Vibrant You

Mineral Magic: The Missing Link to Vibrant Thyroid, Adrenal, and Female Sex Hormones Lies in Your Body’s Minerals with Sophie Shepherd

• Bindi Stables • Episode 49

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If you’ve ever struggled with thyroid, stress, or female hormone issues - that’s shown up as fatigue, low mood, brain fog, anxiety, weight gain, or just feeling overall less than your best in your body and mind... this episode is for you!

I’m chatting with Sophie Shepherd, the founder of SHE Talks Health and the creator of the SHE Talks Health Podcast.

Sophie is a Functional Diagnostic Nutrition Practitioner and NLP Certified Life Coach who helps women transform their hormone and thyroid health. Using a combination of root cause functional lab testing, transformational subconscious mindset reprogramming, and diet and lifestyle science, Sophie and her team, create a holistic approach to bringing your body and mind back into balance. 

We’re chatting about MINERALS. Why minerals are the missing piece in the health puzzle of optimizing our mind and mood, thyroid, stress, and female hormones.

In this episode you'll learn:

  • Sophie's inspiring story of healing debilitating Hashimoto's thyroid disease, gut and hormonal issues
  • Are you mineral deficient? Common signs and symptoms of mineral deficiencies.
  • Why 92% of the US population is mineral-deficient
  • Are heavy metals affecting your health and hormones?
  • Why minerals are the "spark plugs" your brain needs for optimal mood, mental clarity, and energy
  • The #1 Functional Lab Test you need to assess your minerals
  • What your mineral ratios say about your nervous system state, adrenals, thyroid, metabolism, and beyond
  • Practical solutions to optimize your mineral status for better sex, stress, and thyroid hormones

Links:

Sophie's Instagram: @shetalkshealth
Sophie's Email: sophie@shetalkshealth.com
Sophie's Website
She Academy
She Thrives

Order your HTMA Complete Minerals and Metals Test (includes video analysis and explanation helping you understand your results) 

Thank you so much for listening. I’m so honored that you’re here and would be SO grateful if you could leave me a review on Apple podcasts or Spotify, that way we can inspire and educate even more people together.

I’d love to connect with you on IG: www.instagram.com/bindistables

Visit my website for more resources and ways to work with me: www.bindistables.com

Bindi:

Welcome to the Vibrant you podcast. I'm your host, bindi Stables, and here we talk all things wellness and vibrant living. You'll learn about integrative health, functional medicine, holistic biohacking and enjoy raw and real conversations on personal growth, mindset and motivation. Optimize your body and mind and become the healthiest most vibrant. You Enjoy the show.

Bindi:

Hello and welcome everyone to another episode of Vibrant you. I'm so excited for today's conversation. If you have ever struggled with thyroid issues or stress issues female hormone issues that's shown up as fatigue or lower levels of mood, brain fog, anxiety or weight gain or just overall feeling less than your best in your body and mind then this episode is for you. And I'm here today with Sophie Shepard, the amazing founder of she Talks Health and the creator of the she Talks Health podcast. Sophie is a functional diagnostic nutrition practitioner and NLP certified life coach. She helps women transform their hormones and their thyroid health. She uses a whole combination of root cause functional lab testing, transformational subconscious mindset reprogramming, and uses diet and lifestyle science to create a really holistic approach to bringing balance to the body and mind. So I'm so happy that you're here, sophie.

Sophie:

Yeah, I'm so happy to be here. Thanks for having me.

Bindi:

Oh, of course, hun. And today, Sophie and I, we are chatting all things minerals. So we are getting into why minerals are really the missing piece in the health puzzle when it comes to optimizing our mind and our mood, our thyroid, our stress and female sex hormones. But before we dive in, Sophie, to all of the amazing wisdom and the wealth of knowledge you'll share with us, I would personally love to hear a bit of your story. So what got you to where you are today, doing this amazing work that you now do?

Sophie:

Yeah, I always say like, how much time do we have? Oh, because it's a lot. But my own health journey I was actually a theater kid in high school and college and I had no intention of being a coach or in the functional space and running labs and doing mindset work. I had no idea that was coming for me but I was diagnosed. I always I use air quotes If you're watching this IBS, irritable Bowel Syndrome I always say like if you remove the eye, you have BS and that's like the diagnosis that I got, yeah, when I was 16, so I had gut issues, anxiety from that early age and it just kind of spiraled from there between hormonal birth control and then trauma in my early 20s and dealing with all these things that we as women and just as people are dealing with it's a lot of stress out there and ended up getting diagnosed with Hashimoto's thyroiditis, which is a really common auto immune disease of the thyroid.

