Travel Stress

IF you're dreading holiday air travel and all it entails ? long lines, weather delays, stuffed-to-the-gills airplane cabins ? just hope you're on a flight with someone like Barbara Lewis. The Texas teacher was a one-woman stress-reduction show on a delayed flight from Istanbul, Turkey, to New York's JFK Airport a few years ago. "We had actually started moving, and then they decided something was wrong with the plane," Lewis says. While mechanics worked on the problem, passengers stewed.

IF you're dreading holiday air travel and all it entails ? long lines, weather delays, stuffed-to-the-gills airplane cabins ? just hope you're on a flight with someone like Barbara Lewis. The Texas teacher was a one-woman stress-reduction show on a delayed flight from Istanbul, Turkey, to New York's JFK Airport a few years ago. "We had actually started moving, and then they decided something was wrong with the plane," Lewis says. While mechanics worked on the problem, passengers stewed.

Pity the poor traveling business executive. Despite the thrill of gallivanting about the globe making deals, staying in fine hotels and entertaining clients in the tastiest bistros, these wandering financial crusaders face a world of stress. Consider the conflict of inking a multimillion-dollar deal while a child's piano recital begins a few hours and many miles away. Or imagine the inner struggle of a budding executive who secretly enjoys being away from home for a spell.

Pity the poor traveling business executive. Despite the thrill of gallivanting about the globe making deals, staying in fine hotels and entertaining clients in the tastiest bistros, these wandering financial crusaders face a world of stress. Consider the conflict of inking a multimillion-dollar deal while a child's piano recital begins a few hours and many miles away. Or imagine the inner struggle of a budding executive who secretly enjoys being away from home for a spell.

Here are apps that do more than explore California; several may help alleviate travel stress. Apps that work on iPhone also work on iPad and iPod Touch, and Android apps work on multiple phones and tablets, including those from Motorola, Samsung and Archos. Getting fresh: California Farmers' Market Finder details farmers markets throughout the state with links to Google Maps and to market websites. Free for iPhone. Picture this, California: California Photo Scout Premium puts a photo coach in your pocket.

Business travel can be bad for your health. That was the conclusion of a Columbia University study last year that found high obesity, high cholesterol and high blood pressure rates among those who travel the most for work. Now a new study by CWT Solutions Group, a travel management consultant, identifies those things that cause the most stress to travelers and possibly lead to health problems. Here are the top five sources of stress, based on a ranking from zero to 100, with 100 being the most stressful: 1.    Lost or delayed luggage (79)

Having a chi crisis? In a yin slump? Elixir Tonics & Teas in West Hollywood, a Zen-correct boutique, offers everything to ease the body, mind and spirit. Co-owner Jeff Stein stocks the place with specialty teas, aromatherapy products and books to promote a physically and spiritually sound lifestyle. Plus, the master herbalist on staff can spot-check health deficiencies and recommend an herbal supplement to cure what ails. We stopped by to catalog the customers.

"Two weeks ago, I was in Japan for a week, then I was in San Francisco for a day, and then I went to Paris for a week, and I just got back yesterday. Now here I am at work trying to figure out what day it is." In other words, a typical Monday at the office for Tom di Maria. The 42-year-old executive director of Creative Growth Art Center in Oakland travels 200,000 miles a year on business, mostly to Europe and Asia.

Tim Gullikson, a former journeyman tennis player who forged a successful career coaching Pete Sampras to the No. 1 ranking in the world, died of brain cancer Friday in Wheaton, Ill. He was 44. Gullikson had been fighting the disease for more than a year and his resolute battle served as an inspiration to Sampras and others. "Today I lost a dear friend and coach," Sampras said in a statement issued by the ATP Tour. "But we all lost a special person.

Following are excerpts from what Sen. Bob Packwood (R-Ore.) now claims to be his secret "real" diaries, discovered under the mattress yesterday while moving out of his Washington apartment after he resigned from the Senate. Jan. 4 Why won't Miss ---------- leave me alone??? She followed me home again tonight! Invited herself in for a nightcap but didn't want warm milk and crackers and left in a huff when I brought out my National Geographics. Women! Jan.

Another Cuban crisis Mark Cuban is back. The Dallas Mavericks owner who had been strangely restrained with his comments going back to last season's championship run lashed out at officials Wednesday for what he considered a rash of bad calls in the lockout-shortened season. "These were officials that have been part of the league for years, and it was just off-the-charts bad," Cuban told ESPNDallas.com after Mavericks Coach Rick Carlisle had been ejected following a pair of fourth-quarter technical fouls in a loss to Oklahoma City.

If you're traveling solo, maybe you can justify paying a bag fee to check your suitcase. But if you're a family of four and you're flying, say, on United from LAX to Washington's Dulles for the upcoming holidays, you'll pay $25 a bag for each family member's first bag, $35 for each person's second. If you're a family of heavy packers (or you have an infant who requires extra gear), those costs can add up quickly. Those fees don't do your wallet any good, but they do help the airlines: In 2012, revenue from ancillary fees (that includes bags)