Fretting to my grave

Here I sit at the computer obsessively checking the conditions at Denver International Airport and the latest predictions from Frontier about the outlook for flight 448 to Philadelphia. Fret, fret, fret. Will my daughter even get over the river and through the woods to DIA? Once there, how is the line at security? Did they properly deice the plane? Will they take off on time? Will her driver, my husband, successfully navigate the icy round-trip on I-70 without mishap?

Took a break from flight checks to check the latest from Psychosomatic Medicine. Scottish docs did some checking of their own on middle-aged Brits with respect to anxious neurotic behavior and their tendency to pitch over dead. Those who fretted endlessly in their own neurotic way were 12% more likely to keel over from cardiovascular disease than those devil-may-care devils who flitted through life without worry.

Those who were extroverted, however, were less likely to die of respiratory disease. Perhaps the socially ept are less likely to smoke? What about those of us who are extroverted AND neurotic? No comment from the researchers on that.