Your Magical Emotion Changing Minerals

With 2013 and the beginning of a new year comes resolutions. It's a great time of the year to make new plans and create a vision of a better you in a better world. Unfortunately we need only look to the example of the local gym to know what happens. January is a very busy month and by March most of the new gym membership is gone, resolutions failed, and life back to the way it was before. Why? Well there are many answers when you ask the psychologists and I'm going to explain an aspect not often considered or talked about and that is your mineral status.

Let's start with some examples such as iron. This mineral is essential in the body but when in excess in the brain it settles in the amygdala and is associated with increased anger and rage. Other minerals will do similar things. Lead is associated with violence, retardation and ADD. Mercury is well researched and is associated with madness, emotional timidity and other mental problems. Minerals change emotions, our emotions influence our behaviour and this is stamped in stone. 

Let's look at some less extreme issues. Some years ago hair analysis studies were done on violent prisoners in United States prisons. The results were fascinating and had strong statistical significance. They actually found a pattern of minerals that was essentially the "chemistry" of anger, rage and violence that also blocks emotion and feeling.

In the book The Strands of Hair, psychologist Rick Malter explains "the basic pattern shows a high copper level, a high ratio of sodium to potassium and a high calcium level, especially in relation to magnesium and phosphorus. This particular pattern is a slow metabolic type. A build up of high or excess copper tends to be stored in the liver and in the brain. The excess copper often leads to problems with concentration memory and learning. Behaviour and emotional problems are frequently associated with high copper levels. Suicidal and homicidal urges are common psychological reactions. When there is a high sodium to potassium ratio, the suicidal and homicidal urges are generally intensified, especially if there is also a high iron and/or manganese level. "

While this alone is truly fascinating it is not limited to the copper issue. The high calcium has the effect of cutting people off from their feelings and creating an emotionally numb or dead state of being. People who suffer from this very high calcium level will frequently do things without any feelings about the consequences of their actions. It would be easy to continue showing you various examples of what different minerals do but hopefully by now you get the point and that is that minerals affect our behaviour!

If this is true then we are looking at an equation. Minerals affect our behaviour and IN REVERSE our behaviour affects our minerals.

Let's look at a typical 21st century stress filled lifestyle, perhaps yours? In a typical go, go, go lifestyle we expose ourselves to far more stress than is physiologically healthy. Our bodies though will do everything it can to adapt to the stress we put it under. In its attempt to deal with our stress our bodies will therefore use up the minerals that are sedative or calming. This will do a couple things and one of them is increasing our exposure to toxic metals which will then affect our emotions and thoughts. It will also force our bodies into slow oxidation creating the rise in calcium and often the high sodium/potassium ratio. Stress creates this "chemistry" of anger that will obviously be expressed in many different ways

As anyone will tell you stress is not a good thing for our bodies. What will hopefully be clearer to you now is how your chronic stress is affecting your minerals and that this in turn is actually influencing how you think and what you do. Of course part of the answer is to modify and eliminate our stress where possible. The second part of the answer is to work on our nutrition and mineral status. In summary this sort of work on our emotions via nutrition and mineral status though is hardly scratched by modern medicine. Perhaps this explains a few things as to why we have poor success with traditional psychology and our level of emotional wellbeing and happiness?