When It Comes to Self-Care, Don't Neglect Your Health

Our health is something that many people only address when something serious goes wrong. Part of your new self-care regimen will be to have a focus on being in the healthiest body you can be in.

There are several approaches you can take, so we’ll cover a few options that you may want to adopt. But the key in achieving the ultimate in personal satisfaction is to be a happy, healthy individual and not just focusing on pampering and stress relief.

Have Your Annual Check Ups

Don’t just go to the doctor whenever you’re struck with the flu or strep throat. This is a mistake many people make with their health, and sometimes it turns deadly. You have to give your doctor a baseline to go off of so that they can understand your body and how it’s evolving over the years.

Ears, nose, throat health are vital to your well-being. A doctor can do a quick check to make sure your hearing is fully functional. They can also see if your nose is causing any issues that may impact your life, such as contributing to sleep apnea.

Your mouth and throat have to be checked periodically to ensure nothing harmful is developing that could turn into something deadly, like cancer. You should have a regular medical doctor who you see once a year to make sure everything is working properly.

Your doctor will have all of the up-to-date information on vaccinations to make sure your body is fully protected by preventable diseases such as measles, mumps or chicken pox.

You probably get the oil changed in your car every 5,000 miles (or when recommended), and you have an inspection sticker updated whenever necessary, so give your body the same care and attention that you’d give your vehicle.

Get a Supplement Regimen Going

It’s pretty common for your body to suffer from some sort of deficiency. You may not realize you’re lacking some certain vitamin or mineral until you begin suffering from symptoms like fatigue.

Supplements like Calcium, vitamins B, C and D and other nutrients can help give your health the boost it needs quicker than if you tried to source all of them from whole foods starting today.

Your doctor may be able to recommend some supplements based on what you’re experiencing. For example, you might find supplements to help cut sugar cravings, boost your energy, or assist you with mental clarity.

There are different types of supplements you can take, too. Some are in pill form and other are sublingual. There are even some people who order services where they drip an IV full of minerals and vitamins for instant absorption.

Take a Preventative Approach

The right kind of self-care mindset is one where you’re interested in maintaining good health and preserving it rather than having to fix things as you age. Repairing existing problems is worse than keeping them at bay from the very beginning.

You want to set yourself up for good health early on – and do the same for your children and significant other. That means a total body, inside-out approach to preventative medicine.

If you know you have habits that can impact your health, such as smoking, excessive drinking or other risky behaviors, start trying to curb and stop that behavior today. Whether or not it’s already given you problems is irrelevant.

Eventually, it could lead to devastating health concerns. Likewise, practice safe sex so that you’re not putting your body at risk for sexually transmitted diseases that could make you suffer as they develop.

Know Your Family History

Genetics plays a crucial role in how your body develops certain health conditions. It can impact everything from hair loss patterns to the development of cancer. Knowing your family history can help you spot health issues ahead of time and prevent them from harming you.

You’ll want to get a family history of both sides of your family – maternal and paternal. Go as far back as you can to find out what your grandparents and great-grandparents suffered from, too.

You want to ask your parents, but also talk to cousins, aunts and uncles to see if they remember anything about these issues. In some cases, you may not have anyone to ask.

In that situation, you may be able to find some details on ancestry sites that detail what a person died from, or by looking up information online, if you can find anything on your ancestors.

Track and Analyze Your Progress

Earlier, we talked about giving your doctor a baseline to work from when analyzing your annual health. But it’s important for you, as the owner of this body, to know how to track your own progress as well.

Whenever you go to the doctor for your check up, have them run a simple blood panel that checks for things like your triglycerides, cholesterol and blood cell counts. These are indicators of problematic health issues like heart disease or cancer.

If they just tell you everything’s fine, that’s not enough for you to be adhering to a self-care plan. Instead, ask for a print out to be mailed to you or emailed so that you can download it to compare to next year’s stats.

You’ll be able to see if anything is too high or too low, and gauge how your body is changing on a year-to-year basis. If your LDL (bad) cholesterol is increasing and your HDL (good) cholesterol is lowering, then you can change up your nutritional and fitness habits to correct course before it gets out of hand.

You also want to know your blood pressure numbers. This is something you can track frequently at home or in a pharmacy where they have blood pressure machines. You don’t want this to get dangerously high.

Oxygen levels are something your doctor can check easily while you’re in the office. You want a high saturation number that shows you’re not suffering from COPD or other lung ailments.

Fitness ability is something you can track on your own. How many sets and reps are you able to do in the gym? How many minutes of cardio? How much weight can you lift? These are all things you can slowly improve on over time.

Have a Plan in Place for Heart Health

Heart health is based on a combination of stress relief, sound nutrition and exercise. With these three elements in place for your self-care regimen, you should be able to achieve optimal heart health, barring any other factors.

You’ll want to make sure you eat foods that are protective in nature or preventative against heart disease. If you’re smoking or drinking to excess, stop now. That includes secondhand smoke.

If you’re obese, work on shedding pounds to improve your heart health. And stay active on a consistent basis. Not everyone is at the same risk of others. Some are more prone to heart disease, while others are less so.

There are also supplements that can help protect your heart, so talk to your doctor to see if this is something that can be beneficial to you based on your own personal needs and goals.

Keep Cancer at Bay

Cancer is the disease most feared by just about everyone. And there are so many different kinds of cancers, that it’s terrifying to think of preventing and keeping track of all of them.

But there are preventative measures you can take to help stave off this disease in many cases. Take skin cancer, for example. This is the most common form of cancer, and one of the most curable forms – if caught early.

Detection is done quickly and easily through a skin cancer screening by a dermatologist. You should have an annual checkup for this, where they will take a head-to-toe inspection f your body’s largest organ – the skin – and address any abnormalities.

Cervical cancer is also preventable when you have periodic screenings for it by getting a pap smear on a regular basis. The years change sometimes (it used to be recommended annually, but some people get screened every other year or once every five years).

Colon cancer is something that can be caught early through an exam as well. You’ll want to begin having this checked once you reach the age of 50, and periodically after that.

Breast cancer can be detected and treated early on when you adhere to a regular screening schedule for your mammograms. They now have a variety of scans they can do to spot a troublesome diagnosis or give you peace of mind.

Protect Your Mobility

Mobility is another thing you can track. You want your joints and muscles to be able to carry you throughout life with ease. You also want your lung capacity to be able to handle your on-the-go life.

Make sure you’re stretching and maintaining good joint and muscle health on a regular basis. Stretch the fascia under your top layer of skin and work on flexibility, not just strength training.

Maintaining good health, preventing problems and addressing issues when they pop up is an important part of your self-care regimen. Nobody wants to be struck down and sidelined from life due to a serious health issue and with some attention to your body and mind, you won’t have to go through that.