Use Coupon Code LTH to Get The Listener's Discount!
www.livingthegoodlifenaturally.com
Magnesium Soak
https://www.learntruehealth.com/magnesium-soak
Highlights:
- Magnesium soak helps in digestion.
- Magnesium and detoxification.
- How to get rid of parasites.
- Natural law of the body and the circadian rhythm.
- Hormone health using magnesium and salt.
- The science behind absorption of magnesium.
- Is magnesium soak safe for pregnant women?
- Magnesium soak for swelling, cramps, and pain.
- What to add in magnesium soak? Jojoba oil, Epsom salt, baking soda, boron, hydrogen peroxide?
- Omega-3 deficiency, chia seeds, and flax seeds.
- Thyroid and health.
- Don’t use magnesium in jetted bathtubs.
In this episode, you will discover the benefits of magnesium to our body. Kristen Bowen shares with us today the science behind the absorption of magnesium in our body, how it aids in detoxification, and her magnesium soak.
[0:00] Intro: Hello, true health seekers. And welcome to another exciting episode of the Learn True Health podcast. I’m so excited for today’s interview. We have Kristen Bowen back on the show to answer your questions about magnesium. We cover a variety of topics. And even though this episode is quite long, the time will just fly by as you’re listening. So I hope you’re doing something really mundane like driving or working out or cleaning the house because we’re going to make it feel like five minutes have gone by in a flash. I love today’s interview because Kristen brings so much experience and so many wonderful stories. I want to let you know that at the end of the interview, I kept recording because Kristen, even though we thought we were done, we started chatting and we realized that we weren’t done. So there’s some –
Hey, sweetie.
[0:58] Brave: What?
[0:58] Ashley James: I’m recording right now.
[1:00] Brave: Oh.
[1:00] Ashley James: Okay. You want to come say hi? Put your face in the microphone. Say hi to everyone.
[1:04] Brave: Hi, everyone.
[1:06] Ashley James: Yeah. Okay. Now go play.
As I was saying, at the end of the interview, I kept recording because Kristen shared with me that she really wants to do a giveaway for the listeners. So three lucky listeners are going to win a jug of the magnesium soak, the magnesium muscle cream, and a jar of acerola cherry powder. Each person, all three of those winners, are going to receive each of those three products that Kristen sells on her website, livingthegoodlifenaturally.com. To participate and possibly be one of the winners, please join the Facebook Group, the Learn True Health Facebook Group. Just search learn True Health in Facebook or go to learntruehealth.com/group, that will immediately direct you to the group. I’ll be posting a post that’s going to be an announcement in the group that’s going to be pinned to the top for the next week or so and then we’ll pick a winner – pick three winners. And, yeah, it’s going to be great.
And for those who would like to purchase the magnesium soak, the muscle cream, or the acerola cherry powder from Kristen Bowen, her website is livingthegoodlifenaturally.com. She gives the listeners a discount, so use the coupon code LTH to get the wonderful listener discount.
And then later after I did this interview, she emailed me and let me know that she was running an experiment on our website right now where she’s offering free shipping in addition to our discount code on orders that are over $75. So that would look like if you bought the jug of magnesium to soak in, it’s a month supply for one person if you did a 30-day challenge. And the jar of magnesium cream which has lasted me months. So that jar lasts a very long time. My husband and I use it all the time. It feels so good and so soothing. If we ever have an ache or a pain or a headache, it takes it away immediately. It’s just wonderful. I love, love that cream. So if you bought those two together, you’d get free shipping. And you’d also get the listener discount with the coupon code LTH. Excellent. Thank you so much for being a listener.
Oh, you’re going to love, love today’s interview and Friday’s interview that I’m publishing. I am so excited for you to hear it. I have on the show the granddaughter of Ernest Hemingway, who is a Hollywood star and an activist in health, both mentally and physically. And she shared some wonderful information. So that’s going to be Friday’s show. Enjoy today’s episode.
Thank you so much for being a listener. And have yourself a fantastic rest of your day. Welcome to the Learn True Health podcast. I’m your host, Ashley James. This is Episode 381.
[3:58] Ashley James: I am so excited to have back on the show Kristen Bowen. The magnesium soap lady. Kristen, welcome back to the show.
[4:08] Kristen Bowen: Oh, Ashley, it is so good to be here. So good to be here.
[4:12] Ashley James: Absolutely. Now you were featured in Episode 294. That was your first episode with us. And then again, you came back for an encore, 341. I encourage listeners to go back and listen to Episode 294 and 341 because Kristen shares her story. That is – I mean, within five minutes of meeting a complete stranger, I tell them your story. I just – anytime someone comes over to my house, I have them soak in magnesium and tell them your story. It’s just your story is probably one of my favorite stories of recovering and inspiring people who are sick right now.
Because when I say to someone, “I have a friend over the other day who died twice after giving birth.” And the doctor said that she would never live. She’d be a vegetable. She has brain damage. But she is, like – she’s up and at it. And you can tell, because when you talk to her sometimes she can’t grasp at words. But she’s doing amazing, you know, raising her two kids.
[5:18] Kristen Bowen: That’s incredible.
[5:19] Ashley James: And I told her – I got her to soak in magnesium and told her your story. And it really inspired her. And just the idea that I just paint this picture, I’m like, “Kristen was 78 pounds in a wheelchair having 30 seizures a day and unable to barely talk. And couldn’t advocate for herself.” And that’s your lowest point. Right? And so when I paint that picture and then I show them what you look like now and it’s just like, “Oh my gosh.” And she was able to do it with natural medicine recover after – I won’t get into your story because I want listeners to go back and hear the whole story, Episode 294. But you recovered. And you found – you discovered that magnesium was the biggest key to your healing. And that’s why you started your company to help everyone to soak in magnesium so their body could absorb the right amount of magnesium for their body.
