6 Key Heavy Metals that can Lead to Anxiety

Conversation is especially important if you've been diagnosed with anxiety or depression, ocd, bipolar disorder, insomnia or any other brain related condition. And you've done the testing and you've done a bunch of treatments and yet everything comes back normal and you're not responding to treatment. Today we're going to be talking about heavy metals and their relationship to brain health and mood health. I just did an interview on the Meyer's podcast and there's a ton of great information in there and so be sure to check it out. Wendy knows her stuff. It was a great interview and you can get a lot more details there. And so in this live, or if you're watching the recorded version or listening to the audio recording, we're going to be referring to, generally speaking, how metals can impact brain health, how they may be getting in the way of your recovery. And I'll be sure to include links so that you can read more and learn more and see if this is relevant for you. And so when we think of heavy metals, I want you to think of the main types of heavy metals. And so I have the notes here, I'm going to read them to you. So I want you to think of arsenic, cadmium, mercury, lead, uranium and platinum. So those are the main metals. And what's really interesting about metals is that they're in the same category as minerals are. And minerals are needed by your body to carry out reactions, to send information. I'm thinking of minerals in terms of things like zinc and magnesium, sodium, potassium. Your body needs minerals. And so when your body receives those minerals, it carries out all sorts of really important functions that involve regulation of your memory, controlling your moods, controlling pain in your body, appetites, sleep, all sorts of different things. Minerals are involved in that. However, metals, the ones that we just talked about, they can look very similar. And what happens is they can get into the receptors where the mineral is supposed to dock and it can create a whole problem in that pathway. And so when we think of how minerals disrupt systems, there are three primary primary ways that the metals, toxic metals, can disrupt the systems in your body. Enzyme systems, hormone systems, and organ systems. And so in particular, if we want to think about an enzyme system, we think of an enzyme system in terms of using zinc to help your body make a neurotransmitter like serotonin. You care about serotonin because serotonin regulates your mood. In fact, serotonin changes and medications are oftentimes the first approach for anxiety and depression. And so you need zinc in order to make These enzymes work so that you can make mood impacting serotonin, right? So if you are exposed to a metal like we said, arsenic, cadmium, lead, uranium, platinum, mercury, if any of these metals get into that cascade and blocks the receptor so that zinc can't get in, suddenly you're not able to make your serotonin properly. That pathway, that enzyme system, doesn't work. We can see the same thing happening with organ systems. When we have high toxic metals in the body, our organ systems don't work well. Metals are toxic to your organs and tissues. And then when we think about hormones, we know that certain metals can block the receptors to your hormones. And so, for example, you may have terrible hormone symptoms, maybe postpartum depression, you may have terrible premenstrual tension syndrome, maybe you've been diagnosed with PMS or pmdd. Men can have hormone issues, whether it's a low libido, maybe they're struggling with fertility, maybe they're struggling with that energy that should come from testosterone levels. So men and women can both suffer from disruptions in their hormone systems. And the really tricky thing about the hormone piece in particular is that if a doctor runs your hormones, let's say that they're suspecting that maybe you have estrogen dominance, right? You have all of the symptoms of estrogen dominance, you have terrible pms, you have really heavy periods as a woman or as a man, you have all of the symptoms of low testosterone as a result of perhaps high estrogen. But the tricky thing is, is when they run the tests, everything is normal. And that can be really frustrating, right, where you have all of the symptoms of a hormone imbalance and yet your hormones look perfect. In cases like these, it's incredibly important to look at heavy metals. It's important to look at what kind of exposures you have for heavy metals. And it's important to look at how effectively your body is detoxifying those heavy metals. And oftentimes people will want to jump straight to the end of the story and say, well, we're all exposed to metals, we live in a toxic world. We know that metals are our, they're in our environment, let's just do a detox. And so oftentimes, especially at the beginning of the year, people want to jump straight into detox. But the important thing to keep in mind is how capable is your body of doing a detox and what will happen if you detox, Right? And so oftentimes our body will sequester metals away and store metals. In fact, there is a yeast in your body, we all have it. And this yeast, which I'll tell you the name in a moment, this yeast, its job is to hold on to toxic metals, mercury in particular, and its job is to grab those toxic metals and store them so that they're not in your circulation causing damage. Right? And so if you do a detox and you detox this yeast, suddenly you're releasing all of these metals into your body. And if your body isn't equipped to detox that, it can make you incredibly sick. And so that yeast is called Candida. And so when it comes to looking at metals in your body, we also need to look at your gut. We also need