Highlights
- Federal Department of Health, women are 1.6 times as likely to have coexisting mental and physical illnesses as men
- Beyond Blue’s findings that close to half of all Australians will experience a mental health condition in their lifetime with one million having depression and two million suffering from anxiety in any one year
- Victoria University study shows that up to 80 per cent of heart disease, stroke and type-2 diabetes and over a third of cancers could be prevented by better self-care– by doing things like regular exercise, healthy eating and quitting alcohol and smoking
Logan-based mother of three boys, Fatimah Haase, was not in a happy place working full-time whilst struggling to manage her young family. Desperate for a change, she joined an intensive week-long personal development program and realised that she needed to take care of her own wellbeing.
“I was very overweight. I felt really tired and I felt like every day was a chore. Oh, I gotta get up, I gotta get the kids ready for school, I gotta do this, I gotta do that. I am giving so much of myself to everybody around me except for myself and I felt that need to raise my standards, " said mum Fatimah.
Dr Mey Lee Wong is a GP with Jean Hailes for Women’s Health, the presenters of Women’s Health Week. She likens self-care to putting an oxygen mask on yourself before helping others
“We know that women often do carry invisible burden including mental burden on themselves. If that is not well adjusted, it can manifest itself in a lot of physical ailments and being unwell. If a woman keeps themselves well everyone else around them benefits.”
Source: Getty Images/Westend61
Source: Getty Images/Oscar Wong
Source: Maria Hach
