Think of the items on this list as detours on your way to a healthy lifestyle.

1. Lighting up We all know the dangers. Still, almost 23 percent of American women smoke cigarettes. Each year, smoking causes more deaths in the United States than AIDS, alcohol, automobile accidents, homicides, illicit drugs and suicide combined. For women, lung cancer is the number-one cause of cancer death. And women over 35 who take birth-control pills and smoke increase their risk of stroke, blood clots, and heart attack, as well.

2. Missing checkups You can’t treat a disease without a diagnosis. The routine tests included in regular checkups improve your chance of detecting a disease in the earliest stages when survival rates are highest. For example: 50-70 percent of women who developed invasive cervical cancer did not have a Pap test within five years of their diagnosis or never had one. Most cervical-cancer deaths are in unscreened patients.

3. Skipping breast exams We all know of someone who found a lump. And breast cancer is most curable if caught early. A woman's first best defense is clinical breast exams by a doctor, mammograms, and for more accurate screenings MRI’s and/or ultrasounds. Even if the disease does not run in your family, monthly self-exams are important too. The reason: It’s estimated that, at most, 25 percent of breast cancers are inherited; the rest develop spontaneously, with no obvious cause.

4. Ignoring aches, pains and other minor symptoms Listen to the messages your body is sending. When you don’t pay attention, you could be asking for trouble. A sore toe, for example, can alter your gait enough to trigger hip, back, or neck pain—even headaches. And the toe problem probably can be treated fairly easily. A sore shin might be a muscle ache, but it also could be a stress fracture. You don’t have to rush to the emergency room for every twinge, however. Note recurring minor symptoms on a calendar; that may be enough to help decode your body’s messages. And when you do see your doctor, those notes can be a valuable diagnostic tool. For example, if you’ve been sneezing for the past week (ever since your daughter brought home some flowers, come to think of it), you’ll want to consider whether your “cold” is really an allergy.

5. Keeping emotions under wraps Suffering in silence can compromise your health. There’s evidence that people who express their emotions can enhance their immune function. Researchers found that expressing their emotions, positive and negative, after a diagnosis of breast cancer helped women survive over a nine-year period.

6. Caring for others but neglecting yourself Women who take care of young children or aging parents often cope by giving up time for themselves. This works at first, but eventually they run out of steam and become irritable, fatigued, or exhausted. Remember, you can’t care for others when you are tired and sick. Also, you’re giving them the message that your needs don’t matter. So add your own well-being to your list of priorities.

7. Overlooking family health risks When a close relative is diagnosed with cancer, diabetes, or heart disease, tell your doctor. She may want to screen you more carefully for that particular disease. The most important indicators of risk are your closest relatives. First-degree relatives (such as your mother, brother, or daughter) are the strongest link because you share more genes and may have all inherited a risk factor. With each branch away in the family tree, the link gets weaker. A family history of early heart disease, diabetes, and other illnesses also can indicate a need for more attentive and earlier screening. Remember that a family history of a specific disease can stop with you if you adopt healthier habits than your ancestors did.