It’s the Month of Self-Love: National Self-Check Month

Photo from Self Chec.org

Among other national celebrations like Black History Month, Great American Pies Month and National Library Lover’s Month, February is also National Self-Check Month. Turns out, there’s a whole yearly calendar of “National” months, weeks, and days! Who comes up with these?

I don’t know about you, but a month around self-care sounds really good to me. It’s a continuation of the theme I’ve been touting for most of 2020 and into this year. So I am onboard! (And if you know me, you know I’m also about those other months I mentioned, too.)

Sometimes we shy away from getting a wellness check-up at our doctor’s or doing our own self-check. We may put these off because we’re too busy, we forget about it, or we are afraid of what we might learn. We don’t want to hear what the doctor has to say about our condition, or we don’t want to be made to feel guilty about what we’re doing or not doing. And, of course, 2020 was a different kind of year.

About self-checks, we may have some of the same issues as with our doctor, but with our own inner critic being the voice that chastises us. And we don’t want to hear that nagging in our heads. Or we may not be sure exactly how the self-check should be administered and we don’t want to do it “wrong.” But we can't let that deter us from being vigilant and taking our own health in our hands, as many of us have had to do this past year.

Self-checks are empowering. You are taking charge of your health and being proactive, as self-checks are frequently a factor in early detection and have been known to catch problems before they become too serious. This often results in less drastic treatments. Early detection has also been known to save lives.

So you’re already  proactive about your health? But maybe you have friends or family members who are reactive and have suffered dire health issues or only see their doctor when they’re sick. You observing National Self-Check Month can perhaps provide the opportunity for discussions around the topic of health and encourage those folks to do a better job of taking care of themselves.

Help is just a click away at Self Chec, an online organization whose goal is “Help to change the U.S. from a country that emphasizes sickness care over wellness care by stressing the importance of early detection and wellness, so people don’t get sick in the first place. “

At the Self Chec website you can access a variety of free self-empowering tools and resources to help guide you through healthcare-related fears and concerns, prepare questions for doctor visits and see how to perform self-checks. The site also features real people with their stories of how their health and lives have improved because they paid attention to the knowledge and practices presented.

Why not ramp up your self-care  with proactive self-checks. You may save yourself and your loved ones a lot of worry. 

What self-care actions are you actively practicing right now? We want you around for a good long while.

 ~ xoA ~

A version of this post first appeared in the Downtown Health & Fitness newsletter for February 2021.