Planning Briefs

Is Stress Wreaking Havoc In Your Life? Here's Some Help

Published Tuesday, January 22, 2008 at: 7:00 AM EST

Stress is a factor in obesity, diabetes, high-blood pressure, heart disease, low-sex drive, and cancer. It hurts your family life and job performance and makes life less satisfying, and it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by stress. So here’s some help. Michael F. Roizen and Mehmet C. Oz, authors of You: Staying Young, offer tips for beating stress.

One Step At A Time: Divide your workload into tasks to get a sense of accomplishment.

Get Organized: Putting your worries on paper and out of your head lets you track responsibilities and feel less overwhelmed.

Don’t Retire From Life: Stay physically and mentally active. Force yourself to walk or run daily.

See Friends: Play poker, hit the spa, or go out with friends. Such activities provide vital mental medicine, as can activities at your house of worship.

Get Zen: Breathe deeply, do pushups, or escape to a place with calming music.

Don’t Become Complacent: Stress makes you fat and lazy, and that feeds on itself to make you lazier and fatter. Ski, swim, go camping or do something fun and different to break the pattern.

Be Money Smart: Financial problems are a major stressor. Creating a financial plan with a professional you trust is good way?to tackle financial-related stress.

This article was written by a professional financial journalist for Preferred NY Financial Group,LLC and is not intended as legal or investment advice.

An individual retirement account (IRA) allows individuals to direct pretax incom, up to specific annual limits, toward retirements that can grow tax-deferred (no capital gains or dividend income is taxed). Individual taxpayers are allowed to contribute 100% of compensation up to a specified maximum dollar amount to their Tranditional IRA. Contributions to the Tranditional IRA may be tax-deductible depending on the taxpayer's income, tax-filling status and other factors. Taxed must be paid upon withdrawal of any deducted contributions plus earnings and on the earnings from your non-deducted contributions. Prior to age 59%, distributions may be taken for certain reasons without incurring a 10 percent penalty on earnings. None of the information in this document should be considered tax or legal advice. Please consult with your legal or tax advisor for more information concerning your individual situation.

Contributions to a Roth IRA are not tax deductible and these is no mandatory distribution age. All earnings and principal are tax free if rules and regulations are followed. Eligibility for a Roth account depends on income. Principal contributions can be withdrawn any time without penalty (subject to some minimal conditions).