Sophie:

By the time I was 22, I already was dealing with autoimmune disease and I was pretty much like the worst case scenario, like I worked with hundreds of women at this point and yeah, I can count on like one hand how many of them were like are at the point that I was at, which was I couldn't even drink water without pain in my gut. I was super limited on foods. It was just it was always in the toilet. I always like didn't know what was going on or what was triggering it and I really thought like this was just the way my life was, because that's what every Western doctor had said to me. Up until that point. I thought my anxiety and depression was just like the way it was as well. So it was taking antidepressants and yeah, and then my hair started to fall out and I got like really depressed, really really badly depressed, and I started to gain all this weight and the fatigue was so insurmountable that I really couldn't even do theater anymore. Like I'd gone to the extent of applying for theater school. Gone to theater school was in New York, like working off Broadway, about to make my Broadway debut as a stage manager in theater, and couldn't like get up because my adrenals and my thyroid were so tanked. But I had no idea what it was.

Sophie:

That was going on and through like a series of mishaps with Western medical doctor who diagnosed me with hypothyroidism but didn't tell me about the autoimmune disease and didn't tell me there were lifestyle things I could do, just gave me prescription, ended up finding my way to a functional medicine doctor who I always just say like he gave me my life back. You know, he gave me that ability to be empowered that I do for my clients now, where it's not just like the Western medicine doctor that actually diagnosed me with hypothyroidism literally said like there's nothing more I can do for you, just take your medication, that's all I can do. And so her hands were really tied with her knowledge of how to help me. But here I was feeling awful and yeah, and this doctor just gave me a pathway through and I don't know, several years later, I just decided I needed to do this for other people. I realized I wasn't actually very uncommon, it was actually really common for people to feel this way, and I just realized the missing gap and decided to give it a go and haven't really looked back in seven years. So now we're here.

Sophie:

Wow.

Bindi:

What a 180 you went through, hey, of going from such a debilitating state of health and well-being to, wow, where you are today, where you're inspiring so many women and giving women hope. You know, when there has been just such a narrative of, well, there's nothing we can do, just take your medication and just kind of like leaving this lifelong sentence to extreme discomfort and debilitation, so, yeah, you just feel so proud of yourself Like it's never. I know that you and I, we both have our own health journey, but every time I hear someone's health journey like that, I'm in constant awe of like, wow, we did that, we like healed ourselves, and it's really exciting and so powerful for other women to hear as well. So, okay, let's get into minerals. So what are these minerals that we're talking about and why do we need them?

Sophie:

Yeah, so I mentioned I've been in the games, so to speak, for seven years and I did not know anything about this seven years ago and now I can imagine helping people without this tool. So that's how much I like. This is one of the first steps that we talk about when it comes to someone coming in and not feeling well, and what can we do about it. So minerals are like the precursors of everything. So, specifically, names of minerals that you've heard are calcium, magnesium, sodium, potassium, zinc, iron, iodine and so on and so forth. There's a lot of I'm phosphorus, you know we could go. There's a lot of minerals.

Sophie:

So those are some of the names you may have heard and they're. What I like to say is like they're the spark plugs of life. If we don't have those, we don't even have vitamin synthesis, like we people are like obsessed with taking their vitamins but we forget that minerals are like the step before vitamins in many cases. So we really, really minerals are so essential for every function, like there is not a single symptom or a single body function that a mineral or multiple minerals aren't playing a role in, and that's how crucial they are and they get really depleted, which I think we can talk about maybe next, and then that causes a lot of the symptoms. So that's kind of short and sweet, what minerals are and some names of them.

Bindi:

I love that and I love your love for minerals. I so agree. It's so overlooked in the health and wellness industry in general. It's like we're so vitamin heavy. Everyone's so excited about the really sexy supplements, like taking the MACA and the Ashwagandha and, like you know, blue lotus, like all of these really impressive sexy things, and then we forget that, like straight up, calcium magnesium matters. So let's talk about why is the world so difficult? Is it so efficient in minerals as a population, like what is going on that we're so deficient in these spark plugs?

Sophie:

There's two main causes as far as I see them. The first one is our soils are very depleted. You know, I'm in the United States so I can't really speak for the whole world, but over here we are doing a lot of monocropping, and because we do that, our soils do not have the diversity and the depth of the mineral content that they used to have, and so if the soils are depleted, the vegetables are depleted, the animals eating the vegetables are also depleted, and so we're just quite honestly not getting the same thing that our ancestors got. So there's like a saying like, if you know, if you were eating a bell pepper today, in 2024, it would be like 50% of the mineral content that your grandmother would have had. So we're already at a place just even if we are trying to do our best to eat all these foods that we just might not have enough. That's the first one, I think.

