GOT FISCAL (AS WELL AS FITNESS) WOES? MAKE A PHYSICAL INVESTMENT: As if the stress and strain of travel wasn’t enough. Now you’re reeling from the market’s (and the airlines') financial downturn. With bodies and minds faltering from stress and anxiety, what better time to make a physical investment in yourself? Your ROI: a healthier, stress-resistant, more resilient, and energetic self.

If you’re turned off by traditional fitness and exercise books and regimens, consider Jim Karas’ The Business Plan for the Body. Take-charge types who seek no-nonsense, results-oriented guidance to a healthier life will find Karas’ bottom-line approach to fitness a welcome respite from gimmicky and over-hyped fitness routines.

The Wharton-trained Karas uses business lingo and a business-plan approach to motivate even the most anti-fitness types into taking action. If you're serious about getting healthy and fit, Karas is an excellent guide. Read an excerpt at ABCNews.com. 

OTHER RECOMMENDED READS

TAKE A REFRESHER COURSE IN ON-THE-ROAD SAFETY & SECURITY: When The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Travel debuted, the how-to handbook seemed amusing but somewhat irrelevant for all but the most global and adventuresome travelers. After all, how many of us really had to worry about handling runaway camels or surviving volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, or sandstorms? But some other examples (how-tos for surviving riots and hostage situations, for example) may have been eerily prescient.

Despite it's serious undertones and liability-driven disclaimers, its "Warning" intro served as an amusing lead in to the dissection of serious issues in a spirited fashion. But rereading the opening line ("When a life is imperiled or a dire situation is at hand, safe alternatives may not exist.") in the fall of 2002, its words bring a chill rather than a chuckle.

The book remains a solid primer on travel-safety basics for novice and experienced travelers and even the most airport- and city-bound road warriors. And it's a "must-pack" item for adventure and international travelers and those whose business travel takes them to destinations where ice, riptide, sandstorms, and dangerous creatures and critters are as commonplace as tourists. (International travelers should be sure to read the "Gestures" and "Foreign Emergency Phrase" sections. After all, how many of us can quickly spit out "Please take me to a clean hospital." or "You will never make me talk." in Spanish, French, German, or Japanese?)

If you haven't yet checked it out, start with the "basics": how to survive an airplane crash, mugging, high-rise hotel fire, or plummeting elevator; and how to stop a car with no brakes. You can move on to the "not-as-likely-to-happen, but, hey, you never know" scenarios—some of which don't seem as farfetched given the landscape of travel today. (We're not sure who will need the "How to Foil a UFO Abduction" tips but it never hurts to be prepared, especially if you're driving alone at night on those desolate New Mexico roadways!)

Weiss, the Associate Director of Trauma at the Stanford University Medical Center in Palo Alto, CA, and an authority on wilderness and outdoor medicine, includes "Weiss Advice," a series of improvised techniques, the equivalent of on-site guerrilla medical care for the nonprofessional. Tips range from the "tame" (how to irrigate an eye to remove foreign objects or impurities using a plastic bag) to the definitely not-for-the-fainthearted (how to use your own hair to "suture" a wound together).

"Inner serenity is inner strength," author Dr. Arthur Sokoloff observes. Blending  tales of Eastern philosophy with contemporary  anecdotes, he offers practical insights into handling the trials and travails of daily life with grace.