Mental health in underserved communities refers to the unique needs, stressors, and barriers to care faced by diverse communities. Access to mental health support is an ongoing nationwide issue. But it disproportionately impacts underserved groups.

Factors like cultural stigma, systemic racism, and a lack of awareness have negatively affected mental health in these communities for a very long time. And systemic injustice continues to harm those who need the most support. But by raising awareness and advocating for inclusivity, you can help ensure that everyone has access to life-changing care.

Rula takes an in-depth look at mental health in underserved communities, highlighting the systemic barriers to care and the importance of culturally competent support.

Key Takeaways

• People with diverse backgrounds and identities often have difficulty accessing mental healthcare. This is due to systemic barriers like institutional racism and discrimination.
• Culturally competent care honors and affirms each aspect of a person’s background and identity. But, unfortunately, this form of support can be difficult to find.
• If you’re a member of an underserved community and are having trouble finding a therapist, know that you’re not alone. Connecting with your community, practicing self-care, and exploring teletherapy can help you feel supported.

The state of mental health in historically marginalized communities

The U.S. is becoming increasingly diverse. By 2044, it’s estimated that over half of Americans will belong to an underserved group. Despite shifting demographics, historically marginalized communities continue to experience mental health disparities.

A 2024 report found that 56% of white adults with a mental health condition in the U.S. received treatment. In comparison, Hispanic (40%), Black (38%), and Asian (36%) adults were less likely to receive mental healthcare.

Here’s more of what is known about the unique mental health challenges faced by historically marginalized communities:

• Depression is reported less often in Black and Hispanic communit

For years, smartwatches have helped us monitor our health. From tracking how many steps we take each day to measuring our heart rate, our watches have helped us stay healthy.

More recently, many smartwatches can measure our blood pressure, letting the user take a reading as and when they need to. But now, thanks to FDA approval, users can receive a notification if their smartwatch detects signs of hypertension.

This guide from Beurer North America explains how this feature works and what you should do if you receive a hypertension notification.

What Is Hypertension?

Hypertension, commonly known as high blood pressure, occurs when your blood vessels experience too much pressure. Blood pressure readings take two measurements into account — the pressure in your blood vessels when your heart beats (systolic blood pressure) and then when your heart is relaxed (diastolic blood pressure).

Blood pressure measurements are given as “systolic blood pressure/diastolic blood pressure.” To be diagnosed with hypertension in the U.S., a reading of 130/80 mmHg must be measured on two separate days.

Hypertension is a common condition that affects over 1.4 billion people aged 30-79 around the world, according to the World Health Organization. While it is manageable, high blood pressure can be dangerous or fatal if left untreated. Many people are unaware that they have hypertension, which is why it can often go unaddressed.

How to Know if You Have Hypertension

Hypertension can affect anyone, although some factors increase your likelihood:

• Age: As you age, your blood vessels will stiffen and thicken, increasing the risk of hypertension.
• Genetics: Hypertension can run in families, as some genes can increase the risk of the illness.
• Weight: People who are overweight or obese are more likely to experience hypertension.
• Diet: Regular alcohol and caffeine consumption and high-salt diets can increase the risk of hypertension.
• Lifestyle: People who aren’t physically active, are regularly stressed, or experience poor sleep quality are more likely to develop high blood pressure.

The only sure way to know if you have hypertension is to take a reading with a blood pressure cuff. If you have extremely high blood pressure readings of around 180/120 or higher, Read more

Isotretinoin, formerly known by its brand name Accutane, has long had a reputation for intense side effects. What many patients do not know is that there’s now a gentler path to the same result.

Routines, such as cleansers, serums, retinoids, and antibiotics, can help patients manage acne. However, acne is a biological problem, driven by genetics and hormonal signaling. Unfortunately, you cannot cure acne by lathering products atop your skin.

Isotretinoin is the only medication that addresses all the root causes of acne. Nonetheless, it comes with a reputation for dryness, joint pain, purging, monthly blood draws, and months of significant side effects. Despite isotretinoin’s reputation, enduring nefarious side effects is no longer the only option for patients.

Today, dermatologists have three distinct ways to prescribe isotretinoin in their armamentarium. Each treatment path differs in dosage as well as how it feels, how long it takes, and what it is designed to accomplish. The appropriate path depends on your skin, your lifestyle, and what you want from an acne treatment.

Understanding the difference requires a primer in cumulative dose, a concept that upended how dermatologists think about acne treatment and opened a path to lower side effects. Honeydew breaks down how modern isotretinoin dosing options give acne patients more control over side effects, timelines, and long‑term results.

It Was Never About the Daily Dose

For decades, dermatologists prescribed isotretinoin based on a set daily dose, which they typically calculated using a patient’s body weight. For example, a 70-kilogram patient would take a course of 40 to 80 milligrams a day for approximately six months. The logic was that stronger daily doses yielded faster, more durable results.

Albeit intuitive, that assumption proved wrong.

A study published in JAMA Dermatology analyzed data from nearly 20,000 isotretinoin patients and found that the variable predicting long-term success was not a patient’s daily dose. Instead, the patient’s cumulative dose determines treatment success. Cumulative dose is defined as the total amount of isotretinoin your body received over the entire course of treatment. According to the study, patients who reached a cumulative target in the range of 150 to 220 mg/kg experienced the lowest rates of relapse. Each additional mg/kg further reduced that risk. Whether they got there quickly or slowly did not significantly affect outcomes.

