Hypertension, or high blood pressure, is a major factor that determines how long a person will live. Blood pressure is simply a measurement of the force against the walls of your arteries as your heart pumps blood through your body. If your blood pressure is too high, it injures your arteries and causes them to harden. The heart has to then work harder to keep the blood flowing. It compensates by the heart muscle growing larger, but that makes it less efficient. The walls of the arteries also become weak and can even break or burst. If you also have high cholesterol, the high blood pressure causes fat to build up inside the wall of the arteries and restricts the blood flow. If your arteries are clogged, you can’t get proper nourishment to your organs and muscles, and they won’t get enough oxygen. You feel weak and fatigued and can’t function properly.

“Spring has sprung, the grass has riz, I wonder where the veggies is?”

Call it a modern-day miracle. Thirteen years after signing the development deal, production of my best-selling novel Christmas Jars is finally coming to theaters on November 4th and coming to BYUtv throughout the holiday season.

Photo from lds.orgHugh Hewitt runs a nationally syndicated radio show heard in more than 120 US cities every weekday afternoon with more than 2 million listeners. Last week, he got the chance to chat with Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve. Here are some of our favorite moments from the interview.

Usually we don’t write in our diaries one day and then read what we wrote the next. Some time usually elapses between when we record and when we look back. But we should evaluate our lives regularly and be performing spiritual background checks on ourselves.

What can you do to make the best use of your excitement and foster it in others, too?

This week’s readings: Matthew 21–23; Mark 11; Luke 19–20; John 12

Three of my children are in a French-Immersion program at their elementary and middle schools. This past weekend, my 12-year-old texted me: “Did you hear about Paris?” As we texted, I could sense her confusion and sadness for a place she feels a personal connection to. One of her friends texted her to “wear black tomorrow—For Paris” at school the next day, and they all did. But when I asked her what they talked about in school, she told me her teacher said, “We’re not going to talk about Paris today.”

Is your family in a dinnertime rut? There's nothing more invigorating than a new cookbook to get your creative juices flowing in the kitchen. Here are some of our favorite cookbooks to help refresh your dinnertime routine.

Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have been in New Zealand for nearly as long as members have been in Utah—believe it or not. The first members in New Zealand were baptized in 1854, only seven years after Brigham Young arrived in the Salt Lake Valley.