Sophie:

The second one that is certainly a huge part of my practice now is the high level of chronic stress that our population is under. I think we are in a stress epidemic and crisis. To have energy, we have to have minerals, and so if we are expending our energy on stress all day long in the form of work emails and work pressures and home life and all these things that we're stressing about and these emotional patterns that I work a lot with women on, like people pleasing and perfectionism and trying to get it right and trying to do all the things for everyone else before we do for ourselves. It just leads to a sucking up of all these vital nutrients that keep us alive, and in the form of minerals. I think those are the two.

Sophie:

There's definitely more, but those are probably the two that I think are pretty big, and maybe just the third is that people are like willy-nilly supplementing and they're not testing their minerals and so they're getting these crazy imbalances. Or like I'll just take a multi-mineral and it's like totally messing them up, and I'll just take vitamin D and it's like totally messing them up. So I think there's a lot of like, like you were saying, it's like sexy marketing that's going out. That's really messing up people's minerals.

Bindi:

Yeah, so thorough, I couldn't agree more.

Bindi:

And two, it's like I'm imagining the woman that's like so, on top of her health you know she's the woman that, she's the perfectionist that you talk about she takes her multivitamin, she takes her concentrates, you know mineral supplement and everything but two there's such a factor of absorption as well. And like, how's her gut status and is she actually absorbing all of the minerals that she's getting from the food that she's eating so beautifully organic and supplementing her minerals? And I think the other one too that I'd love to get into is just the factor of heavy metals. So of course, you know, you and I we see this with thyroid tests and doing our hair tissue mineral analysis tests all the time, which we'll get into in a sec. But this is, the presence of these heavier metals, like mercury and aluminum, will actually block the absorption of some of the key minerals that you know we're getting enough of, let's say, quote unquote but we're not actually absorbing. So tell us a little bit more about heavy metals and how that impacts. You know, trace minerals.

Sophie:

I've said it better myself. There's a binding site problem. When we have exposure to these heavy metals, they can have an affinity to the binding site that say zinc needs to, for example, cadmium. If we have an exposure to cadmium, it can displace zinc in our system. Or even if we're low in zinc potentially and then we are exposed to cadmium, it could see that receptor site and be like, oh, I can, I can make a home here, right, and so therefore blocking our minerals from getting in unless there's there's a lot of them or ability to bind to these metals and get them out of the body.

Sophie:

And so that's exactly what I see a lot, and most people that I work with are in what's called a slow oxidizer pattern and they're so depleted already and stressed that their body doesn't have that energetic oomph to even push out these heavy metals. So it's oftentimes I see this like pattern all the time where it's like I get a slow ox, htma and then I see super low metals and then we help them remineralize, we support their, their mental and emotional body health, and then we see these like surges of heavy metals on a retest because their body is literally stronger and able to to detox it and yeah, I guess I'll just. One other thing I'll just say is I have recently had a big breakthrough when it comes to heavy metal in my own personal journey. We want to talk about mercury at all. I'm in thyroid, but I'm happy to share.

Bindi:

Let's talk mercury and thyroid. Tell us everything.

Sophie:

Okay, so I was one of the unlucky people. I'm 34. I probably was one of like the last generation of people to get mercury fillings. So when you think of silver fillings in your teeth, half of them 50% is from mercury, toxic mercury. Obviously the dentist back then didn't know that it was toxic or that it could leach off. But now we know that just basic things like chewing hot liquids, things like that can off, gas the mercury into our body. And we know that there's a very big correlation between mercury and the slowing down of thyroid disease, or the speeding up thyroid disease and the slowing down of thyroid function.

Sophie:

And so, yeah, I had nine, which is a lot, yeah, it's a lot of mercury, and I had them removed by a biological dentist two years ago. And the most dangerous times is when they come in, when they come out. But I didn't want them just continuously off gassing and I felt like I had a lot less anxiety when I got them removed and just just different things started to like make sense. But with mercury and the thyroid I just always wonder. Like I had Hashimoto's that was diagnosed after I had all these mercury fillings. And when we think about like the development of disease I think of like the stress bucket. So how much of that was you know there's? I had trauma, I had leaky gut and gut parasites and things like that, and I had, you know, no management of stress. I had probably had terrible minerals at the time, but I also had mercury displacing my crucial minerals but also causing a toxic, toxic load inside of my body. And so the breakthrough that I just had I am in an advanced HTML training program right now and I'm actually about to be a clinical advisor for this company called Bicon, and so I've been immersed even more in minerals.

