My Million Dollar Idea Could Save Your Health (And You Can Steal It)

Picture this: You're grabbing your third cup of cold coffee from the break room, it's 2 PM and you haven't eaten lunch, you got four hours of sleep because you were charting until midnight, and your pager just went off again.

Now imagine if you could see, in real-time, exactly what this lifestyle was doing to your cortisol levels.

The Test That Tells Us Nothing

As a family and obesity medicine physician, I constantly get asked: "Can you check my cortisol levels?"

My response is always the same question: "Do you need a cortisol test to know whether you're stressed?"

They usually laugh and say no.

Then I ask: "If we check your cortisol and it's normal, but you know you're stressed, what will you do with that data? And if you felt totally relaxed but your cortisol was high-normal, what would you do with that information?"

Random cortisol tests don't have much utility. But here's my million-dollar idea (and yes, you can steal it, just give me credit): A continuous cortisol monitor.

The Device That Could Change Everything

Imagine a wearable device, just like a continuous glucose monitor, that could track your cortisol levels 24/7.

If you could see objective data showing how your levels spike and remain elevated in response to:

• Surviving on four hours of sleep
• Constant caffeine consumption
• Poor nutrition choices
• Over-exercising (or not exercising at all)
• Working in chronically understaffed conditions

You couldn't ignore the impact anymore.

Your scientist brain wouldn't be able to logic its way out of understanding that your self-care isn't optional; it's essential.

The Truth About Women Physicians

Here's what makes me absolutely furious: Women physicians provide safer, more comprehensive care. We have better surgical and hospital outcomes. We spend more time talking through options with patients, and patients ask us more questions because they trust us.

And we're not getting compensated extra for that quality of care.

Instead, when we ask for more support, we're told we can't be treated "special" or "different." If we don't comply with impossible demands, we're accused of not being team players.

This is institutionalized sacrifice. The system literally profits from your overwork without compensating you for it.

Your Body Isn't 24 Anymore

I'm 44, and I don't consider myself old. But my body has housed and fed children. It's had 20 years of wear and tear. I'm now in an age demographic where cancers are popping up among my friends.

The self-care strategies (or lack thereof) that worked at 24 don't work at 44.

What I got away with metabolically, with sleep, with pushing myself is different now. I can continue making those same choices, but the consequences are significantly different.

If you're still eating goldfish crackers from the peds snack bin and calling it lunch, if you're charting until midnight because "there's no other time," if you're cleaning rooms because your MA called out and those positions aren't being replaced—you're not taking care of yourself in a way that's sustainable.

The Exercise You Need to Do Right Now

Until someone invents this continuous cortisol monitor, let's do a thought experiment:

Put on your imaginary continuous cortisol monitor for one week.

What would it show you? How high would your baseline be? What would cause those spikes?

If you were tasked with reducing your cortisol levels, what choices would you make differently?

My hope is that you'd sit down with yourself with self-compassion and say: "Body, I love you. I haven't been taking good care of you. And that ends today."

The Uncomfortable Truth

You're going to feel guilty when you start prioritizing self-care. You've been conditioned to feel selfish for taking care of yourself.

Those feelings don't mean you're doing something wrong; they mean your conditioning is working exactly as intended.

But if we don't start making changes, if we continue sacrificing our health, we're living into the narrative that being a woman physician is bad for your health.

The future of healthcare depends on us figuring out how to set limits so we can stay in the game, change the system, and continue being the badass physicians we are; without breaking ourselves in the process.

What Will You Do?

You don't need a cortisol monitor to start making changes. You know what your imaginary device would show you.

The question is: What will you do about it?

Ready to stop sacrificing your health for a system that doesn't value your wellbeing? Listen to the full episode where I dive deeper into this idea and what it means for your daily choices.

If you're tired of feeling like being a woman physician has to be bad for your health, join my email list for weekly messages that remind you how powerful and capable you really are.

Or if you're ready to make real changes but don't know where to start, schedule a coaching discovery call with me. Together, we'll create a plan for you to thrive in medicine without sacrificing your wellbeing.

Because you're too valuable to burn out.

What would your continuous cortisol monitor show you this week? Share your thoughts—I'd love to hear from you.