he has weaned himself off mood-altering medication.

WASHINGTON - Americans increased their spending more slowly in March, suggesting some are worried that their paychecks aren't growing quickly enough. The Commerce Department said Monday that consumer spending increased just 0.3 percent last month after rising 0.9 percent in February. Income grew 0.4 percent following a 0.3 percent gain in February, but after-tax income when adjusted for inflation increased just 0.2 percent in March. The gain followed two months of declines.

In a new production by the Huntington Theatre Company, a black mother in the fictional Boston suburb of Bellington is confronted with the potential loss of her home, because of a muddy sale to her grandparents long ago. The play, "Luck of the Irish," looks back to a time when upwardly mobile minority families — some were black, but others were Jewish — relied on white, Christian "ghost buyers" to gain access to bigger homes on leafy streets....

The Beverly Public School District will present "Adolescent Anxiety: A Parent's Survival Guide," on April 24 at 7 p.m. at the Memorial Building Auditorium, 502 Cabot St. The speaker will be Dr. David Stember, a recognized lecturer on in cognitive behavioral /exposure- based therapy for anxiety, learning and behavioral disorders. Stember, who maintains faculty appointments at Harvard Medical School and McLean Hospital, is the prior director of Behavioral Medicine at North Shore Children's Hospital.

Taking a test in school has long been a source of anxiety for many students, who sometimes blank out during testing. A "Test Anxiety Workshop" for parents of such students is being offered at Old Colony Regional Vocational Technical High School on March 12 at 6:30 p.m. in the school's library. The workshop will be conducted by Sharon LaCroix, the school adjustment counselor, who will review how test anxiety presents itself in students, and what parents can do to help minimize it. The workshop will be about 90 minutes long.

I'm in a blue state of mind. And I've got my reasons. The election, yes, but there are also more personal losses pending on the home front. My eldest is a senior in high school, and if our luck holds, he'll be attending college next fall. I never thought I'd say this, but my parents are right. The older you get, the faster the world turns. Am I afraid of what the future holds for him? Yes. Do I worry that I've failed to equip him for what he faces as he ventures into the real world?

Q. I am 26 and a single parent to a 3-year-old girl. I love my daughter more than anything. However, in the past few months, she has become a brat, doing everything she can to test me. Due to recent financial problems, we had to move in with my mother until I can finish my degree and get a job. No matter what discipline I use, nothing works because my mother undermines me. There is no consistency in what is right or wrong. My mother always gives in to her every request. Once in a while, I will spank my daughter.

The Beverly Public School District will present a free lecture, "Adolescent Anxiety: A Parent's Survival Guide," at 7 p.m. on April 24 at the Memorial Building auditorium, 502 Cabot St. The speaker will be Dr. David Stember, a lecturer on cognitive behavioral and exposure-based therapy for anxiety, learning, and behavioral disorders. Stember, who maintains faculty appointments at Harvard Medical School and McLean Hospital, is the prior director of Behavioral Medicine at North Shore Children's Hospital.

Most movies tell stories. But not all stories are equal. Because of its balance of grace, realism, and terrible, life-size suspense, the story in "A Separation" has few recent peers. This is a trenchant emotional thriller that you watch in dread, awe, and amazing aggravation. It's entirely predicated upon the outcome of bad decisions - and it is not a comedy. The situation that unfolds approaches the absurdity of farce but denies the relief and release of humor. It's a tragic farce.