We’ve all been burned once or more by service or products that didn’t live up to their hype. Even though it’s easier to pick up the phone or email than to write, a complaint letter gets better results.

Giving your children gifts is one of the joys of being a parent. But struggles over money are also one of the major causes of family battles and even permanent rifts. Knowing how to deal tactfully and graciously with young family members’ requests for money will help avoid family strife.

Take control of the right and left side of your brain: make your life easier and more successful by ‘mindmapping.’ Mindmapping is a technique that helps you access both sides of the brain simultaneously and increases both your problem-solving ability and creativity.

A dental makeover can be extremely expensive. But new dental technologies can make a huge difference in your smile—for a lot less.

What hurts more than having a tooth pulled? The bill for services rendered. In the past 10 years, fees for dental work have increased by 56 percent, according to the American Dental Association. Here’s how to stretch your dental dollars.

Computer-aided design, digital x-rays, fine-tuned implant technology, electrical nerve stimulation and a water-based laser that removes tooth decay are all emerging as the new tools of dentistry, making visits to the dentist quicker, more productive and even less painful. But this new technology comes at an increased price.

It’s never too late to be fit, says Kenneth Cooper who runs the Cooper Fitness Center in Dallas, Texas, which specializes in fitness for older people. An older person who keeps exercising can maintain a much higher level of independence and quality of life.

More and more, doctors are tapping into the power of suggestion to control pain, reduce stress and break destructive habits.

You’re no stranger to stress—and since it is in your life, we want to help. Next time you’re feeling a bit too tightly wound, try one of these simple, expert-recommended stress stoppers.

Maybe it’s scheduling a special lunch every payday, or going the extra mile to find the perfect gift. Here, husbands and wives share their highly personal prescriptions for wedded bliss.

“New Moon” women’s groups, eco-kosher households, secret mystical Kaballah practices, Jewish renewal is giving an ancient religion a whole new spirit. This remarkable revitalization of a religion that prides itself on holding onto tradition has been spurred by the same longing for community and meaning that has sent so many other Americans on spiritual quests.

Writing about your life experience helps you connect with readers and break into markets. Since essays are short every word has to count. This article tells you what editors are looking for.

Despite a relatively modest budget for publicity, a lineup of panelists and presenters put the Festival on the media map—including well-known local memoirists and festival organizers, Susan Richards, Abigail Thomas and Laura Shaine Cunningham—and best-selling authors Dani Shapiro, Susan Orlean, Ruth Reichl and Julie Powell.

While regular-size women take for granted the right to make an individual statement through what they wear, fat women are all lumped together as part of one large, amorphous, fleshy mass. I have boundless admiration for fat women who actually do get out there and make the effort every day, despite the limited goods on [...]

Although many eating disorders don’t manifest themselves until adolescence, the roots of eating disorders in children start early. And once they have been established they are extremely difficult to cure. Experts agree that the best way to cure eating disorders is to prevent them. The roots of eating disorders are not about food, but about [...]

Why do some very active, even daredevil kids rarely take a spill while others seem to regularly sport a cast or a sling? Recent studies of accident prone youngsters have turned up some surprising causes for their recurring misfortunes.

“Like mother, like daughter,” can have its drawbacks when negative traits are involved. It can be unsettling when parents see (or think they see) their child mirroring the very behaviors they like least in themselves.

The first, and, as it happens, the last, large-size beauty pageant was held on the Boardwalk in Atlantic City in the more liberated 1980s.

Your Body & Your Rhythms Why are some people natural early birds while others walk around in a coma until noon? “We’re all governed by our circadian rhythms, daily cycles that are produced by a kind of pacemaker in our brains,” Dr. Thomas A. Wehr, the Chief of Clinical Psychobiology at the National Institute of [...]