Every year, in August, our country marks Women’s Month and Women’s Day on the 9 August. It is a time where we commemorate the invaluable role that women played to change the injustices and inequalities of the past.
History has shown that women are strong and inherently allocate the needs of others before their own. The need to nurture and care places many demands on a women’s life. Being a wife, mom, daughter juggling a career and maintaining a home, women often neglect their own well-being.
All women deserve to find balance and thrive in both their career and home environment. To achieve balance, it is essential to find a medical aid partner that implements support systems to help you boost and protect your health.
Contact a Glopin Healthcare broker to advise on a medical scheme that will prioritise a women’s health and wellbeing by providing preventative and screening benefits as well as healthy eating and fitness programmes.
This women’s month, start by finding a medical aid that suits your individual needs, then implement a few practical steps to manage your stress and health.
Manage stress with diet, exercise, and rest
- Diet – Take time to make better food choices that will provide vitamins, minerals, and nutrients. Healthy food choices include fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, fibre-rich foods such as beans and leafy greens, fresh fish as well as lean cuts of meat and poultry.
- Exercise – Regular exercise can reduce the risk of developing heart disease, diabetes and helps to manage anxiety and depression caused by the daily pressures of this modern, fast-paced life. Start with as little as 30 minutes of movement at least four days per week. Choose something you will enjoy, whether it is walking, dancing, or swimming, as long as you keep motivated and healthy.
- Relaxation and sleep – Sleep is vital to help restore your body’s energy, repair muscle tissue, and triggers the release of hormones that affect growth and appetite. If you do not get enough quality sleep, you are at higher risk for conditions like heart disease, diabetes, obesity, headaches, and depression.
Go for regular screenings
By undergoing preventative screenings, problems can be detected sooner, and this could increase the odds of survival because of early intervention. Essential screenings and tests for women that could be covered by the medical schemes include:
- Mammograms to detect breast cancer
- Pap smears to check for cervical cancer
- Blood glucose, blood pressure, cholesterol, and body mass index tests to determine the risk for high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, and obesity.
