Don’t follow any advice, no matter how good, until you feel as deeply in your spirit as you think in your mind that the counsel is wise..
-Joan Rivers-

I took up skiing several years ago.

I decided to take private lessons to speed up the learning process. I found that each instructor had a different method of teaching. Sometimes, the instructions from different instructors seemed to contradict each other. After awhile, I finally mastered the fundamentals and really began to enjoy skiing.

Reflecting back, if I did it again, I would find one instructor that I was comfortable with, and take lessons from that one instructor. I learned that all of the instructors were trying to teach me the same thing, but they just had different ways of going about it.

It’s like that with health advice too. There are lots of different sources of advice: different doctors, dieticians, nutritionists, web sites, newsletters, friends, TV shows and more.

So how do you decide which advice to follow?

One thing is for sure: you can’t listen to everyone.

You need to identify a few reliable sources and ignore the rest. There may be several good sources, but taken together they may just confuse you with different, sometimes conflicting information. Sometimes it’s not a question of who’s right and who’s wrong. Several sources may be reputable and offer sound, but different advice. Following the advice of any of them may produce good results, but trying to follow the advice of all of them at once may not.

Here are a few tips:

• Look for sources without a strong incentive for a single solution above others (for example they only sell one type of product.)
• Look for references from others they may have helped.
• Evaluate how comfortable you feel interacting with them.

What’s next?

If you have specific health concerns, you should take time to do some research.
Find out what different sources say about your particular concern.
Evaluate where they agree, and where they differ, on the advice they give.