And I’ve had lots of experts on the show share that magnesium is the most important nutrient the body needs. And I love that through soaking, we bypass digestion. So even those who have poor digestion don’t have to worry about it. You just soak in it and your body absorbs grams of magnesium. So we get into the details of why to soak and how to soak and all of the healing benefits. And even testimonials, we’ve had dozens and dozens of listeners. Actually there’s over a thousand listeners that have used your magnesium soak and continued to use it and shared their stories in the Facebook Group Learn True Health Facebook Group. And we talked about that in Episode 294 and 341. So definitely go back and listen to those.
But today Kristen is here to answer some of your questions. Because in the Facebook Group there’s a lot of questions so Kristen is going to answer them. And also, Kristen wants to teach once we’ve achieved our full cell saturation of magnesium, how do we maintain it. And looking at how to hold on to the magnesium because that actually will also help the body properly balance and hold on to its other minerals. And then, also, how to discover your burn rate. How quickly or slowly you burn through magnesium. Because once we do the 30-day challenge where we’re soaking in magnesium for 30 days, most people reach full cell saturation. And then the question is, “Well, how often do I soak to maintain it? Once a week, once a month? What’s the answer?” So Kristen, I’m really excited for you to answer all these questions for us today. And it’s just a pleasure to have you back on the show.
[8:04] Kristen Bowen: Oh, thank you, Ashley. But before we go any further, may I just have a moment to say something to you?
[8:14] Ashley James: Sure. You have the whole hour.
[8:18] Kristen Bowen: Okay. No. First of all, we, your listeners, Ashley, I feel like I can be their voice for them right now. We would like to thank you for the person that you are and the way that you handle and share your gift on your podcast. You make it so easy. I have been invited now since your show, because of your show, I have been invited on numerous podcasts. And sometimes they’re a little rough. And you just make it so easy. The questions that you ask and the way that you communicate.
And I realized one of the podcasts – and I can say this because I’ve asked the person not to even air it. It was such It was such an experience of transactional elitism. And the communication style, they were very transactional. And it was very reminiscent of what many of us have experienced in the doctor’s office that if we have questions or we have a different idea that they immediately put that down and talk over our heads. And I just want to thank you for the way that you do your podcast because you make it so easy. And listening back to your podcasts, it’s easier for us, the listener. Like, the guest you make it easy for but you also make it so easy for us, the listener, to go on this journey with you. Because you allow your guests to take that journey instead of making them step to only what they think should be talked about. And I know you call it ego. We call it the rabbit hole. “Okay, Ashley. Where are we going today?”
[10:17] Ashley James: Parasites. Parasites.
[10:18] Kristen Bowen: “Shoot the rifle.” And I just – I want you to experience and just take a moment and just experience our collective gratitude for your podcast and who you are and the way that you communicate on your podcast. It just makes it so easy. So for all of your listeners, I would like to say thank you, Ashley. And a little hand front. A round of applause for Ashley and everything that she does.
[10:47] Ashley James: You are very welcome. Everyone, everyone, you are all very welcome. This is my pleasure. And I get messages all the time from listeners. And I get, like, Facebook messages and emails all the time from listeners sharing that the podcast has really helped them. And I feel honored to be part of your health journey and be part of your advocating for yourself, to educate yourself, to grow. And the fact that you are in the driver’s seat. That you’re taking control and that you’re educating yourself so you can improve your health, your life, and the health of those you love. You are in charge. And that is the best place to be, being at cause. Not sitting around waiting for a drug or waiting for a doctor but you are at cause. And it’s okay that we don’t know all the answers. But the fact that we’re seeking them is empowerment. So I love being a part of this journey with everyone. And we’re never done, right? We’re never like, “Okay. I got to the top of Mount Everest of health. I’m done.” We’re always getting better, right? We’re always learning and growing. And I’ve got my health goals too. So we’re all doing it together.
[12:00] Kristen Bowen: You know, Ashley, I love what you said. Taking that power back and literally stepping into that 100% accountability. And not laying the responsibility on a doctor or a Naturopath or a medication or a supplement. That’s the most important step that people can take is to step up and take responsibility for what goes in their mouth, what products go on their skin, what thoughts go through their head, and what supplements they’re choosing to utilize. It’s the most important thing that can happen. And sometimes it can be overwhelming. Because 100% accountability means you are taking some consequences for some choices that we have all made. And so sometimes that can be a little bit overwhelming. But it’s crucial that you stop chasing symptoms and you start building that strong foundation.
[13:01] Ashley James: Very cool. I love it. Well, your magnesium soak has been quite impactful on my life. And my son and my husband, we’ve all seen a difference. And, of course, when listeners go back and listen to Episode 294 and 341, they’ll hear me share more about that.
But I’ve been having problems with detoxing. My liver gets really congested very quickly. I’ve had inflamed liver. I’ve gone for ultrasounds and blood tests. And in the last four years, I’ve had these flare ups when I go to lose certain amount of weight. The liver just gets really congested, really upset, and it sticks out — actually, it pushes my ribs out. And I could feel my liver pushes out of me. It’s so inflamed. And I would taste heavy metals. I would smell burning rubber like coming out of my body. The smell of like a tire fire, basically.
