100 Things Every Man Should Know About His Health

The most useful health equipment you'll ever own costs about thirty dollars: an upper-arm blood pressure cuff from the drugstore. High blood pressure doesn't hurt, doesn't announce itself, and quietly wrecks men who felt fine right up until they didn't. Start there. Then work through the rest of this.

None of what follows replaces your doctor. It's the stuff worth knowing before you walk into his office so you can ask better questions.

Know your numbers

1. Blood pressure. Normal is under 120 over 80. Check it at home, seated, feet flat, arm at heart level.
2. Resting heart rate. Take it in bed before you stand up. Track the trend, not one morning.
3. Your full lipid panel, not just "cholesterol." Ask about LDL, HDL, triglycerides.
4. Fasting glucose and A1C. A1C shows the last three months, so it can't be fooled by one careful week.
5. Your waist measured at the belly button, not your pants size. Pants lie generously.
6. Your actual weight, same scale, same time of day, once a week.
7. Vitamin D, if you work indoors and live north of Tennessee.
8. Your family history. Call your mother and ask what your grandfather died of.
9. Your medication list, written down, including supplements. Pharmacists need the whole picture.
10. Your blood type. It takes one test and someday it'll matter.

The appointments you keep putting off

1. Get a primary care doctor before you need one. Sick is a terrible time to shop.
2. Annual physical. Put it on the same week every year, like a birthday.
3. Colon cancer screening now starts at 45 for average risk. Earlier if it runs in your family.
4. The prep is worse than the procedure. Everyone says this because it's true.
5. Talk to your doctor about prostate screening in your 40s or 50s, sooner if you're Black or have a family history.
6. Skin check. Bring up any mole that changed shape, color, or started bleeding.
7. Dental cleaning twice a year. Gum disease is linked to heart disease, and nobody flosses enough.
8. Eye exam every couple of years. Glaucoma steals peripheral vision so slowly you'll never notice.
9. Hearing test once you hit 50, or sooner if you've run a chainsaw without ear protection.
10. Tell your doctor the embarrassing thing. He's heard it. Today. Twice.

Sleep

1. Seven to nine hours. You're not the exception.
2. Same wake time every day beats a long Saturday recovery sleep.
3. Cool, dark, boring. Around 65 degrees is the sweet spot for most men.
4. Caffeine has a half-life of roughly five hours. The 3 p.m. coffee is still working at 8.
5. Alcohol knocks you out and then wrecks the back half of the night.
6. Loud snoring plus daytime exhaustion is worth a sleep apnea evaluation. Untreated apnea hammers the heart.
7. If your wife says you stop breathing, believe her.
8. Phone charges in the kitchen. This one change beats every sleep supplement sold.
9. Can't sleep after 20 minutes? Get up, read something dull, go back. Don't lie there negotiating.

Food

1. Protein at every meal. Aim for a palm-sized portion minimum.
2. Fiber is the nutrient men skip. Beans, oats, berries, and vegetables you'll actually eat.
3. Cook three nights a week and you've solved most of it.
4. Learn five meals cold. Repetition isn't boring, it's efficient.
5. Water before coffee. Most morning fog is mild dehydration.
6. Liquid calories don't register as food. Soda and sweet tea are the easiest thing to cut.
7. Read the sodium line on canned soup and frozen dinners. You'll be surprised.
8. Eat the fish twice a week. Salmon, sardines, whatever's cheap and oily.
9. A scale isn't a moral authority. It's a bathroom appliance.
10. Eat sitting down, at a table, with your family. It slows you down and it holds the house together.
11. Fast food isn't a sin, it's a habit. Twice a month is fine. Twice a day isn't.
12. Ask a registered dietitian before you commit to any eating plan that eliminates a whole food group.

Strength

1. Lift weights twice a week, minimum. Muscle is the retirement account nobody funds.
2. Learn five movements: squat, hinge, push, pull, carry.
3. Farmer's carries. Grab heavy things, walk 50 feet, set them down. Grip strength tracks with longevity.
4. Progressive overload just means adding a little weight or a rep over time. That's the whole secret.
5. Form first. Ego lifting is how a 42-year-old ends up explaining a hernia to his wife.
6. Your warm-up is five minutes. Do it anyway.
7. Soreness isn't the goal. Getting stronger is.
8. Deload weeks exist. Take one every couple of months.
9. Train legs. Falls are what end independence in old age, and legs are what prevent falls.
10. Stand on one foot while you brush your teeth. Free balance training, twice a day.
11. Hire a trainer for four sessions just to fix your technique. Cheapest insurance in fitness.

