Women's Health This Women's History Month

This month is Women’s History Month. I can’t think of a better time to discuss women’s health. As much progress as we have made, I feel like a lot of women are still uncomfortable talking about their bodies and cycles, even with their doctors and other health professionals. As a result, women aren’t always educated on important health topics, including basic information about what constitutes a healthy cycle and what is unhealthy or concerning. In fact, being aware of our cycles is an important way we can stay on top of our health, by understanding what is happening monthly within our body at a cellular and hormone level and the visible signs of those monthly changes. What do these signs tell us about our health? Reproduction is not the bodies highest priority, rather survival is. So when we are not healthy, we may start to see changes in our cycle as our body reroutes resources to more critical systems. Therefore we can see our cycle as a vital sign of our overall health.

Our culture’s focus on productivity and toughness is another aspect impacting our health. This distracts us from listening to and caring for our body. I see this month of honoring women as a great time to reassess our values. While productivity and and toughness have their benefits they also have drawbacks when they aren’t balanced with our innate senses of intuition, listening and presence. This a great time to consider these values as we learn to listen to our bodies, be present with them and take care of our health through self care.

This month I will be delving more into these topics, starting with a discussion on self care, then diving a bit more deeply into women’s reproductive cycles. Stay tuned!