And I, of course, feel really bad. And we couldn’t figure out what was going on with all kinds of, you know, experts. And it just hit me and this was a few – about two or three years ago, it hit me. Because the doctors were like, “Well, let’s just — here take these vitamins. Take these herbs. Let’s keep supporting the liver.” But what’s going on? Like, what’s really going on? What’s the root? And I’ve realized that it was the heavy metals stored – my body was having problems processing heavy metals, basically. And that I needed to do something to support heavy metal
Chelation or detox on a very gentle level. I wasn’t willing to do pharmaceutical chelation just yet. But I wanted to try new natural things. And so I got a sauna, Sunlighten Sauna which I love and I’ve talked about several times. I started sweating which is a way to eliminate fat soluble toxins through sweat. And so I was doing that. I was eating the chlorella from ENERGYbits and have talked about that many times. Because that helps to remove the heavy metals.
And I feel like I hit a wall in terms of detoxification. My liver with numbers were still up. All my, you know, liver enzymes were still up. I was doing all these things. I was getting some results from all of them. Everything I was doing, you know, going for walks, drinking lots of water, like absolutely everything that you could think of to support lymph and support drainage and support detoxification. But I was still hitting this wall. Anytime I’d lose a few pounds of fat, my liver would just really be upset.
And then I discovered your magnesium soak. And I remember the first time soaking and it was with you. You’re giving a health lecture in downtown Seattle. And as I was soaking, I started tasting heavy metals in my mouth. And I told you and you said, “Oh, that means you should probably throttle. And instead of doing it, you know, seven days a week. Do it like three days a week.” I did not listen to that advice.
[16:05] Kristen Bowen: [Inaudible 16:05].
[16:03] Ashley James: Yeah. No, I wanted – I started getting results. I mean, that day I started getting results. And so I just soaked pretty much every day. And within three or four days, the heavy metal taste went away. My liver inflammation went down. And of course, I was doing everything else to support the liver. I’m not saying that the only thing I was doing was the magnesium soak. But I felt like it hit a wall. And the magnesium soak helped me to get to the other side. And I have not had any – since I’ve been smoking for over a year, I have not had any liver inflammation or had any of those issues come up again. And I really feel that that was, for me, the missing key also. Like in your story, the missing biggest key for you is the magnesium soak. In mine, I feel it was definitely the missing nutrient.
And I’ve been taking oral magnesium for years. But I hadn’t been able to get to that full cell saturation. And I noticed a big shift in my detox. And I noticed that sauna sessions are better. And I followed your advice and I soaked my feet in magnesium in my sauna.
[17:15] Kristen Bowen: That’s – me, I’m Sunlighten Sauna girl also. And to me, that is the ultimate of self-care when I’m in the sauna and I’m soaking in magnesium. That’s my favorite. But we have, literally, thousands of emails and notes that people – and private messages that people have shared with us that the magnesium has helped their detoxification process. And I just like to think of it – and I know this is a complete oversimplification- I love the visual though. That the magnesium opens up the road. And your detoxification pathway goes from a one lane country road to a freeway. And it opens it up so that your body can do what it knows how to do. It just needed some magnesium to help process it.
[18:10] Ashley James: Absolutely. Like I said, I’ve had doctors on the show talking about the importance of magnesium just the other day. I had a doctor – a Naturopath that specializes in neurology saying the most important – one of the most important nutrients for the brain or the most important mineral, at least, is magnesium. You know, I’ve had a nootropics expert on recently talk about that magnesium is probably the most important mineral for the brain as well. And then and then other experts talk about detoxification.
Again, we go on and on in those other two episodes. So I really want to get to answering their questions. But I wanted to paint that picture that it has, in the last year of soaking with your magnesium soak, it has definitely helped me. And then for our son, it really helps him. It helps him calm down. He’s had some histamine issues because he’s allergic to certain foods. And if he is exposed to them or exposed to dust mites, he gets asthma and histamine issue. And the magnesium soak has really helped him. It helps his body calm down. It helps his neurology calm down. It helps the histamine calm down. So we noticed a big difference when he has the magnesium soak in his bath. And of course, he’s sleeping better at night.
And I’ve had a lot of parents buy the magnesium soak just for their kids to help them have better transitions for bedtime. When we’re deficient in magnesium, we have anxiety. Our nervous system is in a state of stress. We have problems falling asleep. We have restless legs. There’s over 200 symptoms of magnesium deficiency. So when people – it’s like when people ask, “Well, what is it good for?” It’s kind of like, “It’s good for everything.”
[19:55] Kristen Bowen: Sometimes when I’m doing classes, do you remember that late night Ron Popeil – I think he was one of the first infomercial guys. Because people will say, “Well, tell us what it’s good for.” Then I’ll say, “Well, how about you tell me what you’re working on and then let’s talk about how magnesium supports it.” And I do want to be really careful. Magnesium is not a cure all. It is the first place to start building for anything that went off in your body. Because it’s so important to trigger those enzymes and trigger those reactions that are happening in your body. And if you don’t have enough magnesium, those processes are not happening. You can have everything else in place. But if you don’t have the magnesium to act like the spark plug, it’s not going to happen. And so it’s so crucial that we not only soak in magnesium but that we understand our own personal burn rate. Because mine is going to be different than yours, Ashley.
[21:00] Ashley James: Yes. We’re going to get into that. I want you to teach us how to maintain our magnesium, how to discover burn rate, and the best ways we can hold on to it.
But first, I’d love to dive into the questions that the listeners have that they’ve posted in the Learn Through Health Facebook Group.
[21:14] Kristen Bowen: Oh, let’s do it.
[21:16] Ashley James: Yeah, let’s do it. Okay. Let’s see here. I have here Stephanie asks, “I’d like to hear more about getting rid of the parasites. Last time Kristen talked about the cherry powder – the acerola cherry powder helping with parasites as well as celery juice. I have the acerola cherry powder but I’d like to know more about getting rid of those nasty parasites. Like, how to do it? And what’s the best protocol?”
So you did touch on this in Episode 341. We talked about how you rid your body of parasites. Do you want to give Stephanie a bit more information?
