"Wins" in Women's Health

 "Wins" in Women's Health this week! 🙌

Happy New Year blog! 

Wow, it has been a while since I have blogged, but thought I would post some short content on her, particularly around women's health. 

As "Blue Monday" is now officially behind us, let's talk about some positive news! 🗞

In the last few weeks there have been 2 great things announced for women's health:

👉 1. Mirena coil users - the Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Health announced the Mirena coil now has a licence for 8 years for contraception. This includes those that have already been fitted!

👉 2. The UK Gov has FINALLY scrapped the tax on period underwear, so hopefully they will be more affordable! (We are hoping to see a £2 reduction in the cost! )

Of course, these wins are preceded by so much hard work - research, campaigning and advocating. This wins remind us that we must continue to speak up for women's health to continue to have weekly wins like this! 💕

"Grow a set of balls"

 

"Grow a set of balls" "Man Up" "Don't be a girl" ...the list goes on! 

Growing up, the use of gendered language defines who we become and how we think.

Telling someone to grow a set of balls, eludes to the fact that male genitalia symbolises strength and therefore female genitalia is weakness. Telling someone to not be a girl reinforces this point. Man up when telling someone to be stronger further reinforces this point

But the one that really got me, everytime was growing a set of balls... I mean come on, male testicles are possibly the most sensitive organs there is - they dangle outside the body, therefore often get hit during contact sport, and when hit, debilitate a person. Also they hang outside the body because they can't hack the body's natural temperature...! 

So why don't we re-learn growing a set of balls? I saw this top and I couldn't help but purchase it, firstly because it supports women in art but secondly because it challenges all of these stereotypes.

Women's "balls" or ovaries are incredible, they are little powerhouses, creating millions (20-30 million) eggs whilst you are still in the WOMB! They then pump out an egg monthly, alongside all the hormones you need for ovulation and menstruation! The ovaries are certainly tough and resilient ... Surely that's what anyone would want to be... Right? 

And don't even get me started on how badass the uterus is... 

So next time you go to use a gendered insult, think of the implications of that gendering! Think about how it might make someone feel, or the implicit bias that it generates.

We want a future generation that doesn't regard boys are macho and strong and girls as timid and weak, because we know that has damaging consequences for both men and women as they experience life.

Change you insults, for the greater good!

Perspective

Hello to the blog world! 

After a week of feeling slightly overwhelmed by what was happening in the world, I wrote some of my thoughts down and I thought I would share them, just in case they might help anyone else feeling the same way! 

🌺"What the caterpillar calls the end, the rest of the world calls a butterfly"🌺

This was my laptop's daily quote, which flashed up on my screen in the early hours of this morning, after getting home from work late and discouraged. What it reminded me is that life is all about perspective..!

The excitement for the new year was quickly dulled by the News of a new lockdown (are we on the 2nd or 3rd? Who knows…?). 

And although this lockdown to all of us feels like the end, it may also look like the beginning of something beautiful, it might be the cocoon to our beautiful butterfly-like freedom in a couple of months.

And along the way reminding us of the importance of being able to go round to a friend's house, being able to cuddle your loved ones and our smiles not being masked

So I hope this post reminds you of perspective! Look after yourself in your cocoon for and dream of the beautiful life ahead of us.🐛

Virago Health!

 As you may know, I am the proud owner of a podcast called Virago Voices, which is all about women's empowerment. 
I started this podcast out of my love of chatting to people and my desire to make the world a slightly better place for the next generation of girls. 
With this in mind, I recently had an experience where I shared some information on women's health on my social media, which led one of my followers to get a diagnosis. On hearing this, I thought about my privilege; being a doctor and being passionate about women's health means I have a lot of knowledge and access to knowledge on common women's health conditions - and potentially a better understanding of normal and abnormal. It led me to think, why not use my podcast as a vehicle for making more change, in the field of women's health! Something I am very passionate about. After discussing with friends and talking about it on my social media, I have created Virago Health. A weekly chat with subject matter experts on women's health issues...

