While on a Mineral Balancing Program, you may experience some emotional or physical discomfort. We call these a metabolic release. If these are too much to handle, it is always a good idea to stop it temporarily for a day or two. If the physical discomfort is severe, take a week or so, and then continue the program.

Why do I feel worse when I take minerals?

A question we get quite often to those that first begin a Mineral Balancing Program is:

“Why do I feel worse when I am using minerals to improve my health?”

The answer is that the mineral supplements are disrupting the homeostatic mineral balance of your body. Any disruption in the mineral balance of the body, even if it is critically to improve, can cause temporary problems for people. The body is very resilient and adaptive. So when our mineral levels are out of balance, our body and to some extent our mind, tries to stabilize.

For this reason, we recommend people stop taking the supplements they were prior to the Mineral Balancing Program because they are contributing to this stabilisation. These products may result in some improvements in their symptoms, which is why they are still using them over a prolonged period of time. However, these substances often function more like crutches for our biochemistry rather than addressing the root cause — mineral imbalances. Feeling better is not a criterion that a supplement is working. It’s very often the case that people are taking supplements that are making their mineral imbalances even worse, but they “feel” better. This is precisely what happens with the compensation between zinc and cadmium that we discussed in another blog post titled: Mineral Tolerance: Understanding the Symptoms of Healing.

When you take specific nutrients to correct cellular metabolism, you are making changes to your body chemistry that could have been in place for years. These changes are needed, but they also require energy. To get this energy, your body may slow you down to reduce your energy output so that it can use this energy for internal balancing. The body, in its infinite wisdom, slows you down so that these changes can occur. During this time you can experience fatigue and depression. These symptoms are temporary.

Are these symptoms side effects?

Side-effects and reactions are terms that apply to drugs — not mineral and other nutrients on a mineral balancing program. When it comes to drugs, side effects are actually effects.

“Flare-ups” or “side-effects” on a mineral balancing program are actually a result of a metabolic release of an old pattern. They occur only while the body attempts to change. Since this program is designed to shift and balance body chemistry, there can be a temporary manifestation of symptoms. But these are not “side-effects”. These are not always easy to tolerate while on a mineral balancing program. It takes dedication and perseverance to balance your mineral levels and heal your own body.

As Dr Joe Dispenza often says, “To truly change, you have to truly change”. When you begin a Mineral Balancing Program, you are introducing a change to the body chemistry.

The body knows that our minds are not wise enough to slow down consciously, so it forces you to do so by causing you to become depressed. Depression stops you from doing things. To try and avoid these feeling of depression and experiencing fatigue on a mineral balancing program is stopping your inner physician or innate healing mechanisms from doing their duty, which is healing the body.

Another reason for these symptoms is that the mineral balancing program beginning to break patterns that the individual does not want changed, at least unconsciously. For example, if a person has developed a “wall” or “shell” to protect themselves from the external environment, they will often resist the program subconsciously while on the program. If you fight these changes which are occurring, physical symptoms will manifest. This may be due to the mind subconsciously responding to the program which is perceives as a threat to their lifestyle or sense of character. According to Dr Eck, the mind acts like a bucking bronco trying to throw off the rider.

Supplements can help you balance and imbalance your mineral levels

Many people taking mega doses of vitamins C, E or B vitamins just to be functional. Not realising that these substances are crutches. They may be helpful in the short term, but in the long-term they can cause mineral imbalances just as much as using specific nutrients can correct mineral imbalances.

When we do a hair tissue mineral analysis on these individuals we find that they have a good Na/K ratio. But this is not a true indication of deeper levels of biochemistry, though on the surface it is accurate. The reason is that the supplements they are taking artificially raise their sodium level and not giving us a true picture of their biochemistry. These individuals may really have an inversion of sodium to potassium. When we take these props away from them, they experience their true state of health, and they do not feel good.

I have found that not everyone wants to change even know they want to improve their health. It is typically the case that people want symptom removal, but become hesitant to changing the mineral pattern that causes the symptom to begin with. This is one reason why Mineral Balancing programs are very different from other nutritional programs.

Cutting back on the program

Sometimes while on a Mineral Balancing Program, the symptoms that occur during a metabolic release are intolerable. We typically suggest that when people are experiencing a metabolic release to cut back on their supplement program temporarily. This prevents the body from using any more energy on additional changes. Instead, the body begins to stabilise the changes that have already occurred.

We do not recommend that a person follows a program religiously, regardless if they have a metabolic release or healing reactions. While we understand that they don’t want to lose any more time to regain their health, they never stop for a break for stabilisation and so that the body can adjust to the changes that have occured due to their Mineral Balancing Program. Thus, they stay in a constant state of change.

Constant change is not healing. It is chaotic and lacks stability. We find that it is best to go through cycles of change and stabilisation. For this reason we suggest that at least one day a week you take a break from your supplements and if you miss a day or two not to worry. Your body is still making adjustments, and these “missed days” are actually very helpful in solidifying the changes that have occured.

Just because these are called “missed days”, does not mean that you missed out on the opportunity of healing your body by balancing body chemistry with mineral balancing. This is a common misconception that is not accurate. On these days, the body is either; stabilising and solidifying the changes that have occurred, or it is building mineral reserves for the next change.