Sophie:

And so the thing that I was realizing was like man, I'm having. I was having some insomnia issues and some anxiety come back, and I was like man. I have so many tools on board. I know how to like support my mental body, my emotional body, my nervous system. I do all that work for other people. Why is this still coming up? Well, I started taking like more magnesium than I normally take, and then I started taking zeolite, which is a really potent heavy metal binder, and it's like gone, like the symptoms are gone. I just can't even. I'm like okay, okay, hi, mercury, Thank you. You can leave my body. Please get out, I don't want you anymore. So I just think there's. You know, sometimes you think, oh, like I'm just, I just I'm a bad sleeper, or I've just, I'm just anxious, or, and there's always a reason, you know, whether that's mental, emotional or physical, chemical, there's, there's a reason.

Bindi:

Oh my gosh, I love that and I feel so inspired just in your awareness of that, because I think the truth is is that women are getting more tools and we do have more tools to manage our nervous system and our mind and our emotion. And I think sometimes where we don't look is in the physical body, right when it comes to, like cognitive or mental health concerns, if we are feeling more anxious than usual or just like lower levels of mood. And it is so true. You know this, this, this connection. So let's get into testing before we hit record. So if you were sharing just our absolute love for our favorite functional lab test called the htma or the hair tissue mineral analysis test, so, sophie, you mentioned earlier just the importance of testing, because it is easy to just kind of get into this like, oh, I need minerals, and just like throwing random minerals into our system hoping that something sticks. But let's just share what is the hair tissue mineral analysis test and what does it test for?

Sophie:

Yeah, so it is a hair tissue mineral analysis. So we are taking hair samples and it tests for a ton. So there's all of the macro, what we call macro minerals. So sodium, potassium, calcium and magnesium are the four macro minerals and those are the ones we need the most and they're also the most abundant in our body, and so one of the first things you learn when you learn the HTMA is we want to try to get those as balanced as possible. It's really important.

Sophie:

There's also minerals like sulfur and phosphorus that can tell us things like whether or not we're detoxing well or are we eating enough protein or are we digesting it. Like you were saying, you could take all these supplements and you'd not be digesting it or absorbing it, and so it's testing all your minerals. It also has toxic metals, heavy metals, on there, so you can see some of those things like cadmium and lead and mercury, aluminum, and you can see those things that are really helpful, as I kind of just explained, in my own personal life. And then there's ratios that are really extremely cool I think cool is like the best word that look at things like blood sugar sensitivity and thyroid and adrenals and your central nervous system and just kind of give us so many insights into, like how we're using our energy, how our metabolism is functioning. So to me it kind of is a great catch all because everyone needs some support. It's like impossible, I think, probably to have like a perfect HTMA test. That's not like really what we're shooting for, but balance is really helpful.

Bindi:

Yeah, no, that's so great. I know, my first time like me doing before I really started working with this hair tissue mineral analysis test. I remember working this was over a decade ago working with functional practitioner and them running this hair tissue mineral analysis test, and I got the results and I'm like, oh, I'm good, ish right. I'm like, oh, there's like a little bit of mercury, a little bit of aluminum, no big deal. Not realizing the massive impact that that was having on my nervous system, my anxiety, just so many different things. And looking to at the actual like mineral ratios, like these macro minerals, the good guys that we want, I remember thinking that like, all was good, as in, like, oh, I don't really need more of anything.

Bindi:

But what a big realization is in this hair tissue mineral analysis test is it's not just how much calcium we have and whether we're deficient or not, but, as you mentioned, sophie, it's like these ratios between the two, the ratio between, you know, sodium and potassium, or calcium and magnesium, and what you and I can really interpret, as you know, what that's doing to our adrenals and how our adrenals are are expressing themselves, how well we're metabolizing, how effective we're detoxifying. All of these amazing things that can be assessed from it. So it's such an amazing test. So let's get into some of the physical symptoms here. So what does our mineral status and some of those ratios say about our physical health, from our adrenals to our thyroid, to our detox pathways, our metabolism? What would you say?

