Signal Health journal, 18 October 2026

Don't wait to feel it: why checking your blood twice a year tells you more

Ask most people when they last had their bloods done and you will see the same pause. A frown, a guess, then something like "a while ago, I think." Not because they don't care. Most of us care a great deal about our health. We just don't look at it very often.

This piece is about why that happens, and why looking twice a year, rather than once in a long while, changes what you can learn.

"I feel fine"

It is the most common reason of all, and it sounds perfectly reasonable. If nothing hurts and you are sleeping, working and getting through the week, why go looking?

The difficulty is that feeling fine and knowing how you are doing are two different things. Much of what a blood panel measures is quiet. Your cholesterol, your blood sugar, your iron, your vitamin levels and your thyroid don't send a note when they move. You can't feel a number drifting over a few years. You can only measure it.

So "I feel fine" is good news, and worth enjoying. It just isn't the same as information.

Why we put it off

Behavioural science has a few well-known names for the habits that keep us from checking. None of them are flaws of character. They are simply how human minds tend to work.

Optimism bias. Most of us quietly expect good things to happen to us and less pleasant things to happen to other people. It is a useful instinct for getting out of bed in the morning. It is less useful when it persuades us there is no need to look.

Avoidance. Some people would rather not know. If there is a chance of hearing something unwelcome, it can feel easier to leave the question unasked. Psychologists sometimes call this information avoidance, and it is very common. The irony is that not knowing rarely makes anyone feel calmer for long.

Present bias. We give more weight to how we feel today than to how we will feel later. An hour in a clinic queue costs us something now. The value of knowing arrives later and feels abstract. So the appointment slides to next month, and then the month after.

Friction. Even when the will is there, the route is often tiring. A referral, a phone call, a form, a waiting room, a results sheet full of abbreviations with no one to explain them. Each step is small. Together they are enough to stop a good intention in its tracks.

Men, and the people who look after everyone else

Many men put off seeing a doctor until something is clearly wrong. Some feel that asking about their health is a fuss. Some simply don't think of it until a partner, a sibling or a child nudges them.

There is another group who rarely check, for a gentler reason. They are the ones who look after everyone else. The parent who books every family appointment except their own. The person caring for an ageing mother. The one who runs the household calendar and never quite finds a slot for themselves. Looking after others is a fine thing. It is also a common reason people go years without a look at their own numbers.

Why twice a year matters more than once

Suppose you do have your bloods done, once. That is better than not at all. You get a snapshot: where you stood on one particular morning.

A snapshot can't tell you which way you are heading, though. Is a number high because it has always sat there, or because it has been climbing? Is it low and steady, or falling? One point on a page can't answer that.

Two points make a line. Test in one season and again six months later, and you begin to see direction. That is where the real value sits.

It also turns testing into something you can use. Perhaps you changed how you eat, took up running, cut back on late nights or found a better way to handle a stressful job. Six months is long enough for many of those changes to show up in the measurements. A second test tells you whether your efforts are moving things, and in which direction. It turns good intentions into feedback.

And over time, a run of results becomes a personal record. Your own baseline, your own normal, so that you and your doctor are comparing you with you, not only with a population range.

Most of what matters can't be felt

This is the heart of it. The point of checking regularly is not to worry. It is to replace guessing with knowing, calmly and on your own terms.

What most people want from it is simple: the relief of having looked, and clarity about what, if anything, to do next. Most of the time that means small, ordinary choices about sleep, food, movement and stress. Sometimes it means a conversation with your GP. Either way, you are deciding with real information in front of you.

How Signal Health takes the friction away

Signal Health was built to remove the hassle that keeps people from checking, so that the only decision left is whether to know.

A registered nurse comes to your home or office on a weekday morning. The visit takes about fifteen minutes. Your sample goes to a registered partner pathology laboratory in Cape Town, and a registered doctor reviews every result before you see it. Your report arrives in plain words, with a Signal Score and clear next steps.

Membership includes two visits a year. The Baseline, in your first month, is a full panel: heart and lipids, blood sugar, inflammation, hormones, thyroid, a full blood count, liver, kidneys, iron and vitamins, with body measures taken by the nurse. The Progress retest follows in month six, so you can see your line, not just your dot. Across a year that comes to up to 133 results.

Signal Health is a wellness service that complements your GP. It does not diagnose or treat, and it is not a substitute for medical care.

We currently visit the Atlantic Seaboard, City Bowl, Southern Suburbs, Northern Suburbs, Blouberg and the West Coast, Somerset West and the Winelands.

For the person who would never book it themselves

Many of the people who would benefit most from looking are the least likely to arrange it. The father who always says he is fine. The friend who looks after everyone. For them, a year of membership can be given as a gift, so that the booking, the nurse and the report are simply taken care of.

Less than the price of a second-hand phone

We spend money every year on things we use every day: a phone, a gym contract, a weekend away. A year of knowing how you are actually doing deserves a place on that list.

Signal Membership is R695 a month for the first 100 members, locked for your first year. That comes to R8,340 over twelve months, which is less than a used, recent-model iPhone typically sells for in South Africa. To give it to someone else, a year of membership as a gift is R7,995, paid once.

Don't wait to feel it. Join at signalhealth.me or give it at signalhealth.me/gift.

This article may be republished in full, free of charge, credited to Signal Health with a link to signalhealth.me.