This week marks National Women’s Health Week and the theme is appropriately titled “It’s Your Time”. Health Professionals spend endless hours helping others, but we may forget to take “our” time.  Be mindful of what you are doing for yourself and your patients/clients.  This theme resembles the March “Get Your Plate in Shape” but is specifically for women.  Men encourage and support the women in your life to take care of themselves too!  Here are some tips from an article with a few of our own tips added in:

1. YOUR regular checkups:  There are a variety of articles circulating this week on multiple health issues related to women: preventive care and success rates with early diagnoses of medical conditions.  We often put these visits off, yet we may do them every day for clients.
2. YOUR nourishment: Eat to live healthy and well. Sometimes it can be hard to know what is really healthy.  A Registered Dietitian can help you and your clients get on the road to good health.  Forget the fads and enjoy healthy choices. Start your day out well with a protein rich breakfast such as an open=faced egg sandwich with veggies on a whole wheat English muffin and a glass of fat-free milk.
3. YOUR movement:  Exercise should be a part of your day just like breakfast!  If you need fitness ideas consider enlisting a fitness professional (one on one or in a group setting).   Also, if you have a sitting/desk job make sure to get up and move so you don’t sit for hours at a time!
4. YOUR wellbeing: Sleep, mental health, and more fall into this category.  This area can affect every other area of your health!
5. YOUR habits:  If eating well and exercise are not current habits, that is a great place to start and as you know health professionals can help you achieve this. You can overcome less healthy habits with other habits, such as smoking cessation, with the help of health professionals
6. YOUR behaviors-this can include simple safety issues such as using your seatbelt, bike helmets, and more.  We take these for granted but they cannot be forgotten.

I love how our health professional groups can play a part in every area for Women’s Health Week.  I think too often we feel “we are the health professional”, so we can’t turn to other health professionals for guidance in other areas (for our own well-being).  However, we of all people should know that using other health professionals improves our health forecast.  After all, we are not Docstrainersnursedietitianphysicianassts are we? That would be quite the long title 🙂