[21:55] Kristen Bowen: Let’s see. Stephanie, let’s start here. Let’s make sure that you are not leaking your power. The power of your voice determines the power of your digestion. I cannot tell you how many times that as women will claim the power of their voice that their digestion improves. And it is such a strong pattern. And so really watch where you are not using your voice. Or even for some women, it’s over using their voice. And for some women, it’s under using their voice. So really start watching that pattern.
Another thing that you can do is, obviously, soaking in the magnesium and making sure that you are keeping that cortisol in check. Cortisol, we need some cortisol but many of us are cortisol addicted. And that’s what we’re using to run on for energy. And if you’re doing that you will never, no matter the parasite protocol that you choose to use, you will never get rid of parasites. Because that cortisol – that excess cortisol, that stress level, is creating a beautiful environment for them to thrive on. And so watching those stressful moments.
So for example, for me, one of mine is technology. I am a technical immigrant. I know there is a beautiful language out there that will make my life better. And sometimes I hand my power over to that technology when it’s not working for me. And that’s where I really have to watch losing my power, getting frustrated. And so being able to identify, Stephanie, these are the things that my stress levels go up. And writing those down and identifying those areas and then coming up with an action plan, what will I do?
So for example, right before Ashley and I got on, Microsoft locked me out of Skype and they text me the number and I’d enter it and then it would lock me out again. And I felt my cortisol levels going up. And so I had to take a deep breath and ask myself, “Is this going to matter in five minutes?” And the answer was no. It was not. And that helped decrease those stress levels. And so really watching your cortisol, and knowing where your triggers are, and being able to bring them into the light, because if we keep those triggers in the dark and we pretend they’re not there, we feed them. So bring them into the light. Acknowledge this is an area that I get stressed out on. And then come up with some viable options to walk away from that response is one of the most important things you can do to get rid of parasites.
[25:01] Ashley James: I love that answer. Because from the physiological standpoint, when you are cortisol addicted or when you’re running on cortisol, you’re on your way to burn out. But there’s a compensatory phase. It’s phase two of — phase one and phase two, acute and compensatory phase of adrenal burnout. Acute is you are almost always elevated in the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening. You have trouble falling asleep because you’re just go go, go, go, go, go go.
And then at some point, the compensatory phase is – probably most people listening are in compensatory phase right now. Because the compensatory phase, you’ll maybe wake up with low cortisol but then you have a huge spike at noon or you’ll start like having a spike near dinner. And so you still have sleep problems but you’ll feel exhausted half the day and, like, wired the other half of the day. And you’ll start to self medicate. So extra Starbucks or extra vitamins or looking to the doctor for pharmaceuticals. That’s when people really start to self- medicate and start to listen to podcasts for answers.
And then the third one is complete exhaustion. And that’s where cortisols are low every single moment of the day. And they’re absolutely 100% doing something to self-medicate, whether it’s natural, caffeinated tea, or some kind of prescription medication. But, absolutely, they’re feeling so out of it from adrenal exhaustion that their cortisol levels cannot rise to normal.
And I was there. I was in complete burnout. Over ten years ago, I did the saliva test and I was diagnosed with absolute cortisol burnout, adrenal fatigue. So I know how it feels to be in all three stages. But when you describe being addicted to cortisol, so those first two stages, the body is out of the healing response and it’s in the fight or flight response. And when that happens, the body is shunting blood away from the core, away from the organs, and away from the digestive system towards the limbs so that we can run, run, run.
But the problem with that is, now, we have oxygen starved, nutrient starved digestive system and organs. And that’s, like you said, the perfect breeding ground for the parasites. So no matter how many herbs we take to kill the parasites, if we’re in that state of stress and addicted to cortisol, like you said, and that all starts with the mindset, then the body cannot go into healing mode. So I love that you pointed that out. Because that’s so great. Instead of just trying to sell us some – like sell us the next great parasite cleanse, you’re telling us the root. The root of it is that we need to get in touch with our stress response. And make sure that we’re in the healing mode. Because in that state is when the protocols will actually work.
[27:59] Kristen Bowen: You know, I had a client – I’m so grateful for the people that I get to work with, Ashley. She came to me and, actually, someone else was paying for her. And she didn’t have the money. Their family had just hit really hard times. And she said, “Look, you can’t tell me go buy this and go buy that. It’s too expensive to be healthy.” And I told her, “No. That is a lie. It is not too expensive to be healthy. We can start with the basics.” And I said, “If you promise me that you will work on the basics, I promise we can get you feeling better.” And so that’s what we focused on. We focused on her sleeping patterns, getting to bed on time, waking up in the morning. Getting that beautiful sunshine in through her eyes so that her body could produce the melatonin because your body’s pulling it in the morning to produce it at night.
Got her going to bed on time, staying hydrated, and those little pieces of, what I call, grandma wisdom.
She did more in that six weeks than clients that I’ve been working with for a year that could afford all the supplements. Because they were using that ability to go be able to buy everything to walk away from that personal accountability. She didn’t have that. She didn’t have the freedom. Her family was literally destitute. You know, they had been through incredible financial loss. And because of that, what she viewed then as a hardship that now she looks back and she says, “That’s the greatest gift I ever received because I learned how powerful I am in those choices.” And she was able to create better health in six weeks than women who had all the money, chasing all the protocols, chasing all the supplements, going to all the naturopaths, doing all those things, because she didn’t have any other options.
And I think it’s so important that our listeners understand that. You can’t expect to be healthy if you’re breaking natural law. There are some natural laws that you will pay the price if you break them. If you’re going to bed super late, lower your expectations for how healthy you can become. There is a natural law and your body has a circadian rhythm. And the more we respect that circadian rhythm and the more we feed it darkness at night and light in the morning, the better we feel.
