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Hello friends!
It’s Abbey, here with your last installment on some basic tips for combating the stress in our daily lives. Can you believe March is already over? Me either! Which means it’s time to talk about Organically Bound Minerals, a great support product for helping us get calm and stay there. Maybe March could’ve used some of this and gone out like a lamb too! You’ve likely heard the term minerals thrown around for a variety of different things; it’s a pretty wide spectrum descriptor. But in the health and nutritional world, we define a mineral as one of the inorganic metals that has some function in your body. There are macrominerals (calcium, potassium, magnesium, phosphorus, and sodium) and trace minerals (iron, copper, zinc, manganese, etc.). Trace minerals have their own functions that we’ll jump into another time. But your macrominerals are used A LOT, in many many biochemical reactions in your body. Ready to hear how they’ll help us with stress? Let’s get into it!
What: Organically Bound Minerals is a product that Standard Process has been making since its founder was still in charge, in 1935. It’s a combination of the alkaline ash minerals, primarily potassium and some magnesium. Alkaline minerals are present in green leafy foods, like alfalfa. These minerals promote the strength of our parasympathetic nervous system, or our “rest & digest” response. (Phosphorus is an acidic mineral, found in grain, and has the opposite, sometimes necessary, effect). Higher levels of potassium are known to reduce muscle cramping, and produce a calming effect on the nervous system.
How: We start the dosing for this product at one per meal. If you need a little extra, it may be necessary to take 2 per meal for a time, or if you need it to help calm jumpy legs at bedtime, 2 before bed is great.
Where: We have this on the shelf in the office, and as always, available online through our website here.
Why: This month, we’ve been talking mostly about the adrenal glands in your body’s response to stress. But the Organically Bound Minerals have a slightly different focus in supporting the stress response. The other part of the body that is responding to stress is your sympathetic nervous system- the fight or flight response. We think of the two sides of the nervous system (sympathetic vs. parasympathetic) as the parts of a car, the gas and the brakes. When both are working properly, the system is in balance and you can accelerate when you need to, and slow down when you need to. Often when we get stressed for longer periods of time, the sympathetic (accelerator) system takes over, and things start to get a little unbalanced. Your parasympathetic nervous system (the brakes) needs support at this point, to slow you down and get you back to a “rest & digest” state. The potassium found in this product is a whole food form, so your body recognizes it easily. It increases the potassium levels in your cells, allowing the body to reset the nervous system to respond in appropriate levels, not over the top like it does in sympathetic dominance. This is the reason your parents told you to eat bananas when you had a muscle cramp- they are high in potassium, and your body lets go of that overreaction of the nervous system when the cellular potassium level increases.
Friends, if it seems like your brakes are failing, don’t wait until you run into the barrier to get them fixed. We’re happy to chat with you about the best way to get you reset, and moving forward on your journey to better health. Let us know how to help!
Cheers to simple steps!
Abbey, BS, CNC