I KNEW it! I'm not just knackered, I have a "syndrome". Not a disease or a lurgi, you understand, nothing common and old fashioned like that.

No, I have a modern, cutting edge, keeping-up-with-the-Joneses, stuff it in your pipe and smoke it "syndrome".

I'm sorry to tell you that I have been struck down in my prime by Hurried Woman Syndrome. I'm not sure what the prognosis is yet, but it could be that I only have 45 or maybe 50 years left to live. I'm not letting it get me down. I'm living in the moment, living for today and cramming as much as I can into the fleeting five decades I have remaining.

And I'm not alone in my plight. According to Prima magazine, second only to The Lancet when it comes to medical know-how, this is nothing less than an epidemic of biblical proportions. In a recent survey, it discovered that 74 per cent of UK women were affected by Hurried Woman Syndrome.

But before you start arranging fund-raising coffee mornings or calendars filled with photographs of you and your chums in the buff with only two butterfly buns and a Victoria sponge to cover your modesty, let's look at this thoroughly modern malaise a bit closer.

Hurried Woman Syndrome, or HWS, was first identified in America by a man called Dr Brent Bost. You see, I'm already sceptical. First, it was identified in America, a country whose leader makes Jodie Marsh look like Einstein in a Wonder Bra. Second, it was identified by a fella. And not just any fella; one with what is patently a made-up name.

Maybe I'm being judgemental. Maybe my brain has become so addled by this debilitating syndrome I can't think in a straight line any more. Or maybe it's just codswallop.

Dr Bost says HWS mainly affects women between 25-55, particularly those with children aged four to 16, who are trying to juggle busy work and home lives. Now I'm not a qualified doctor (I got my First Aid badge in the Brownies - does that count?) but if I were to hazard a diagnosis, I'd say that this is not a syndrome, it's just life.

Of course we're tired, of course there are not enough hours in the day and of course we feel pulled in several different directions. But that doesn't mean we all need counselling and a family-sized bottle of Prozac to get through the day.

I find a glass or two of chardonnay and an hour in the company of some Desperate Housewives or, even better than that, some actual bona fide medical men in ER does the trick.

We don't have a syndrome and we don't need treatment. We simply have a life. Which is more than I can say for Dr Bost.

HOW old are you?

Seems like a simple enough question. You just take the number of years that have passed since your birth certificate was issued and subtract five.

But how old is your body? Now this is trickier because your biological age does not necessarily tally with your chronological age. Just look at Darren Day for instance. Chronologically he's a thirty-something annoyance, but biologically he's a dirty old man. And that's not just me passing judgement - that's science.

One of the key tests to discovering your true biological age is to gently pinch the skin on the back of your hand, hold it for a minute and then let it go.

As your body ages, your skin takes longer to return to normal. So if it takes less than a second for your skin to snap back into place, your biological age is in the 20s; one to two seconds puts you in the 30s; three to four seconds in the 40s; and so on.

Okay, let's give this a go. Pinch. And release. Two seconds. Three. I'm waiting. I'm still waiting. Oh for goodness sake, I'll get back to you next week.

Updated: 08:49 Monday, January 17, 2005