Sophie:

Yeah, I think that the first thing we always look at is the metabolic type. So I mentioned like a slow oxidizer or fast oxidizer, and so I'll just say that most people it's like a fancy word, but you guys I'll break it down so it's not so like confusing, but I would say like 85, maybe 90% of the HGMAs that I see are in this pattern of slow oxidation, which is kind of like referring to how fast your metabolism is going and how your adrenals and your thyroid glands themselves are kind of reacting. And so the big thing that I think is really cool about the HGMA is we can see like what stress is doing to the body. So with a slow oxidizer, usually it's assumed that like there's been a long term chronic emotional stress that has probably turned your type A go getter personalities into more of a slowing down. It kind of feels like you're in, like you're in a car but the battery won't start. And so what I think is how I can relate to like the slow oxidizer, and it usually is a lot of physical symptoms. So you can have like a lot of sugar cravings, more depression and apathy because again, like everything's slowed down. So again, like constipation, thinking, slowing of the system.

Sophie:

A lot of thyroid symptoms, brain fog, joint pain, weight can start because your metabolism is just slower and a lot of people dealing with fatigue like just massive amounts of fatigue in that pattern. Conversely, if you're in more of a fast oxidizer pattern, you might still be in that type A go, go, go, hustle, and so there's almost this hyperactivity that I see of like more anxiety, insomnia, high-paste hyperactive, maybe even like ADHD or ADD kind of reactivity, more diarrhea, kind of things like that that you might see in the physical body and I think other things I've seen too is just like across the board, depending on all sorts of things like pain, like if there's a lot of inflammation due to heavy metals, for example, period pain or joint pain. So there's just a lot. There's a lot of symptoms that can go with any of these types forlows, when everything's really depleted and those people are usually really sensitive to supplements really, really exhausted, like feel like you're stuck in the mud. So there's yeah, there's just a lot of correlation to all of these symptoms and then within that, the patterns.

Sophie:

There's a lot of ratios, as you mentioned, that are important. So there is the thyroid ratio and the adrenal ratio and the blood sugar ratio, and those also often like, really correlate. So when, like, for example, with the thyroid ratio, you may not have a diagnosis of hypothyroidism or Hashimoto's yet, but what we are saying is that there's an imbalance in calcium to potassium, and so potassium, like allows thyroid hormone to get into the cell calcium's more calcifying right. Our body uses it more as a solid like kind of protective around the cells, and so it can cause this a lot of the symptoms of thyroid disease without even having it show up on your blood work. So, yeah, there's just a lot. It's a lot to cover. But that's kind of a text. There's a lot of like insinous of it, but I think that's probably a good place to start.

Bindi:

Yeah, I love that so much and it is so comprehensive.

Bindi:

Like you said, someone may not have a formal diagnosis on a blood test yet, saying that they're hypothyroid or that they've got Hashimoto's or the other side Graves and those kinds of autoimmune conditions.

Bindi:

But if we think about it, these the conditions from which that disease manifested, began years before it ever became a diagnosis right and these imbalances really started so many years, if not decades, prior the initial imbalances of those mineral ratios. And then you know 10 years of having your calcium magnesium out or your sodium potassium out. Then 10 years later we finally see, you know Addison's disease and these adrenal health, you know issues or chronic fatigue or hypothyroidism. So it's such a preliminary test and just gives us so much, not just in treatment and prevention and diagnosis of disease, because that's not really where you and I work right. We work in health optimization and really keeping people well and maintaining health and preserving health and noticing trends on these mineral ratios and heavy metals that trend towards like, hey, let's take care of this now so that you don't end up with diabetes or thyroid issues or missing periods. You know, five to 10 years down the line.

Sophie:

Yeah, I think health optimization is amazing. I really wish that more people would be proactive. One of the main reasons I do this job is so that I can hopefully be the person that stops from going off the rails like it was for me. I often always think about like what if I had met an amazing FDN when I was 17?

Sophie:

There's something, you know what I have even gotten Hashimoto's, I don't know. You know, it's so hard to know, and there's just one of those tests that helps so many different parts of the body to feel better and to optimize. And it's also something that I mean I've said as a standalone. I've seen it make huge differences for people and I work mostly with women, so I don't know, I can't speak too much to men, but I think something that I did and that I hear so much is like oh well, this is just the way it is for me, or like I just have back problems, or I just have gut issues, or I just have this and I just have that, and I think those are just the way the body tells you hey, like I'm trying to talk to you, I need some support, and the faster we can give it the support, the quicker usually it is to feeling our best, optimal again.

