Your August Wellness Reset: Six Tools Black Women Can Use Right Now
Every August, National Wellness Month reminds us to make our health a priority.
The need to prioritize wellness has never been greater. Black women continue to experience disproportionately high rates of heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, obesity, and maternal health complications. While these disparities are shaped by many factors—including access to quality healthcare, social and economic conditions, and systemic inequities—there are meaningful steps each of us can take to improve our health and reduce our risk of chronic disease.
At the Black Women’s Health Imperative, we believe wellness is not a luxury—it is a foundation for thriving. Every preventive screening, every healthy meal, every walk, every good night’s sleep, and every moment you invest in your well-being is an investment in your future. This month, do not pressure yourself to overhaul your entire life. Choose one or two areas of your health that need more attention and take a few meaningful steps.
1. Make your next appointment count
Scheduling a wellness visit is important. Preparing for that visit can make it even more valuable.
Before your appointment, write down any symptoms or changes you have noticed, including when they began, how often they happen and whether they are affecting your daily life. Make a list of your medications, supplements, family health history and the questions you do not want to forget.
We have a resource that will help you through it all. Download BWHI’s Personalized Women’s Health Checklist to help prepare you to advocate for yourself during your healthcare appointments.
Have you been diagnosed with prediabetes or diabetes?
Knowing your blood sugar numbers is important, but you should not have to figure out what comes next by yourself.
BWHI’s Change Your Lifestyle. Change Your Life. program, also known as CYL², provides education, tools and community support to help participants make sustainable lifestyle changes. New classes will begin this fall.
Visit bwhi.org/cyl2 to learn more and find out how to join an upcoming class.
Your action
Before leaving your next appointment, ask:
“What are the three most important things I should understand or do next?”
Write down the answer. Consider it your health receipt.
2. Create a movement menu
A wellness plan should work with your real life.
Instead of committing to one perfect workout routine, create a menu of different ways you can move depending on your time, energy and physical ability.
Your movement menu might include:
- A 10-minute walk
- Stretching while watching television
- Dancing through three favorite songs
- Chair exercises
- Strength exercises using resistance bands or household items
- A longer weekend hike, class or bike ride
When you need community
Find a group that makes movement feel less like another task and more like connection, freedom and joy.
GirlTREK inspires Black women to walk, care for their health and build community. Readers can join a nationwide movement, participate in walking challenges and connect with other Black women committed to improving their well-being one step at a time.
Black Girls RUN! connects Black women through local walking and running groups across the country. You do not have to consider yourself a runner to begin. Its programs include Walk B4U Run, and readers can search for a community near them.
Black Girls Do Bike brings women together through cycling, fellowship and fitness. Readers can explore local chapters, different types of rides, beginner cycling videos and its national Strava community.
Outdoor Afro creates opportunities for Black people to experience nature through volunteer-led activities across the country. Its community participates in hiking, camping, swimming, paddling and other outdoor adventures, and readers can search for upcoming trips near them or connect through the Outdoor Afro app.
Movement does not have to be punishment for what you ate or a test of how disciplined you are. It can be a way to reclaim your energy, experience nature and spend time with people who make you feel good.
3. Shop your kitchen first
Spice it up in the kitchen
Let’s be honest. Many of us have been reaching for the same few seasonings for years, and some blends can carry more sodium than we realize. Before you shake with your whole heart, check the label and look for no-salt options, including blends from Dash.
You can also add big flavor with cumin, curry powder, smoked paprika, turmeric, ginger, cayenne, cinnamon, rosemary, thyme, basil and fresh mint.
Try this
Choose one herb or spice you rarely use and add it to a familiar meal this week. Try cumin in beans, curry on poultry, smoked paprika on vegetables, basil with tomatoes or fresh mint in water or fruit salad.
You do not have to give up the seasonings you love. Just invite a few new ones into the kitchen and make sure salt is not running the whole show.
The Truth about Seasoning Salt
4. Become a sleep detective
Knowing that you need more sleep is not always the same as understanding why you are not getting it.
For seven nights, pay attention to your sleep patterns. Record:
- When you go to bed and wake up
- How often you wake during the night
- How rested you feel in the morning
- Whether you nap during the day
- Your use of caffeine, alcohol or medications
- Any snoring, breathing changes or daytime sleepiness
The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute offers a free, one-page Sleep Diary that can help you track the quality and quantity of your sleep. You can also bring the completed diary to your healthcare provider. There are also popular devices for tracking sleep such as the Oura Ring.
Your action
Track your sleep for seven nights. Look for one pattern you may want to change or discuss with a healthcare professional.
5. Take your emotional temperature
Not every difficult season can be solved with a bath, a candle or a day off.
Sometimes caring for your mental well-being means acknowledging that you are overwhelmed. It may mean setting a boundary, asking for help, finding a therapist or admitting that something is no longer sustainable.
You can explore the Black Emotional and Mental Health Collective’s Wellness Tools, which include reflection activities, peer-support tools, grounding exercises, journal prompts and resources created with Black communities in mind.
Ask yourself:
- What am I carrying right now?
- What is draining more energy than I can afford to give?
- What boundary would create more room for me to breathe?
- Who can support me without requiring me to perform strength?
Check in with yourself
Visit the Feelings Wheel and choose the word that most closely describes how you feel right now. Then ask yourself:
- What may be contributing to this feeling?
- What do I need in this moment?
- Is there someone I should talk to?
You do not have to fix everything today. Start by telling yourself the truth about how you feel.
6. Build your wellness circle
Most of us have an emergency contact. Fewer of us have intentionally identified the people who can support our everyday health.
Create a personal wellness circle by choosing people for three different roles:
My appointment person
Someone who can accompany you to an important visit, help take notes or remind you of the questions you wanted to ask.
My check-in person
Someone who will notice when you have gone quiet, seem overwhelmed or are not acting like yourself.
My joy person
Someone who helps you laugh, move, rest, have fun and remember that wellness is also about experiencing pleasure and connection.
Send them a simple message:
“I am being more intentional about my health this month, and I would love for you to be part of my wellness circle. Can we check in with each other once a week?”
Start with one step
You do not have to complete all six activities this month.
Choose the one that speaks to what you need right now. Schedule the appointment. Track your sleep. Take the stress test. Make the meal. Call your wellness person.
Wellness does not have to begin with a dramatic transformation. Sometimes it begins with one honest check-in and one decision to put yourself back on the list.
Your health isn’t just important. Your health is imperative.