[30:46] Ashley James: I’m having the come to Jesus talk with Kristen.
[30:50] Kristen Bowen: Oh, are you a late night person, Ashley?
[30:52] Ashley James: Oh, yeah. I actually just set reminders on my phone to go to bed.
[31:00] Kristen Bowen: [Inaudible 30:59] text you tonight.
[31:01] Ashley James: Yeah. No, my phone reminds me every night, “Go to bed.” And I’m like, “Really? It’s that time already? “Go to bed.”
[31:07] Kristen Bowen: I know. And it’s interesting because it gets – the deeper we’ve been in adrenal fatigue, the harder the body fights to obey that natural law. And I will have people come to me and there’s some studies out there that say, “Oh, there’s a certain percentage of people that are night owls.” And I have seen those night owls – professed night owls turn their body around and turn their health around when they respect natural law. And they give their body darkness at night and light in the morning. And when you do that, that cell that mitochondria, it starts to function and set itself. And it triggers other things happening. And it’s a beautiful thing.
And it’s grandma wisdom. It’s things are grandma, “Are you eating enough vegetables? Are you going to bed on time? Are you drinking water? Are you hydrated? Are you managing your stress?” It’s that grandma wisdom. And sometimes, you know, it’s easy to go chase down a perfect supplement or a perfect diet, eating protocol. But in reality, it’s those foundational pieces that we must put into place if we want to claim the ultimate help to really lift and serve and love on those people around us.
[32:33] Ashley James: Beautiful. And then you talked about the protocol that you did in Episode 341. You talked about the turpentine and the acerola cherry powder, and of course, soaking in magnesium.
[32:47] Kristen Bowen: My husband when I brought home turpentine, he looked at me and he said, “Kristen, I have supported you in all of the things that you have tried.” Because I’ve always got some concoction bubbling or brewing. And on that one, he was like, “I just can’t watch you do this. And have you done the research? And what if this makes you sicker?” And once I shared with them and showed him we’re not talking turpentine like what I grew up with my dad. The synthetic turpentine that my dad used to clean paint brushes with. I’m not talking that type of turpentine. But when you get the right type of turpentine, it can end. And once you’ve set some things in place – you don’t start with turpentine. If you start with turpentine, you are not going to feel well. But once you’ve set some things in place and then if you still feel like you’ve got some hookworms going on that turpentine, boom, they’re gone.
[33:51] Ashley James: Right. And it’s a natural extract from, like, pine, pine trees or something.
[33:56] Kristen Bowen: Yes. Turpentine. And I think, Ashley, I’ll send you that link. Don’t you do show notes?
[34:00] Ashley James: Yes. Please send the link.
[34:01] Kristen Bowen: Okay. I will send you the link to that so you can throw it in the show notes. I just grabbed mine off of Amazon. But there’s only one company that tested something that I would put in my body and it’s from pine. And it’s not the synthetic version. But boy, I couldn’t get rid of hookworms. I get half of them. But that’s a disgusting experience to get half of the hookworm because you know where the other half is. It’s still inside you. And so that turpentine just annihilated it. And it was just a huge – it created this experience for me of, “This is easy to be healthy.” Where I have worked it and worked it and worked it and worked it, like many of your listeners have.
And once – personally, for me, once I got on top of that parasite issue, my health became so much easier to manage. And to have that really optimal where I woke up this morning just ready to go, excited, had the energy to follow through on the ideas that I experienced this morning. And it’s just is easier and easier to experience that once I got on top of my parasites.
[35:24] Ashley James: Very cool. And was there anything else you wanted to add that you didn’t tell us about just for Stephanie’s question? Because you told us that you done, like, a lot of different things to get rid of the parasites. And that magnesium plays a really big role. You talked about the celery juice because celery juice helps to increase hydrochloric acid production. Magnesium, a variety of reasons why that’ll actually help to remove the parasites. And that’s not drinking it. That’s just soaking in it. And the acerola cherry powder, which is really high in vitamin C. A whole food plant based source of vitamin C. And then you did the turpentine. Is there anything else that was really important about –
[36:06] Kristen Bowen: There are two other layers, Ashley, that I really love. And one of those is a product called My Miracle Tea. And it’s a herbal blend. And when I received the product – people send me products to try. And they know if I love it, I’ll talk about it. And it’s to the point now that I have to create pockets of time to try all the products that people send me. And I’ve had this one for quite some time over a year. And you know, I looked at the back and I thought, “Okay. That’s something I’m willing to put in my body.” But I’m not super impressed. Like, you know, I’ve tried all those herbs before. And then I finally tried it. And his quality of herbs that he has, he still grows them himself. And he stresses them because for an herb that increases the healing quality of the herb. And the My Miracle Tea was very, very beneficial in releasing the microscopic parasites.
And I’m a huge believer, if you play a pattern anywhere, you play that pattern everywhere. And the My Miracle Tea didn’t get rid of the big parasites. But it does start the microscopic parasites leaving. And it’s like once that exodus starts, then it’s a step to start releasing the bigger parasites. So you start with the small ones and then go to the big ones. So that was super beneficial.
And then the other one – and I don’t know – if I can’t remember if we’ve talked about this on your show. I don’t know. Maybe should I text it to you to see if you’re okay.
[37:48] Ashley James: It’s okay. Go ahead. I’ll edit it out if it’s a problem.
[37:54] Kristen Bowen: Okay. I should – anyway, I’m a huge coffee bum club.
[37:58] Ashley James: Okay. Yes. Coffee enemas. Don’t worry about it. You’re in good company. Many listener regularly does a coffee enema.
