Being a dad can make looking after yourself surprisingly easy to postpone. There is always something else that feels more urgent. Children need taking somewhere, work is busy, something in the house needs fixing and the evening disappears before you have had time to think about yourself. The result is that health can quietly move down the priority list.
You may notice that you are sleeping badly, exercising less or feeling more stressed than you used to, but it is tempting to put these things down to getting older or simply being a busy parent.
Sometimes that is exactly what is happening. Other times, a persistent change is worth paying more attention to.
Think of the following as a simple health MOT for dads: not a reason to worry about every symptom, but a reminder of a few things that are easy to ignore.
1. Find Out What Your Blood Pressure Actually Is
High blood pressure is one of those health issues that is very easy to forget about because it often does not cause obvious symptoms.
You can feel completely normal while your blood pressure is higher than it should be. That makes knowing your numbers useful, particularly as you get older or if you have other cardiovascular risk factors.
You do not need to become obsessed with checking it constantly. The important thing is simply not going years without knowing where you stand. The same applies to cholesterol and blood glucose.
A health problem is often considerably easier to manage when it is identified before it starts causing complications.
2. Stop Treating Exhaustion as Part of the Job Description
Parents are going to have tired days. A child wakes in the night. Work requires an early start. Somebody gets ill just as the rest of the household has recovered from the previous bug.
That is family life. But constantly feeling exhausted is different.
If you regularly wake feeling unrefreshed despite apparently spending enough time in bed, it is worth considering the quality of your sleep as well as the quantity.
Heavy snoring, repeatedly waking during the night, gasping or choking in your sleep and significant daytime sleepiness can all deserve further investigation.
Sometimes the biggest improvement to your health routine is not another workout. It is getting better sleep.
3. Look at How Much You Actually Move
Becoming a parent can change physical activity in strange ways.
You may spend half the weekend chasing children around and still sit at a desk for most of the working week.
Alternatively, the exercise routine you once followed may have disappeared entirely because finding an uninterrupted hour suddenly feels impossible.
That does not mean staying active requires returning to the gym five nights a week. Walking counts. Cycling counts. Playing football with the children counts. A short resistance workout at home counts.
The most useful exercise routine for a busy dad is usually one that fits into real life rather than one that looks impressive on paper.
Regular physical activity is associated with cardiovascular and wider health benefits, so consistency matters more than trying to compensate for an inactive week with one punishing workout.
4. Pay Attention to the Habits That Arrive With Stress
Stress has a habit of changing behaviour gradually. One drink in the evening becomes several. Takeaways become more frequent because cooking feels like another job. Exercise disappears. Bedtime becomes later because those quiet hours after the children are asleep feel like the only personal time available.
None of these behaviours in isolation means something is seriously wrong. The useful question is whether they have quietly become your normal routine.
If alcohol, food or staying up extremely late have become the main ways you recover from every difficult day, it may be worth looking for other ways to decompress.
Parents and carers can be particularly vulnerable to burnout when they are trying to balance employment with family responsibilities.
5. Do Not Ignore Changes in Your Sex Life
This is one area where men can be particularly good at avoiding a conversation.
Occasionally having difficulty getting or maintaining an erection is common. Stress, tiredness and drinking too much alcohol can all interfere temporarily.
If erectile difficulties become persistent, however, they are worth discussing.
Erectile dysfunction can have psychological causes such as stress, anxiety or depression, but it can also be associated with physical problems including high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes. Certain medicines can contribute as well.
That means there can be value in looking beyond the immediate bedroom problem.
“Dads are often very good at putting their own health at the bottom of the list, particularly when a problem feels embarrassing to discuss,” says Ana Carolina Goncalves, Superintendent Pharmacist at Pharmica. “Persistent erectile dysfunction is worth addressing because there can be several possible causes, and appropriate assessment can help determine whether treatment is suitable.”
For medically suitable men, PDE5 inhibitors such as sildenafil are established treatments for erectile dysfunction. Viagra contains sildenafil, which temporarily increases blood flow to the penis during sexual stimulation.
“Treatment options such as Viagra for erectile dysfunction can be effective for appropriate patients, but it is important to understand that these medicines still require suitability checks and do not automatically create an erection without sexual stimulation,” Goncalves adds.
Safety matters as well. Sildenafil must not be used alongside nitrate medicines used for conditions such as angina because the combination can cause a potentially dangerous fall in blood pressure.
The important point is that embarrassment should not stop somebody asking for help with a common and treatable health problem.
6. Check Whether Your Waistline Has Changed Along With Your Lifestyle
Weight does not need to become an obsession. But it can sometimes provide useful information about how life has changed.
Perhaps you are moving considerably less than before becoming a parent. Maybe meals are increasingly built around whatever the children will eat, or evening snacking has become part of winding down after a long day.
A gradual change is easy to miss because it happens slowly. Rather than starting an extreme diet, look at the behaviours that occur most often.
Could you walk more during the week? Are portions larger than they need to be? Has alcohol intake become more frequent?
Are vegetables and higher-fibre foods appearing regularly, or only when you make a conscious effort?
Small changes that survive busy weeks are generally more useful than dramatic routines that last until the next family crisis.
7. Take Mental Health Seriously Before You Reach Breaking Point
Mental health problems do not always look dramatic. Sometimes they appear as irritability, withdrawal, poor sleep, loss of motivation or feeling permanently overwhelmed.
Fathers can also find themselves caught between different responsibilities: trying to perform at work, support a partner, be present for their children and somehow maintain their own wellbeing at the same time.
You do not need to wait until you are in crisis before talking about it.
If stress, anxiety or low mood is repeatedly affecting your relationships, sleep, work or ability to enjoy normal life, it deserves attention.
Talking to somebody early is not making a problem bigger. It is trying to stop it becoming one.
8. Stop Waiting Until Something Hurts
One of the biggest mistakes men can make with their health is assuming that no symptoms means no problem. Some important health conditions can develop quietly.
That is why preventive checks matter. It is also why persistent changes should not automatically be dismissed as age.
Blood in the urine or stool, unexplained weight loss, a new lump, persistent pain, significant changes in bowel or urinary habits or symptoms that simply will not go away are all reasons to seek appropriate medical advice rather than repeatedly putting it off.
You know your own normal better than anybody else. The important thing is noticing when something has genuinely changed.