Virago Health: 
"Virago women are fierce, they are the women who are unapologetically who they are, they are challenging societal views of what a woman should be, and pushing forward the fight of equality. Some people describe virago women as a violent and unpleasant woman, but here at the podcast we call them heroic warriors
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Here at Virago Voices, we are passionate about Virago women being spotlighted. Equally, we believe their health is important if they are going to be able to fight for their place in the world. 
As a doctor, our founder is passionate about women’s health and wellbeing. And therefore, inspired by a recent event, we have decided to introduce Virago Health, a weekly episode, interspersed with our usual Virago episodes, to discuss common topics in women’s health with expert help in each field we discuss. We also will answer your women’s health related questions through our episodes. 
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To keep up to date on the latest podcasts, follow Virago Voices on Instagram, Spotify or Apple music! 
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Please note we cannot give medical advice, for this you must speak to your doctor."

Tune in to stay updated, and forward the podcast to your friends and family! 

Progress

Let's start with a story... Recently I have been getting into running, with gyms closing due to Lockdown 2.0. Whilst out on a run the other night, at around 2km into my journey, a female runner sprints past me. She is approximately my age and size. Yet she ran past me. 

I gave myself a hard time, feeling that I should be faster, asking myself why I was so slow compared to her, trying to speed up to keep pace with her. 

However, around 200m of her running past me, I look up to see she has stopped. The girl stopped, took off her headphones and stopped her watch… she was on the final 200m of her run. Me on the other hand, had still another 3 km to run. 

The more I pondered over this on the rest of my run, the more I compared this to life. And to my horror, I realise I do this every day without realising. Particularly with other women. I beat myself up about my inability to keep pace with people who are at completely different places in their life than I am. 

And if you constantly do this, with an array of different people, you build this expectation, this race for yourself that you will never be able to finish. Which then leads to feelings of failure, when actually people are simply at a different place in their run than you are. And guess what… that is totally fine. You are still running, aren’t you? You are still finishing your race, who cares about what people are doing around you. 

So next time you see someone achieving “more than you”, someone you feel is overtaking you on your journey, just think about where you are at in your run, and how important that is to you. Focus on you, focus on your run. 

Don’t try and keep pace with people in different positions on their journey, keep pace with yourself. And always remember to enjoy the journey!

Launching my podcast

I am writing this blog post to make an exciting announcement: Today is the official launch of my first ever podcast. 

I chose to do a podcast because I’ve learnt that I am much better at saying things as opposed to writing them down. Eloquence on paper is not my forte.  

The podcast is called Virago Voices – the reason for this is stated in the introductory podcast which I have just released, so I won’t spoil the surprise. The aim of the podcast is to empower women. I aim to do this through dialogue with amazing women. Each episode is named after the inspiring woman with whom I am chatting.  I aim to capture those conversations that you have with your girlfriends over coffee, in the hope that the listener will be able to relate in some way and feel empowered by the conversations that we are having.

Listen to the introductory podcast here, explaining the meaning behind the name and what the podcast is about. (At the minute it is only available on Anchor Fm and Spotify, but is in the process of uploading onto Apple Music)!
I hope to release an episode per week!

If you are or know any inspiring women, please get in touch!

Lockdown Love

Idly listening to music on youtube the other night, I was overwhelmed by the sheer number of adverts between videos relating to dieting during the lockdown. I want to address this.

A little reminder: lockdown is stressful enough without having to worry about your body! If you are getting less exercise because your favourite gym is closed or you feel out of routine because you are unable to do your normal activities, that is ok!

No one is expecting that of you.

I know that Instagram is full of people who have transformed into personal trainers and weight loss coaches. Just remember that Instagram is the perfect part of someone’s life; they may be actually binge-watching tiger king and munching snacks between these “workouts”.

I just feel like lockdown is the new New Year’s, with people striving to become a “new person”. Why can't we just survive? 

Delving into these diet and exercise fads on my own Instagram induced considerable anxiety so I stopped doing so. I then decided to go a step further. I started unfollowing the content that was making me feel bad. This is called curating your feed. We do it subconsciously, and it is usually detrimental as we end up following all the perfect parts of everyone’s life. 

Instead, let’s do it for positivity. Unfollow the accounts that make you feel bad about yourself and follow accounts that fill you with happiness and positivity. 

So... Let’s not allow lockdown to become the new New Year’s!

For more information about increasing your self-esteem during lockdown, check out Dove's campaign:

 https://www.dove.com/us/en/stories/about-dove/take-care-be-safe.html?utm_source=%5B%25tp_SiteName%25%5D&utm_medium=%5B%25tp_PlacementID%25%5D&utm_campaign=%5B%25tp_CampaignName%25%5D