[38:09] Kristen Bowen: My clients would be like, “Are you in the coffee bum club?” I am a huge – I love coffee enemas. And I know that there are some people that will say, “Oh. They don’t work. They don’t -” and I just say, “You know what? Try it yourself. See if they work for you” Because they are one of the most healing modalities for my husband and I. And there’s something that’s very simple, very inexpensive. You can do them at home. And you just feel better after. And they were a huge part of helping me to get rid of the mucus. I got a lot – I had a lot of mucus. And so I love, love the coffee enemas.
[38:57] Ashley James: Got it. And there’s a right way and any wrong ways to do it. It’s not regular coffee. It’s not roasted. So it’s like a blonde – it’s almost like a green coffee. It’s not roasted. It’s organic. You take about one to two tablespoons for about three to four cups of water and you, basically, boil it and then let it cool to body temperature. And then you can
also add – some people choose to add one drop of essential oils. You can do that. There’s specific ones for liver. The reason why people do coffee – and I found this fascinating. Of course you can Google it and watch YouTube videos about it. It’s that there’s a vein – near the veins. It’s escaping me. It’s like the portal vein. And it’s it goes from the rectum that goes around the rectum and then goes up to the liver really quickly. And this vein takes blood from the colon, from three other organs, and brings the liver to process all the toxins out of.
And so by placing – you don’t have to fill your entire colon with coffee. It’s just the rectum. You just need like one or two cups, really. You don’t need a whole bunch of it. It’s not like the American philosophy of more is better. You just need a little bit and hold it in the rectum for 15 minutes. And when we do that, the blood is taking a little bit of the caffeine so it’s best to do it in the morning. Not right at night. A little bit of the caffeine but this type of coffee, because it’s not roasted, doesn’t have the oxidative damage from roasting. So it takes the caffeine, delivers it to the liver, and actually agitates the liver to produce something like 10 times more glutathione which is the master antioxidant in the body. And that’s just one of the benefits. It does many other things.
But just the fact that it has this huge simulation to the liver –
[41:08] Kristen Bowen: It’s amazing.
[41:09] Ashley James: How many times a week did you do coffee enemas?
[41:11] Kristen Bowen: You know, it varies. It depends on what my goals are. When I was in the thick of that parasite protocol, I was doing them every day. Because my stomach would become so bloated and painful. And doing the coffee enema would release the parasites and I would feel better. And so I do them now, probably – I don’t know – four to six times a month. Back in the day, I sometimes would do two or three a day. And one of the things on the internet, they’ll say, “Oh, you don’t really watch for your electrolytes. You can wash out your electrolytes.” And I’ve never seen anyone have an electrolyte issue doing coffee enemas.
[42:00] Ashley James: Yeah. I’ve never had – I’ve never heard of that problem either. But I guess if people get really overzealous –
[42:07] Kristen Bowen: Yeah. They could get overzealous. So you want to – you know, you want to be smart and you want to make sure that you’re hydrated. But they were one of the most healing parts of that protocol and brought me incredible relief. I love coffee enemas.
[42:24] Ashley James: This miracle tea, I just looked it up, it looks really delicious and very gentle.
[42:30] Kristen Bowen: It is very gentle.
[42:31] Ashley James: You’d think it would have senna or something in it to force sort of the bowels to evacuate. But it doesn’t. It has very gentle herbs in it. Persimmon leaf – persimmon leaf – yeah – persimmon leaf, Malva leaf, holy thistle, marshmallow leaf, ginger, and chamomile. So it’s gentle, really nice on the gut, and it helps to remove – like you said, begin to remove those – but in a very gentle way – begin to remove those microscopic unwanted bugs from our body. I’m going to make sure to link to that in the show notes to the podcast. As well as everything else that you that you recommend people do to support their gut health during a parasite cleanse.
So that was Stephanie’s question. I’m sure other people had those questions because we did get into talking about your parasite experience as you were on your way to healing your body from, basically, your deathbed. And you found that killing – removing the parasites was one step closer to optimal health.
[43:45] Kristen Bowen: Yeah. And please, for those that are listening, don’t jump into a parasite protocol and tell you have worked on the cortisol issue. If you are being run by cortisol, it doesn’t matter what you buy to get rid of the parasites. You will just reproduce another breeding ground for them to grow again. And it’s crucial that the mindset work is done first. You cannot be a cortisol addict and expect a parasite protocol to work. You just have to do that mind work first. And sometimes it’s easy to jump into, “Okay. I’ll buy this and this and I’ll take it and then I’ll get better.” But this one is absolutely crucial that you are on top of managing that stress cortisol before you jump into taking care of parasites.
[44:39] Ashley James: And one of the most helpful things I have found for managing my cortisol is taking the time to do the self-care with my magnesium soak. So I’ll soak my feet while reading a book or listening to music or being in the sauna. Or I’ll get in the big bathtub and soak in the bathtub. And that is my me time to make sure that I’m de-stressing. And so we got to do things to bring the cortisol down. And self-care is really important throughout the day.
But like you said, in those times of stress, we need to switch gears. We need to mentally switch gears. I love that question you ask yourself, “Is this going to matter of five minutes?” And maybe, “Is this going to matter in five years?” You know, if we’re really stressing about something, is this going to matter in one month? Like, just get that in the grand scheme of things. The freaking out about something is actually not helping us. Because once we’re in stress mode, our body shunts blood away from logic centers of the brain. So now we can’t think clearly anyway. So the more you’re stressed about something, the less we can actually think clearly. So it’s best to take that breather. Get that it’s in the long term not going to matter. And then come back to center. So we can lower the cortisol, lower that adrenaline response, and then get our brain back.
