Here are five things women can do to stay well all year:
1. Exercise
Running, biking, taking a brisk walk or lifting at the gym can not only lower your stress and send endorphins coursing through your body, it could also help you maintain a healthy weight and ward off type 2 diabetes, some cancers and heart disease.
Try to get the recommended 30 minutes of exercise at least 5 days a week by taking the stairs instead of the elevator, parking your car farther from store entrances, hitting the gym before or after work, or even lifting light weights while you relax and watch TV at night.
2. Relieve stress
Your go-go lifestyle might make you feel stressed daily — and that could hurt your health. When you don’t manage stress well, you put yourself at risk for headaches, fatigue, sleep problems and muscle tension. It might even cause you to overeat or withdraw from your family and friends. Left unchecked, stress could contribute to high blood pressure, heart disease and obesity.
“Taking a few minutes every day to breathe deeply, meditate or take a walk can help you manage stress that comes from your family, your job and anything else that’s contributing to your hectic lifestyle,” says Ms. Gressens.
3. Listen to your body
You know your body better than anyone else, and it’s your job to be your biggest health advocate. That means knowing when to slow down and when to see a doctor.
“Whether it’s aches and pains that are related to stress or something like a lump in your breast or a lingering pain in your stomach, make the time to get it checked out. Your body may be telling you that something is seriously wrong,” advises Ms. Gressens.
4. Get more sleep
If you’re like more than one-third of American adults, you’re not getting enough sleep. “Sleep is a critical component to your health because your body repairs itself during this time,” says Ms. Gressens. “Though it varies from person to person, most adults should get 7 to 9 hours of sleep each night.”
A lack of sleep can make it harder to focus and remember; chronic sleep deprivation could contribute to high blood pressure, heart attack, stroke and heart failure.
To get a good night’s rest, go to sleep and wake up at the same time every day (even on weekends); make sure your room is quiet, dark and cool; burn off extra energy by exercising; avoid caffeine or a big meal before bed and be sure to stop screen time about an hour before going to sleep.
5. Manage chronic conditions
If you have a chronic condition like diabetes or depression, managing it is key to staying out of the doctor’s office. That means taking medicines as they are prescribed, eating a healthy diet, following your doctor’s advice and going for recommended checkups.
“Work closely with your doctor to manage the health issues you have now so you don’t end up with more serious health problems down the road,” notes Ms. Gressens.
Prior to 1990, women's health, as we now know it, did not exist in the collective consciousness of internal medicine physicians as a topic to be highlighted in medical education. Indeed, we hadn't even thought of many of the important questions about women's health that are now being asked. We were not aware that a glaring deficit existed in our curricula. Internal medicine was taught, for the most part, in a uni fashion. Yes, some diseases were more common in men or women, but we didn't treat diseases differently based on patient , nor did we ask why the differences existed. Yes, women's care was complicated by hormonal fluctuations, but for the most part that was the purview of obstetrics and gynecology and was not our concern. We taught that coronary artery disease (CAD) was primarily a disease of men.
The 1990s witnessed new beginnings for women's health in internal medicine, and the birth of women's health education as a topic of academic focus. Two of the great movements that led to this change were the recognition of the need for women's health and gender-based research and education at the national level and the rise of primary care in internal medicine. Congress mandated the former, and provided dollars to fuel an explosion of research and public awareness campaigns in women's health. The mandate for women's health research included every organ system, and the psychosocial aspects of health. As more internists practiced as primary care physicians to women, it became clear that the ability to perform a breast examination and a Pap smear, while essential, was not sufficient to provide comprehensive primary care to women.
This edition of JGIM has 3 articles on women's health that highlight important issues in women's health education. Dixon's report, “Teaching Women's Health Skills: Confidence, Attitudes, and Practice Patterns of Academic Generalist Physicians,” underscores the need for faculty development in women's health.1 One could hardly expect to train internists in the care of women patients if faculty did not exist who possess the knowledge and necessary skills to provide gender-specific care. In his survey, the majority of academic general internists reported comfort performing breast and pelvic exams, but only 22%, 21%, and 45% reported comfort assessing dysfunctional uterine bleeding, prescribing Depo-provera, or instituting oral contraceptives, respectively. Internists felt less well trained to perform bimanual examinations, were less likely to think that performing Pap smears was a “good use of their time,” and were less likely to report that their clinics were equipped to perform gynecologic examinations than were their family physician counterparts.
Orsetti's article, “Impact of a Veterans Affairs Continuity Clinic on Resident Competencies in Women's Health,” reports that residents whose continuity clinics were held at the VA hospitals felt less competent to deal with women's health issues than their counterparts who practiced in a mixed clinic.2 Differences existed for all areas: counseling skills for violence and other issues, general knowledge of women's health issues, and skills in the examination of women patients. Differences persisted despite efforts to add women's health topics to the overall curriculum and to add rotations addressing women's health for the residents.
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