to look at your organ health and your organ function, because when we do a detox, you're going to be asking your body to do an awful lot of work. And so if you're struggling with anxiety or depression or bipolar disorder, or struggles with sleep or agitation, any other mental health, brain health symptoms, looking at two things, your gut health and toxicity levels, can be profoundly helpful in your journey. And again, I did a whole podcast with this, and there's a ton of detailed information, including actionable steps that you can take. And so you can see that link for the podcast, the post, there's also a link in the bio, we have it up in the blog. And so be sure to check that out. That's available for you for free. And so with the time that we have remaining, I just want to kind of go over with you a couple of my favorite solutions just to get started. And so one thing that we want to do is we want to use a trophorestorative. A trophorestorative is a type of botanical that protects our brain from the effects of, of toxins, damage from inflammation, damage from oxidative stress. So that regardless of what you're doing, if you can detox, if you're not sure what toxins that you have, and you still have to run the challenge in order to find out. And if you're looking for something that's protective to do right now, my favorite solution that you might ask your doctor about is Avena sativa. Avena sativa is a wonderful plant that can be incredibly neuroprotective. It's in fact, botanical doctors have been using Avena sativa for decades to help people recover brain health from toxicity drugs and damage. And it can be very safe and very gentle. In fact, it's a part of my protocol when I help my clients detox off of benzodiazepines. I love to Recommend Avena sativa. This plant works slowly over a long period of time. And so when somebody takes it, they don't necessarily feel a big impact like when you take a pharmaceutical, and its effects will accumulate slowly over time. My favorite way to use it is a tincture. And I often have my clients put two big squeezes of the tincture in a little bit of tea, like milk thistle tea, or take it with some other liver supporting plant tea, and then drinking that every single day and give it at least six weeks before you assess. And so that's just something that you could do right now. The other thing is to remember that the metals are competing with minerals. They look very metabolically similar. And so if your body has metals and it's causing disruptions in your mood and in your brain health and the rest of your body for that matter, is getting those minerals in your body to help compete for those metals can be incredibly helpful. And so if you're struggling with overwhelming health anxiety, with physical symptoms, like I have a comment here. Physical symptoms with tingling, muscle twitches, numbness, heart palpitations, the very first thing I would suggest is getting to the root cause of what is creating those symptoms. And if you've done the hormone testing, if you've done the gut health testing, and if you're getting normal answers and all of those test results, then it might be really helpful to ask your doctor about doing metal testing. My favorite way to do metal testing is hair, but you have to do it on hair that hasn't been treated. And so I have highlights in my hair. And so I wouldn't be able to use my blonde hair for metal testing. And so you have to get a little bit creative with that. And so that may be a place to start if you feel like you've tried all of the things and done all of the tests and you're stuck in a dead end is ask your doctor about running for toxic metals. And getting minerals in can be really helpful. And my favorite mineral drops are concentrase minerals. They're wonderful because they have a little bit of lithium in addition to the magnesium and the potassium and the sodium and all those other wonderful components that our brains and bodies use in these metabolic pathways that the metals are disrupting. And so today, if you just jumped on, we've been talking about, if you've struggled with symptoms, if you feel like you're not getting the answers, or whenever you run the tests that they're normal, then you might consider asking your doctor to look into heavy metal testing. Because let's Face it, we live in a toxic world. And unless you live in a bubble and your body is a champion detoxer, then it's possible that it could be helpful for you to take that route of exploration. And so when we go to finishing up this podcast, I want you to just take a peek at the links in the bio. I have a ton of free information there for you and so be sure to take advantage of it. We have a private Facebook group where I can support you. My team can support you directly in a little bit more of a private environment. It's free and we have a one week challenge. We have an anxiety springboard, of course, the podcast where you're going to learn a ton more about metals and anxiety, metals and brain health, metals, hormones and mood. And so be sure to check out those free resources. We put them here for you. And I'm Dr. Nicole and it's been such an honor to be with you today. And as I finish up this live, we're going to save the video. It will be on my Instagram wall. We'll put it on YouTube. The comments that were here on the live don't actually download over to the save file. And so if you asked a question and I didn't get to it, please forgive me and just send us a DM or comment on the saved video and I'll make sure to get back to every single person and answer any questions that we can. Of course we can't give medical advice, but we can definitely try to point you in the right direction. Awesome. Thank you so much for watching and I'll see you next week.