[45:59] Kristen Bowen: You know, Ashley, when people will come to me and say, “Kristen, I have tried everything.” At that point I know that the probability that we have a cortisol addiction is incredibly high. That’s why things aren’t working because that cortisol is holding them hostage. It literally is holding them back from experiencing the very thing they say they’ve wanted. So if that thought has ever crossed your mind, “I’ve tried everything. Nothing is working for me.” Let’s look at that mindset issue and managing that cortisol.
And, Ashley, Sunlighten — I think you have a coupon code for Sunlighten don’t you, Ashley?
[46:40] Ashley James: Yes. When I got mine – I got my Sunlighten, I said to my listeners are going to be hearing about this. So I talked to the company and they give free shipping. So that’s like $500 off. And then they give – they call me up periodically and tell me some specials that they’re going to give our listeners. But on the regular, they always also give $100 off accessories. And my favorite accessory if you get the wooden sauna is the bamboo pad, because it just makes me more comfortable, and the bamboo pillows. But if you get like the solo system, which isn’t the wooden sauna but it’s actually a portable system you can just put in your closet when you’re done using it. Then you might want their – they actually have a cream that you can rub on your body that makes you sweat more. And then they have bamboo towels and that kind of thing. So that’s really neat that they give us the free shipping and they give us these other specials for their accessories. Awesome.
In the thread we have in the Facebook Group you asked our listeners if they would be interested in learning about hormone health. And seven listeners jumped in and said, “Heck, yes.” Of course, we definitely want to learn more about hormone health. So there’s seven different comments there about how to support women’s balanced hormones in any stage in their life. Did you have some advice you wanted to share with us in the interview today?
[48:17] Kristen Bowen: I would love to. Hormones are something that can make or break our relationships with those people that we love. And if we’re letting those hormones run out of control, they really start to disintegrate those connections that we have with people. And I’m always telling my clients, healthy women are connected women. And they’re connected to other people deeply around them. They’re not women that sit around and scroll on the phone while there’s 20 people around them that they could be interacting with. They’re connected in the moment with where they’re at. And hormones can make or break that connection. And so it’s something I think that’s so important.
And it comes back to some more of that grandma wisdom. Because our hormones are very connected to that circadian rhythm. And we need light in the morning and dark at night. And if we’re giving our body, the quality of our hormone balance will be better.
So for example, in the morning, I love being up as the sun is coming up. It’s one of the most peaceful inspiring parts of my day. That early morning, watching that sun come up, collecting sunshine for that pineal gland, and just standing there in that beautiful sunlight. And then what happens is that early morning light, our body uses that to produce melatonin to produce in the dark. As it gets darker, our body kicks in melatonin production. And when we have strong light in the morning and strong darkness at night, we find a better hormone balance.
So when you go to sleep at night – so many women are sleeping in rooms that have little slivers of light that are disturbing that natural balance. So for example, I sleep with a little eye mask on. Because we’ve got one window that my husband needs right now for where he’s at but I don’t need that light. And so I just put an eye mask on. I make sure that I am not on computers or screens with that blue light two to three hours before I go to bed. And if I am, I have on some blue light blocking glasses to cut that blue light because that will cut that darkness and that melatonin production that we need at night. And just doing those two simple things can make the biggest difference in how we’re holding on to that magnesium.
When we have a strong morning light and a strong darkness at night, we actually hold our magnesium better. And magnesium is crucial in balancing those hormones. But it’s about our patterns and our self-care if we’re giving those things to ourselves and to our body.
[51:38] Ashley James: And not just sex hormones like estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, but all hormones. Even thyroid, even the cortisol, all hormones are affected by the circadian rhythm. The circadian rhythm can determine what your stress levels are. Your stress levels determine what your digestion – the health of your digestion.
I’m in the middle of taking a course through FDN, Functional Diagnostic Nutrition. I interviewed the founder, Reed Davis, recently and joined his course. And when I’m finished – but it’s going to be in one or two months because it’s self-lead. When I finish the course, I’m going to be certified to be able to run labs. Really interesting labs, not like the kind you get when you go see your primary care physician once a year but, like, really interesting labs. And one thing I’ve learned through the course is that 25% of our T3 is activated in the gut. So if you go to the doctor and your T3 is down, way, way, way down, they might want to put you on some kind of synthetic hormone to bring your T3 up. Meanwhile, they didn’t even look to see why. And it could be totally gut related. It could be because your stress levels are out of balance. Your sleep is – you know, when you go to sleep and, like you said the routine of going to bed, not watching the blue light, which affects the pineal glands, which affects the body’s ability to bring us down into that state of relaxation for sleep. All of that can throw off digestion and can throw off the gut. And then the gut doesn’t convert the 25% of our T3 properly. And then we have T3. So the doctor – you go to the doctor, and you say, “I’m tired all the time.” And they’re like, “Oh. It must be the thyroid.” And they test the thyroid. “See, yup. You’re T3 is down. Let’s give you some synthetic T3.” Meanwhile, it was all that other stuff that actually created it.
[53:39] Kristen Bowen: I just got an email yesterday from Sharon. And Sharon have thyroid problems. She had no sex drive. And she had really started putting weight on in her belly, you know, cortisol weight. And about three weeks into working with her. She emailed me and she said, “I cannot believe it was this easy. I just needed to be in the sunshine in the morning and go to bed on time at night in a dark room.” Her thyroid had gotten better. She had dropped a couple of pounds. She still has some – you know, I’m not saying, “Oh. It all went away overnight.” But the scale started going down. Her mood was better. And it was just respecting that circadian rhythm with light and dark.
[54:26] Ashley James: I love it.
[54:28] Kristen Bowen: And [inaudible 54:29] numbers went up. Because she started holding her magnesium better.
[54:35] Ashley James: And we’re going to get into that. That’s something we’re going to talk about today after we get through these questions. So I’m excited for you to teach that.
