When you work on a blog like this, you get ideas from many different places. We’re always thinking about topics that can help you achieve some degree of positive change with a commitment of just minutes a day. With that in mind, we’ll start with just a snatch of information from a radio story, a friend’s retelling, or a blurb on a magazine cover. Just about anywhere. If it sounds like a good blog idea, we start looking around to learn more and to find where the claims we’ve heard have originated.
That’s where it gets interesting. Name anything, a food, exercise technique, herb, or whatever topic that you’ve heard results in some beneficial effects. Search that thing, and you’ll usually find outrageous claims.
And nearly every online claim starts with what we’ve learned is a highly suspicious phrase: “Studies have shown…” Generally, that’s it, no reference to who did the studies, what organization or university it’s connected to or the conditions of the data collection.
When you do find a place where facts are backed up, those facts generally sound much more reasonable and believable, and they come with lots of disclaimers.
That’s not a complaint. In fact, we’re VERY thankful for those sites and blogs out there who do quantify and qualify their information. Once we’ve been to a few of those sites, we do feel much better about informing you about what we’ve found.
So in the spirit of giving thanks, here are a few of those resources that we are most thankful for as we work on the Caldera Blog this season.
Mayoclinic.com
You’d expect a site focused on the most esoteric medical maladies and how the world’s best researchers and doctors are dealing with them. Certainly, that’s the impression you get from the home page. However, the site is a very deep information source. For instance, when we search for topics we’ve shown interest in, you discover the wealth of information. Want to know about relaxation techniques? Search and you’ll find more than 500 topics. Green tea? There are 106 topics.
Claims are linked to actual studies and results are interpreted so they can be understood by those of us without advanced medical degrees. So…Thank you!
Livestrong.com
While the Livestrong Foundation fights to improve the lives of people affected by cancer, Livestrong.com takes a much more broad approach to its content and states its goal as a “personal guide to becoming a better, healthier you.”
With thousands of topics loosely organized under Food, Fitness and Health, the site is a good resource for compiled information related to personal improvement.
New York Times Well Blog
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/
Generally considered one of the world’s most important and respected “newspapers of record,” the New York Times offers an outstanding wellness blog. Unlike many blogs that repackage information, the Times articles generally feature a new point of view and personal interviews with a professionals to substantiate claims.
Links to pages and articles in the Times’ “Health” section round out and outstanding list of personal improvement topics. http://www.nytimes.com/pages/health/index.html
WebMD.com
I like this site as another single-source for health information. There’s a wide variety of topics and it’s a nice blend of medical professionalism and journalism. Keep both eyes open so that you don’t confuse the site’s content with “sponsor” information. Thank You!
And a few other “We’re Thankful For” sites:
Women’s Health
http://www.womenshealthmag.com/
Men’s Health
Dr. Andrew Weil’s alternative medicine blog
U.S.A.
Canada