Heart and lungs

1. Walk 30 minutes a day. It's the most underrated intervention in medicine.
2. Do something once a week that leaves you genuinely out of breath.
3. Take the stairs. If two flights wreck you, that's information.
4. Know the heart attack signs: chest pressure, arm or jaw pain, shortness of breath, cold sweat, nausea.
5. Men's symptoms can be subtle too. "Indigestion that won't quit" has killed a lot of guys.
6. Call 911. Don't drive yourself, don't wait to see if it passes.
7. Learn hands-only CPR. Push hard and fast in the center of the chest, 100 to 120 a minute.
8. Find the AED at your church, your gym, and your office. Today.
9. Get the flu shot if your doctor recommends it, and ask what else you're due for.

Aches, joints, and injuries

1. Most back pain improves with movement, not bed rest.
2. Numbness, weakness, or loss of bladder control with back pain is an emergency room trip.
3. Ice the first 48 hours, heat after. Then stop overthinking it.
4. Rotator cuffs go from neglect, not from one bad rep.
5. Stretch your hip flexors if you sit for a living. Your low back is paying for your chair.
6. Wear the safety glasses. Eyes don't grow back.
7. Wear hearing protection with every power tool, including the leaf blower.
8. Sunscreen on your ears, neck, and the back of your hands. That's where skin cancers show up on working men. Make it a mineral one with zinc oxide, which sits on the skin and is easier on sensitive skin, like Blue Lizard Sensitive Mineral SPF 30 or Badger Clear Zinc SPF 30.
9. A ladder is the most dangerous thing you own. Three points of contact, always.
10. Physical therapy is worth the copay. Two months of exercises beats a decade of limping.

Your head

1. Depression in men often looks like anger, not sadness.
2. If you've stopped enjoying things you used to enjoy, that's a symptom, not a personality change.
3. Counseling isn't weakness. Neither is a splint on a broken arm.
4. 988 is the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. Program it now, for you or for somebody who calls you.
5. Tell one man the honest answer when he asks how you're doing. One is enough to start.
6. Loneliness is a health risk. Friendships take scheduling after 30.
7. Join something with a standing time. Men's group, softball league, Tuesday morning Bible study.
8. Pray. Sit still for ten minutes. Both lower the noise.
9. Church attendance has a way of fixing several problems on this list at once.
10. Go outside in the morning light for ten minutes. It sets your sleep and your mood.

Vices

1. There's no amount of smoking that's good for you. Quitting at any age pays back fast.
2. Vaping isn't a solution. It's the same habit in a nicer package.
3. Dip and pouches still hit your blood pressure and your gums.
4. Moderate drinking, if you drink at all, means two a day and not banked for Saturday.
5. If you can't skip 30 days, you have your answer. Talk to somebody about it.
6. Gambling apps are engineered by people who've studied exactly how you think.
7. Pornography rewires appetite and corrodes marriages. Filter the devices and tell a friend your password.
8. Painkillers left over from a surgery belong at the pharmacy take-back box, not the medicine cabinet.

The long game

1. Check yourself in the shower monthly. Any new lump anywhere gets a phone call, not a wait-and-see.
2. Testicular cancer hits young men, 15 to 35. Know what normal feels like for you.
3. Trouble starting or stopping urination is a urologist conversation, not a private humiliation.
4. Erectile problems are often an early warning sign of vascular disease. Get checked, don't order pills online.
5. Low energy, low mood, and lost muscle can be testosterone, thyroid, sleep apnea, or depression. Get tested before you self-prescribe.
6. Keep a written list of your medications, allergies, and doctors in your wallet.
7. Fill out a healthcare power of attorney. Tell your wife where it is.
8. Life insurance is a health issue. Buy the term policy while you're young and cheap to insure.
9. Your kids are watching what you do with your body. They'll copy it for 60 years.
10. Ask your father, if you still can, what you should watch for. Then write it down for your own son.
11. The goal isn't living forever. It's dancing at the wedding, carrying the grandchild, and being useful on the day somebody needs you.

Pick three of these. Do them this week. The other 97 will keep.