Bindi:

I love that so much. Yeah, it's such a fabulous test. I'll link it up in the show notes for everyone, the test that we're referring to, so people can read more about it and, and I love that, it's not expensive. You know some of these functional labs out there, like the gut testing and hormones and stuff, it's like several hundred dollars it can be and this is, like you know, one to 200 bucks it's like. So not a big deal and an easy test to do just right at home. So let's go a little bit beyond the body. So, of course, minerals matter, without a doubt, this mind body connection. So let's get into how, you know, our minds and bodies are so connected and how actually, our mental and emotional states, our subconscious thoughts, you know things happening in our nervous system, can impact our mineral ratios and impact our physical health.

Sophie:

Yeah, and I would say, and the minerals being off, impacting the brain and central nervous system too. It's like this, this crazy bi-directional experience that I have personally just lived through, so much you know, diagnosed with anxiety in high school and CPTSD by the time you know, in this relationship that I was in and, yeah, I think the minerals and the mind and the body are all connected in this like crazy web, and so a lot of what I do at she Talks Health is on the mental and emotional side of things. So women come in and they have beliefs about themselves and pervasive thoughts, ruminating thoughts I'm not good enough, I'll never be enough, I'm not worthy, I'm not lovable. A lot of financial things or achievement based things, like if I can just be perfect at my job or make X amount, then I'll be a lovable or worthy. And so if we have those thoughts and it's okay if you do, if you're listening to this and you have those thoughts, you know I've had them too.

Sophie:

Right, we're all human and if you're having those thoughts in your mental body, it's usually also creating an emotion guilt, shame, fear, hurt. These emotions and these thoughts get lodged in the body, right, if you've ever read, the Body Keeps a Score, or if you've ever heard the phrase, the issue is in the tissues and what that's really referring to is that we can have traumatic experiences or even just something that overrides the nervous system, some sort of stressor, right, or multiple stressors, or a chronic, pervasive thought like I'm never enough or I never get it right, and that over time, your body gets used to hearing that. Okay, our cells are listening. How this connects to the physical, and then I can also talk about kind of maybe specific minerals and what I see, how that relates to emotions. But it depletes the body because you're releasing that cortisol response every single time. You're having that thought, which might be 20 times a day, you know, on top of maybe that class of alcohol and a little bit of mercury, and throw a parasite in there and you have like a metabolic chaos. Right, we have this like thing that happens, and that's exactly what happened to me, and it's not to our fault, right?

Sophie:

No one ever gave us the tools of how to deal with these intrusive arumination thoughts. I was told just take an antidepressant. You know, I did that for a decade and, by the way, there's nothing wrong with taking an antidepressant if that's what you need to do, and I think it's important to start talking about the fact that that is just one tool. Right, there are all these other tools, and so that's what I see a lot. And then we run the hair test. I see all sorts of patterns. So, for example, low sodium. I see women who are fatigued and not assertive, not able to be assertive anymore.

Sophie:

Calcium is so interesting. Calcium is so sedative, so is magnesium. So if calcium is really high and you have a calcium shell, it can be super protective, and even some people believe it's a can be related to having trauma like that. The body can't handle this trauma and so it will protect you with calcium and it will keep you protected, right, and so your emotional body. If you don't have those tools or you were too young to deal with whatever happened that you create this shell.

Sophie:

I see it all the time. I mean all the time. And what's interesting is that where people start, if they have a calcium shell, is they're usually very avoidant and not really in touch with their emotions. And as we break up the calcium shell, all these emotions start popping up and they're like I don't even know. It's like whack-a-ball. They don't know what to do and that's where we come in and help them. And, conversely, if you don't have enough calcium and magnesium, and insomnia, anxiety, hyperactivity, right like there's nothing to calm you down. And I could keep going. There's so many, but I just see it so overlap. It's endlessly fascinating and no one's talking about it.

Bindi:

Oh my God, I am so fascinated. I've never heard this perspective before. I've studied HTMA for years and I love just hearing your awareness on kind of the psychosomatic connection between these mineral levels and some of the emotional and personality things. I personally want to know what magnesium? When you see high levels or lower levels of magnesium, what does that mean emotionally for someone?

Sophie:

Yeah. So with a high level of magnesium on an HTMA, we're usually assuming it's in a loss pattern. And so when I see these levels of elevation, elevation, elevation of magnesium, usually that person is super hyperactive because it's like a loss. It's a magnesium loss, so they're not having that relaxing mineral. I'm also see the same if it's low. So it's kind of like both. It's usually both, but I would say I mean like sorry, so like saying like if it's high or low it's the same emotion.