As a corollary, a patient taking 20 milligrams a day for 14 months will have achieved the same cumulative total as a patient taking 60 milligrams a day for five months. The only difference is the road, which is where side effects live, and the treatments split into three distinct protocols.

Three Paths, Three Tradeoffs

Every isotretinoin protocol presents patients with tradeoffs between speed, comfort, and goals.

The early postpartum period—often called the fourth trimester—is a time of major transition. While you’re getting to know your baby and settling into a new rhythm, your body is also doing significant work behind-the-scenes.

You’re healing from pregnancy and birth. Your hormones are shifting quickly. If you’re breastfeeding, your body is producing milk day and night. And if your energy, appetite and routine feel unpredictable, that’s completely normal.

The good news? You don’t need a perfect plan to support your body. With a few simple, consistent habits, you can give it what it needs to heal, feel more balanced, and support your postpartum recovery in a realistic, sustainable way.

In this article, Aeroflow Breastpumps provides realistic guidance that meets mothers where they are—because postpartum nutrition and recovery don’t happen under perfect conditions, and support should reflect that.

Why Postpartum Nutrition Matters

After birth, your body is balancing several important processes at once. Understanding what’s happening can help make sense of why postpartum nutrition plays such a key role in how you feel day to day.

Physical Healing and Recovery

Your body is actively repairing tissue, whether from vaginal delivery or a cesarean birth, while restoring blood volume and reducing inflammation. Balanced, nutrient-dense meals and snacks support that process and help recovery feel steadier.

Hormonal Shifts

After delivery, estrogen and progesterone levels drop quickly, while hormones involved in milk production rise. These shifts can affect your mood, appetite and mental clarity. Postpartum brain fog, hot flashes and emotional sensitivity are very common. For most women, they begin to improve in the first few weeks as hormones stabilize.

Increased Energy Needs

If you’re breastfeeding, your body requires additional calories to support milk production. Many women notice increased hunger, though appetite can sometimes feel inconsistent depending on sleep, recovery and overall energy levels.

Supporting Your Body’s Physical Healing

There’s no need to overhaul your diet. ust focus on a few key nutrients that help support your recovery and healing over time.

Protein

Protein supports tissue repair and helps you maintain strength in the postpartum period. Including a source of protein with meals and snacks can help support healing and recovery over time. Foods like eggs, yogurt, chicken, beans and nut butter can help support your protein intake throughout the day.

Iron

Iron helps replenish what was lost during birth and supports healthy energy levels. Low iron can show up as fatigue, dizziness or difficulty concentrating. Red meat, lentils, spinach and fortified cereals are all helpful sources of this vital nutrient.

Hydration

Staying hydrated can make a noticeable difference in how you feel. Fluids support circulation, digestion and milk production. Keep a water bottle nearby and sip throughout the day, especially during feedings. Pale yellow urine is a reliable sign you’re well hydrated.

Supporting Hormones & Mood Through Nutrition

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Confidence for young guys today is less about showing off and more about feeling comfortable being yourself. Sometimes, all it takes is the right mindset, a fresh scent and less overthinking. In this article, AXE, the deodorant brand for guys, asks Ben “Benny” Hart to unpack the confidence habits that work in real life..

A New York City-based multi-hyphenate entrepreneur, author, speaker and dating strategist known for his raw, humorous and no-nonsense take on both business and human connection, Hart has nearly one million followers across TikTok and Instagram. In this guide, Hart reveals how you can boost your confidence without feeling awkward.

Scroll through social media, listen to a podcast, or watch a few dating advice clips online, and you’ll see endless opinions about what it means to be confident. A lot of them still revolve around outdated concepts like being the “alpha male”—dominating conversations, or trying to impress others with status and success.

Today, people are more socially aware, more emotionally intelligent, and much more sensitive to authenticity. When someone tries too hard to perform confidence rather than actually embody it, most people can spot it immediately.

So what does real confidence look like? It’s quiet, steady and comes from being comfortable with yourself. If you strip away all the noise, confidence without the cringe comes down to a few core principles: self-awareness, authenticity, and listening.

Self-Awareness

Many people try to copy what they think confidence should look like. The most unattractive thing you could do is to try to be something you’re not.

Confidence can’t be copied. Real confidence starts with understanding who you are. What’s your personality? What are your strengths? And what are some areas you want to grow in? When you know who you are, you stop trying to perform and start working with what’s already yours. The key is learning to lean into your own strengths instead of trying to manufacture someone else’s.

When this happens, you begin to trust yourself. That self-trust carries into dating and social situations. You make clearer decisions about who belongs in your life and when it’s time to walk away if the energy isn’t reciprocated.

“The key is learning to lean into your own strengths instead of trying to manufacture someone else’s,” Hart says.

Authenticity

If you struggle in dating or social environments, you might start to believe you need to act differently to be accepted. So, you adopt behaviors that look confident on the surface, like overasserting yourself or bragging about a promotion. Confidence that’s built on performance eventually breaks down because it’s not rooted in anything real. The goal should be to build on internal traits that naturally produce confidence. Those traits come from growth, self-development, and real-life experience. You need to develop yourself so that you can be yourself.

“You need to develop yourself so that you can be yourself,” Hart says.

When you start to overshare accolades, what car you drive or what kind of house you live in, you might think that this is going to get women more interested. But ironically, most women who are smart enough know you’re kin