Taking care of yourself and your health means taking care of your family and everyone around you.
Before we move on from the stressful holiday season to the guilt-ridden months of diets and deprivation in the New Year, let’s pause together for a moment. Does anyone else feel simply exhausted?
The parties and reunions and gift exchanges and endless meals of the holidays are wonderful, but they leave many women feeling burnt out and overwhelmed by stress. We are often so busy taking care of everyone else, especially during the holidays, that we neglect our own needs and well-being. With that in mind, let’s take a few moments and consider some very good advice from our favorite self-empowering television host: Oprah. As she says…
“Women often wear their exhaustion as a badge of honor… Women believe it’s okay to become a ‘sacrificial lamb’ within their own families. This is a lie that we allow ourselves to buy into, but we need to wake up! The challenge for women is that they must re-language what it means to be a wife and mother. Being a good wife and mother means that if you don’t take care of yourself, in the long run you are ultimately harming all the other people you love in your life. You won’t be the only one who takes the hit.”
Unsurprisingly, Oprah is so right! Between husbands and partners and children and co-workers and bosses and sometimes even acquaintances, it seems that many women have a long list of people whose well-being ranks higher on the priority list than their own. Inevitably, that leaves us tired at best, and overwhelmingly exhausted at the worst.
We firmly believe that women need to take ownership of their health: not only physical, but mental as well. While we applaud New Year’s resolutions for weight loss and healthier living, we want to encourage you to make yourself a priority this year. Consider the ways you most love to unwind, and seek them out. Take time for doing yoga, having a weekly coffee date with a good friend, or signing up for a class on healthy cooking.
And yet, while bubble baths and bonbons are wonderful, we do ask that you consider your breast health and ensure you are taking care of your future well-being. Staying on top of monthly breast self-exams and yearly mammograms is one of the best ways to ensure early detection of breast cancer, which is key to having a long and healthy future.
We are now offering a new program to make it easier than ever for busy women to keep track of their breast health: our Alarm Clock program. This custom breast health reminder service allows you to sign up for an email reminder to perform your monthly self-exam and schedule your mammogram. We’ll email you the day before with a reminder and helpful tips.
Take time for yourself. Take care of your needs. Take ownership of your health. And have a wonderful New Year!