Sophie:

But I would say with the depletion it's usually like they've also kind of gotten to the point where they just like they can't, they can't life anymore. They're just like so tired, I'm so exhausted. You know, don't forget, magnesium is crucial in our creation of energy, right? So that's usually what I see. Magnesium is just like the number one mineral that helps us feel calm, helps us to sleep, helps us with bowel movements, helps us with period health, like there's just so much that magnesium does. So if it's in a loss pattern or if it's too low, I think people just feel like really agitated and not relaxed.

Bindi:

Mm makes so much sense. This is fascinating. Thanks so much for sharing that piece. Let's get into some practicals here. So a woman wants to optimize her minerals, to optimize her thyroid, her gut health, her mood, her energy, her sex hormones. Where does she start? What are some like just practical tools or supplements or therapies that she can work with to really start to optimize this part of her well being?

Sophie:

Yeah, I would. Okay, I'm just gonna say this once. If you have been dealing with this stuff for a long time and you can possibly afford to do an HDMI, I think just getting the testing is great. I waited so long to get the right testing for me and I really wish I had done it earlier. So if you do have budget for that, that would be a place to start, just so you can be more specific and not guess. But I would say, practically I have never seen a single woman who doesn't need magnesium.

Sophie:

Now if you are not, you don't have your results and you're not sure. You're a little skeptical about supplements. You can consider magnesium Epsom salt baths or magnesium flakes or magnesium oil. They make all these things now out in the world. It's amazing. Ancient minerals is a great brand for that. So if you're like I don't really wanna take something orally, but I will tell you, on average, every woman that I work with is on at least 500 milligrams of magnesium glycinate and it just makes the biggest difference. So magnesium is super important. I would also say 80% of people need sodium and potassium. I'm really careful.

Sophie:

This is a podcast. I don't want this to come off as medical advice. This is where it's hard, because I do think there are some people who don't need sodium and potassium, but a lot of people do, and so things like adrenal cocktails or putting some sea salt in your water, coconut water, potatoes, tropical fruits I'm sure they're abundant in Bali those things can be so helpful. For if you need potassium or salt and then just basic lifestyle things that probably people take for granted or don't realize how much of an impact they have, is just reducing the amount of sugar, alcohol and processed foods that we're eating, because it takes energy to actually digest that, so it pulls magnesium out if we eat sugar, so that's a stressor. We've talked about heavy metals. Maybe looking into doing some research around zeolite specifically, or a binder that can help bind up some of those minerals if you think you have exposure, and then I would say, doing what you can to de-stress. It's like we're slipping in such stress soup all the time, and so everyone has different skills for that or things that work for them EFT, emotional freedom technique, meditation, long walk if you're lucky enough to be, you probably get to go to long walks on the beach all the time. But walking, talking to a friend, punching the pillow, do whatever you need to get out that stress. I think that that is the thing that I see just driving so much for people, for thyroid specifically, I think going gluten-free is really helpful, just cause there's a lot of research around gluten and the thyroid and how I can really suppress thyroid specifically.

Sophie:

And then women I've gotta eat more. Every woman I work with they're coming in. They're eating 40 grams of protein a day like they may be skipping breakfast. And the thing is is that we need food and actually in some cases, women need more food than men. Right, we need more. So I think there's a normalization of eating that needs to happen.

Sophie:

There's a lot of another level of marketing. I see a lot is let's completely eat plant-based and it's like that might not be great for everyone. Finding the foods that we need to how optimal function is really important and I think usually it's like eating more, and often as long as they are whole foods and protein, fiber-rich foods are like just where I would focus Lots of leafy greens and vegetables, fruits and, yes, animals are not the devil, you know, if you can get good quality animal protein is an essential nutrient, I think, for so many women and it's demonized a lot and I think that's really a shame. I see a lot of people who are super depleted If they're not eating animal proteins. They're just like getting enough food, getting enough calories and kind of crowding out the junk.

Bindi:

Yeah, such helpful insights, absolutely. And one thing that I love is every podcast interview that I do. When we kind of get into the practical advice, it's always coming back to the basics, right, and it really is. And this is something that you and I, like we can't preach enough is like, yes, all of these really sexy supplements and like fun therapies and you know really big things out there that we see practices and self-care rituals they all matter, but it really comes down to like managing our stress, eating well, you know. Taking care of ourselves, managing what's happening between our ears, our thoughts, our feelings, you know, taking care of our nervous system. So, yeah, such such great advice. I love that.

