How do you engage in preventative healthcare? This question is just as important, if not more so, than what you do when you fall ill. Just like it takes a lot of small cuts to lead to a larger problem, so too does it take a lot of little efforts to keep you healthy. Eating a healthy diet with reduced saturated fats and sugar can do wonders for your heart, while brushing and flossing regularly can keep you from repeated visits to the dentist’s office. Preventative care means adopting healthy habits and seeing them through year-after-year to ensure anything more serious is kept at bay.

If you haven’t visited a heart doctor lately or sought out gynecological care, here are a few good reasons why you should consider changing your to-do list this month.

Heart Health

There’s a common saying used in the States — ‘getting to the heart of the matter’. As you can imagine, your heart health can deeply affect nearly everything you do if it starts to dip. Heart disease has been found to be the number one cause of death throughout the country, accounting for differences in age and lifestyle, and is something to consider deeply when moving ahead with your personal health. It’s thought someone will suffer from a heart attack every 30 seconds, to boot. Heart services can give you a proper diagnosis and pinpoint anything that could potentially harm you down the road.

A healthy heart needs routine exercise, low stress and a diet light in saturated fats and cholesterol.

Cancer Rates

It’s terrifying thinking you could be diagnosed with cancer over the following years. One in eight women in the United States will be diagnosed with a form of breast cancer over their lifetime, for starters, and more than 80% of prostate cancers are diagnosed in men over the age of 65. There is a silver lining, however. Cancer treatment methods only get better year after year and, when spotted early, your chances of a complete recovery are at their highest. Breast cancer treatment does better when you visit a cancer center and have yourself tested.

If you notice any strange lumps or discoloration either on or around your breasts, call your regular doctor as soon as possible.

Mental Illness

Mental health awareness has been on the rise over the past decade. Just like your physical health, your mental health can reach highs and lows depending on how well you engage in preventative care. Relaxing after a stressful day with a hot bath, spending quality time with family and engaging in fulfilling hobbies are but a few ways you can improve your mental health. Likewise? Neglecting your mental and emotional health on a constant basis can have you developing depression, anxiety or any number of sleeping disorders that can soon impact your physical health.

Cognitive behavioral therapy is one such resource you can turn to when worsened mental health makes daily tasks difficult or impossible.

Common Fractures

You wear good quality shoes while on the job to keep yourself from spraining your ankle or slipping. You engage in stretching exercises to keep yourself limber. Nonetheless, accidents will always happen. Bone fractures lead to nearly three and a half million emergency room visits year after year in the States. A study provided by the American Academy Of Orthopaedic Surgeons also found that over four million Americans are living with artificial knees.

From gynecological care to joint replacement, there is a lot you can prevent with a proactive perspective.

Why You Should Be Concerned About Preventative Care

You should always seek out the necessary resource — be it gynecological care or a medical imaging center — if you notice something wrong. You can, however, develop smart habits to keep yourself from constant visits and from debilitating conditions that could seriously hurt you or worse. Your heart health can be better managed after a visit to the cardiologist. They can judge if high blood pressure or a lack of exercise is something you need to focus on. Gynecological care, on the other hand, could look at your heavy period flow and offer you a smart solution for the future.

Preventative care and immediate care are intertwined. How will you look at your health this year?