What Female CEOs Taught Me About Wellness
Last month I went to the first annual Women's Health Forum at the Cleveland Clinic (at the main campus, I currently work at a satellite rural hospital owned by the Cleveland Clinic).
The last segment of the day was a panel of female CEOs, including Tricia Griffith, the CEO of Progressive Insurance. (Progressive Field is the baseball stadium in Cleveland.)
They discussed their health routines and how to balance work with family. Most had exercise routines. Some discussed moving to a limited to no alcohol practice in their own lives. Others traveled frequently, including internationally
I noticed that all of them had one thing in common in their day: time for stillness.
For some, this was prayer. For others, meditation.
About a year ago, I began taking an active role in my health. Before that, I was eating pretty well and exercising to some extent. But I wasn't intentional.
I'm a certified menopause practitioner so I had already started learning hormone replacement therapy on a deep level. I started making educational content (for both patients and providers) on this topic. The more I learned, the more I made intentional changes in my own life: lifting heavier weights, individualized cardiac training, increasing sleep and decreasing stress.
Then I became interested in metabolic health. It feeds directly into midlife health, works hand in hand with hormone health (and is hormone health at its core), and is something I learned nothing about during full training as an American doctor. None.
Then I started layering on "longevity medicine", largely owing to the book Outlive by Peter Attia. This includes supplements, specific exercises, and other practices promoted to extend life span and perhaps health span (our healthy years). It's a worthwhile cause, particularly to extend health span rather than living decades in poor health.
I was really rounding on my knowledge. But I was only considering the physical and the scientific.
I certainly didn't consider the non-physical aspects of my health, including religion.
I'm no CEO but I have now set aside time for stillness and prayer myself. This is something new for me.
It has been unparalleled in my day as a pillar of well-being but also to combat burnout, the soul-deep exhaustion plaguing doctors and driving them out of medicine.
It's all too easy and familiar to be a woman swept up by today's modern world. True health of women doesn't live here: where phones and minds are always turned on.
Don't get me wrong. I love the ability of women to be of service to those around them.
I don't think this is our downfall, I think it's our gift.
The problem is the connectivity of today's technology doesn't allow any rest. In centuries past, at some point there was night with little else to do but sleep. Now, we sleep less than ever before, and that's even before menopause hits when hormonal changes disrupt sleep. There were famines and in the less extreme version, seasonal changes with lower food availability. In today's world, food (or food products) are available around the clock.
If we don't actively challenge our environment, our technology, and our habits, we will be swallowed whole by them.
I see this very easily in women that I work with. The phone is the last thing they look at before bed and the first thing they look at in the morning.
Take an active role in your health.
Sometimes the active challenge is actually changing small habits. There are lots of people getting biometric data with lab work and exercise testing, I've done that and I'm glad I did. But that's not where I started.
I noticed a difference with these small adjustments:
Cutting out alcohol
Starting magnesium
Leaning into tea-drinking
Dusting off my alarm clock
Be purposeful.
We've been conditioned to think that everything needs done now and every message needs answered now.
We're on notification overload. I carry two phones when I'm on call for the hospital. I know all about notification overload.
I have to answer some calls, yes. But it's actually not the end of the world if most e-mails, texts, or calls go unanswered, at least immediately. Most things can wait.
I started to realize that making boundaries for myself was a huge release. I was better for it and nothing catastrophic happened. Of course it didn't.
Here are some of them:
Enjoy the do not disturb function on your phone
Stop doing free work
Leave your devices outside of the bedroom during sleep
Remember God.
But I still wasn't complete.
Until I started praying every single night. I used that time to be still on my pillow before falling asleep, asking for help and expressing gratitude.
This may be fringe because it's definitely not discussed in medicine but it isn't woo-woo. Gratitude is an evidence-based way of improving health. No one is talking about this. Not doctors, not health influencers.
I started reading the Bible. I use help from Alabaster's guide and the
Hallow app.
Medicine is definitely not talking about that.
It was the missing piece and the missing peace.
Not only did I stop medication for stress-induced heart palpitations but I felt more grounded and settled than ever, even in a very chaotic time.
In the mornings, I drink green tea preferably without my phone near me (I have it when I'm on call). This is before I exercise.
If Tricia Griffith and other female CEOs like her find time in their days for stillness, meditation and prayer, then I'm lying if I say I can't. And if I really want to be healthy for myself, my family, and for eternity, then I won't let religion be a passive part of my background ever again.