If Magnesium was the Queen and Zinc was the King then Vitamin D and Iodine would be the Prince and Princess respectively. It takes the highest Royal level to activate our miraculous bodies.
There are many beautiful nutrients we need including all the B vitamins, selenium, gorgeous and versatile Vitamin A, C, E, and K just to mention a few. And how about all those antioxidants, omega 3’s and 6’s, good bacterias, amino acids and neurotransmitters. Could you imagine having to actively remember to take all of these in supplement form? uummm no! How incredibly amazing that the body is able to do most of this on its own! So wouldn’t you say it’s worth thanking our bodies on a daily basis for being so utterly incredible.
Daily stress, environmental factors and lifestyle circumstances all influence and often interrupt the natural production of these important ingredients of life. This can lead to deficiencies in certain nutrients, affecting the way the body operates and if symptoms aren’t addressed it can lead to illness or disease.
To honour International Womans day on Friday, we will discuss only the Royal ladies – Queen Magnesium and Princes Iodine. The best thing about these two empresses is they can both be applied topically, therefore absorbed transdermally (via the skin). This makes them a wonderful alternative if you’re not a fan of taking pills. In-fact we suggest people use iodine this way; a few drops applied over the abdomen, ovaries or breast tissue. For magnesium, it can of course be taken orally, as a powder or pill, However, using a transdermal spray is really effective. Soaking your feet (or whole body) in magnesium salts is also very therapeutic.
Both the Queen and Princess have an abundant roll to play in the body’s automation. Magnesium is often misunderstood for simply being helpful for cramps and spasms. This is just one of a plethora of ailments magnesium can resolve. It also helps musculoskeletal pain, fibromyalgia, a hyperactive nervous system including sleeping difficulties, chest palpitations, eye twitches, anxiety, and night sweats. Mood swings, PMT, depression, asthma attacks, general heart health, digestive problems and constipation. It can aid healthy blood sugars, bone health and much more. You can recognise now why we hand it out like cups of tea at Soulpod. She literally is a ‘life saver’.
Princess Iodine on the other hand is known as a trace mineral. It’s more familiarly know for keeping the thyroid glad happy. Iodine also spreads her love to the ovaries, breast tissue, brain, immune system (gut), prostate gland and uterus. Put simply it powers life through most cells in the body. She is an important antioxidant, and has a large role in immune function, detoxification, and mitochondria regulation.
We prescribe Iodine frequently in the clinic; especially as a huge percentage of our clinic deals in preconception care, ovulation, pregnancy and all round fertility. Improvement is almost always noted in cases with irregular menstruation, ovulation pain, PMS, ovarian cysts, PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome), fibrocystic breasts, breast pain and unexplained infertility. Digestive issues can be supported with iodine including reflux, indigestion and heart burn. Subclinical thyroid symptoms such as tiredness, fatigue, cold hands and feet and sluggish bowels. It can also assist to regulate our stress hormone cortisol.
From a TCM angle Iodine has a warming nature. It has the ability to help improve the bodies core temperature simply by applying it topically everyday. The more we use it, the higher our body temperature rises, the better our thyroid functions, the more energy (Qi) we create and the clearer our head becomes.
The signs and symptoms a body can show is simply it’s way of communicating with us to take notice. It may be that we are missing either an essential life ingredient or we need to rest to recover. Either way the worst thing to do is to push on and ignore these messages, because the first knock is always softer, the second is louder and third or final knock will smack you off your perch to get you listening.