Sophie:

Huge yeah, I didn't say that and a great thing about it. Even more often than I did, it is beyond. Just like managing stress right, like actually regulating your system is super important.

Bindi:

Yeah, so so massive, absolutely. So this is so much fun and you are just an absolute wealth of knowledge. So if we are so grateful that you've come on today and I think this is a great spot for us to start to wrap up so we've got a little hot tip, rapid fire. Three questions for you. Are you ready?

Sophie:

I don't know.

Bindi:

Let's see if you're ready. So what is the number one thing that people can do to improve their wellness today?

Sophie:

It for sure comes down to regulating your nervous system. That's for me it's the biggest thing. If you don't have your nervous system on board, I don't care what supplement or what food you take, and that's a really whole other subject but there are so many things you can do for that somatic work tapping, gargling, you know, limbic system stuff there's so much in there probably its own podcast episode. But your nervous system, getting it to like chill and be regulated, is such a huge thing for every other system in your body.

Bindi:

I love that we have to have you on for a part two, because I would love the nervous system conversation. It's such a big piece. It's something I teach on a lot as well, so we'll have to have you on for a part two of this, for sure.

Sophie:

I love that. That'd be great.

Bindi:

Love it. What is your personal number one secret to living a vibrant life?

Sophie:

It's like feel big, it's really having an actual relationship with my body. I hated my body for so many years because it always had a problem and an issue. I just would shame it. I would shame my body and it's like, yeah, my body was listening. It does a lot better now that I have some compassion for it and some love and that I listen when it needs something and that I've started to learn its cues so that I can give it what it needs, and without the judgment.

Bindi:

Oh, I love that so much. That's such a huge piece of that Absolutely. I just did an Instagram post yesterday on, like, health is our greatest wealth, and I so agree. If we want to live the most vibrant life and we want to do all the amazing things that we want to do and experience and accomplish in life, you know, our health really is the foundation of that, and the foundation of our health is our relationship and connection to our body. So so with you on that. And the third question is what is the number one book that if the entire world read it, the world would just be a happier, healthier, overall, better place?

Sophie:

Yeah, I knew you're going to ask this. I don't know if, like, the whole world is reading this book. I've read a lot of books, but the one that I'm reading right now I'll just share has been great. It's called no Bad Parts no Bad Parts and it's really more on the emotional body and parts work, which are also known as internal family systems work, and it's the site, idea and concept that those pervasive thoughts of I'm not enough or whatever are really just little parts of us that got burdened with those thoughts and their reactions when we were young and they need help instead of shaming them or guilting them or judging them. And I think if, actually if people read that book, we'd probably like have so much more just compassion on like a humanity level for ourselves and for other people and way way less stress. So I think that's a great one.

Bindi:

Oh my gosh, I love that. I've heard of this book. You're now like the third person that's mentioned it, so it's definitely a sign. I need to. I need to read it. I'll link that up in the show notes for everyone too. I think that'll be a great book. Okay, my love, where can our listeners find you online? What's the best way for people to connect with you?

Sophie:

Yeah, everything is. She Talks Health. So you can find me on my website, which has a bunch of blogs, and my podcast is on my website, shetalkshealthcom, but it's also on every podcast listening platform If you're looking for free help website podcast or Instagram. Yeah, there's a few different ways that we can work together. One is through my she Academy, which we'll link here, which is a self paced course for every woman. It's definitely marketed for Thibrade women, but it's definitely for anyone listening to this podcast with these types of symptoms, it's perfect. And if you're wanting the labs and the emotional processing support and the mental support and the physical support, she thrives is worth that and I can link that below. And that's our one to one hybrid group program. That's pretty kickass, if I say so myself. So there's lots of ways to plug in. And, yeah, you can always just DM me too. I always like to just have these conversations on Instagram and sometimes it's nice to just know that you're not alone with your stuff.

Bindi:

I so love that and, yes, we will link up all of this in the show notes for people to connect with you and work with you, and I just want to say thank you so much, sophie. You are truly a wealth of knowledge and it's been such an honor to connect with you today and I am looking forward to our part two that we've got to do on the nervous system.

Sophie:

Yay, thanks so much for having me.

Bindi:

Take care. Thanks so much for listening. If you loved today's episode, please spread the love by subscribing and leaving a review. Or if there's someone in your life that you think could benefit from this conversation, please share this episode with them. I would love to hear from you over on Instagram at bindi stables, or visit my website, bindi stablescom, to connect and work with me. Thank you so much again for being here and I'm celebrating you in this journey of becoming the happiest, the healthiest, most vibrant you.