Too much information

If you’ve been taking charge with the Better Bones Revolution by staying informed about your bone health — congratulations!

That said, I know it’s easy to feel overloaded and even a little bit panicked by the sheer amount of health news coming out. Many of my patients tell me how difficult it is to stay calm whenever a new study warns about osteoporosis risk or other bone health issues. And, there is a lot of opportunity for worry — I just did an online search of “bone news” and came up with 305,000,000 results!

To help you stay up-to-date without being overwhelmed by the latest bone health news, here’s how to find the news that is most important and relevant to you:

Tips to stay informed–but not overloaded–with health news

• Remember that sometimes no news is good news: While I’m not advocating that you ignore the news completely, I do recommend you limit your news sources by choosing a few reputable news outlets. You’ll be confident the information is credible, while reducing your exposure to “news” based on fear or speculation.

• Use the two-day guide: If you do see some news that alarms you, I suggest waiting for two days. If the story has survived the news cycles and is still in the headlines, it may be worth investigating more. More likely, you may find that after two days, the information has been replaced by something else or just doesn’t seem as important to you.

• Ask — “does this apply to me?” Most of us can eliminate a lot of the noise caused by too much information by continuing our bone-building activities. After all, if you know your vitamin D levels are healthy, news about risks of vitamin D deficiency really isn’t relevant for you!

Finally, if you’re still overloaded and overwhelmed, why not consider taking a few bone-building deep breaths and simply not look at the health news for a couple of days? You may also want to focus on some of the proven, effective methods for strengthening bone in my article “A natural approach to osteoporosis and bone health.”