Why Your Health Won't Budge: Minerals, Stress, Personality Traits

OMG!!! Can we talk about how life keeps throwing the same lessons at us over and over? I swear, I'm on a never-ending loop of learning to chill out and relax. Now, keeping up with my diet, workouts, and supplements is easy peasy now – been doing it for decades. But, man, wrapping my head around rest and relaxation? Not my forte. It just feels so... unproductive. Anybody else feeling me on this? 

My HTMA Wake-Up Call –– I was in a 4 Low Pattern

So, picture this: a Type A, perfectionist, overachiever (that's me!) diving headfirst into the chaos of a super productive life. Thinking I just need to do more to get where I want to go. But it just wasn't working...

My thyroid numbers weren't budging, my body was holding onto some extra weight and I just felt scattered and overwhelmed in my business. 

I have so many great tools and practices for helping my clients with their stress management, but for some reason I wasn't applying it to my own life. I don't think I thought I was stressed (ha! cue my hubby's massive eye roll). 

However, there's nothing quite like the revelation of seeing just how stressed out your body is when it's reflected back in your labs.

My body decided to spill the beans through a Hair Tissue Mineral Analysis (HTMA) –– I was in a 4 Low Pattern, which results in tanked thyroid (high Ca/Mg ratio) and adrenals (low Na/Mg ratio). 

Translation: my calcium, magnesium, sodium and potassium were depleted. And my subsequent minerals were too.

But why tho? Anytime I see nutrient depletion it's because of one or several of these things: 

1. Lacking in diet
2. Malabsorption / poor digestion / gut issues / low beneficial bacteria 
3. Pathogens competing for nutrients
4. Toxins and/or meds blocking absorption
5. Burning through too quickly due to stress/stressors
6. Recently finished eradication/detox protocols, or have been on one for a long time  

Mine? #5 - Burning through too quickly due to stress/stressors. Simply speaking, I didn't have the energy, or spark plugs, for my cells to function properly.

Stages of Stress

An HTMA test will show you many things. Not just if you're burning through your minerals or their nutrients too fast or too slow, but it can show you how that's affecting your energy levels, and it will tell you about the stage of stress you're in.

• Alarm Stage: Think fight-or-flight when a stressful situation hits hard.
• Resistance Stage: The transition from "I got this" to "I'm running on empty."
• Exhaustion Stage: When your body says, "Enough is enough!"

My body? Chillin' in the exhaustion stage – no wonder my thyroid markers were stubborn, and I couldn't get the results I wanted despite all my efforts. My body was protesting! It straight up did not feel safe. And the female body operates best when it feels SAFE.

My Minerals Literally Called Me Out!

Something fascinating I learned about HTMA is that it isn't just about minerals; it's a sneak peek into your personality quirks, emotional balance, and mental health.

For example, often 4 lows experience cortisol addiction; constantly seeking stressors like piling up their to-do list, over exercising, hyper-focused and stressed about irrelevant details like scrambled or fried eggs?, or feel they need to go to extremes like a juice cleanse or 75 hard. 

Once slowed down, nourishing and relaxing, they can feel very tired and want to overdo it with supplements, workouts, taking on more and caffeine. Unknowingly, they sabotage progress because they're craving a boost in anyway possible, because they're used to always go go go! 

So, naturally I tackled it head-on – nutrition, fitness, and minerals, oh my! What I didn't nail? Slowing down and giving myself a break. Result? I got sick. Classic case of "If you don't make time to rest, the body will make it for you." Lesson learned. The hard way. Again. 

What an eye opener into my own personality traits like compulsive worrying, overdrive productivity, perfectionist, workaholic tendencies and feeling unloved – yup, that's me! 

Geeze! I felt so seen by my minerals. Like, how did they know?

Take Home Message

Needless to say, I was forced to relax, slow down and reevaluate what I considered to actually be productive and healthy. And I'm working on some better strategies for incorporating more nervous system support, rest and play into my lifestyle –– rather than waiting for my body to inevitably crash and demand change.

And sometimes you need a lab to show you the proof to make that change.  

If you can relate, or want to know how your body is responding to stress and what specific actions will help you recover, I invite you to start with a Hair Tissue Mineral Analysis.

Truly eye opening.