Is there anything else you wanted to touch on about balancing hormones before we move on to the next question?
[54:48] Kristen Bowen: Balancing hormones, salt. I think salt is really crucial. I kicked into some hot flashes. We had a little bit of recent stress in our home. And I wasn’t able to do – during that external stress, I wasn’t able to get the sleep that I normally got. And it kicked in some hot flashes for me. And it’s amazing to me what a glass of salt water can do to reduce hot flashes. It’s your body crying out for minerals when you have a hot flash. And so I had salt in my purse, I put it in some water and I drink it. Now, for someone who’s been in full on hot flashes for a while, salt water isn’t going to be enough. But if you’re just starting into them, giving your body that little shot of minerals can actually reduce that hot flash. And it was just incredible. And so making sure that your voltage is strong and salt water is a part of that, salt is a part of that, and so drinking that and water can be super beneficial on hot flashes.
[56:00] Ashley James: I can see – so if someone had that – if someone had a deficiency in salt or someone didn’t have enough, it can definitely be beneficial because – and I’ve heard this from other doctors that when our cortisol center, adrenal are going to attack. So you went through – and I know what happened in your personal life. You went through something that was ultimately a good thing but it was very stressful for the family to go through. And it was just something you had to take in stride but there was a lot of restless – sleepless nights as you helped a family member through health event. And in recovery afterwards.
And so you were – you’re still being her caregiver but you are a caregiver and you were a caregiver. And so you were like a nurse, you had to stay up at night and –
[56:50] Kristen Bowen: And sleep was really – you know, I did that when my kids were little. But it had been a long time since I’ve had that interrupted sleep where you’re up every two hours. And it really took a toll. And I could see a difference in my hormones. And so adding those minerals and really bumping up those minerals brought me back into balance.
[57:12] Ashley James: Right. And when the body – when we’re also in a state of higher stress and the body goes from – you know, you’ve been very responsible with managing your cortisol and then all of a sudden, boom, your body’s need for cortisol go through the roof. Because we need to have the high cortisol if we’re going to pull all nighters if we’re going to be a caregiver for someone who’s sick then we’re going to – or someone who’s in recovery, we need that cortisol. But that your body then exhausted your mineral supply faster, your magnesium faster, your salt faster. And so just drinking that glass of salt water every morning, in that instance, would be beneficial. So some people may not notice the benefit because that’s not what they were deficient in. But for those who are all of a sudden in a more stressful event will notice a positive benefit.
And I like that you intuitively listen to your body and made a little glass of salt water. How much salt would you put in this glass? Because I’ve done this before and I gagged because I probably put way too much. So is this like a teaspoon? Is this a tablespoon?
[58:20] Kristen Bowen: I use the Selina Naturally. That’s my favorite salt. And I use the coarse grain that they have. Because when – the type of salt that is, the color – not all salts the color will indicate the level of minerals. But on this type of salt it does. And the course salt has more minerals than the fine grained. And so on the coarse salt, I would use about a quarter of a teaspoon and about four to six ounces of water. And the interesting thing is, it depends on your cortisol need and your salt needs.
So I was in a higher cortisol state of being. And so sometimes I would do that two or three times a day. Sometimes I just did that once a day. It just depended on where those stress levels were. And that hot flash would kick in, I would drink that. And by about the fifth day, the hot flashes quit kicking in.
[59:22] Ashley James: Nice. Very cool. And you recognize what was going on and you probably started doing more self-care even though you were in a situation where you had to put yourself second, temporarily.
[59:35] Kristen Bowen: Yeah, there were – like this morning I woke up and I had time set aside. And when you’re in that – when you’re a caretaker and in that crisis situation of life or death, you don’t say, “Oh, excuse me. I’m going to sit in my sauna for an hour.” And there were a lot of times that that self-care – boom – went out the window. And I wanted it going out the window because it was my husband and he is my – you know, he was the priority and helping him and lifting him and making a difference. And so there were some times that self-care wishes, boom, gone. But salt water was easy. And it was so beneficial to me and it really helped keep my adrenals nourished during that really intense time for him and I.
[1:00:24] Ashley James: And he’s doing amazing.
[1:00:25] Kristen Bowen: He is. [Inaudible 00:28].
[1:00:28] Ashley James: He is doing fantastic.
[1:00:30] Kristen Bowen: Really, really well. And learned a lot. We’ve learned, we were really able to lean in. And one of our goals was that we observed the intense emotions that we experienced with the loss. And for those of you that aren’t aware, my husband he was born with vascular issues. He doesn’t have enough veins. And so we had double amputation below the knees. And so we were really – as we went through that loss together – and he went through it definitely differently than I did. We were really able – and this comes into that mindset issue. We decided beforehand we would start focusing on observing our emotions instead of leaning in and experiencing them. And it really made a difference for us and we rode less of a roller coaster. Because we would – the emotion would happen but we would observe it instead of embracing it and riding that wave of up and down, and sadness and loss, and all of those things. And so learning how to observe that emotion really helped him and I stay in a better place during that whole experience that is still happening. But the day we’re recording this podcast in three days, he gets a second leg. So boom, we’re having a second leg party in our house.
[1:01:58] Ashley James: That’s awesome. Yeah. The prosthetic. You’re getting the prosthetic in three days. It’s very exciting.
[1:02:03] Kristen Bowen: Yes. We are very excited. He tried it on and they took it away. And I think it was the saddest look I’ve ever seen on his face. But they still had to do some fitting. And so they’re just finishing up that second fitting. And then he’ll go in and he’ll get to take it home and start practicing and reworking his body and teaching his body how to walk on his new legs.
[1:02:29] Ashley James: What I thought was really interesting when you first told me he was getting his legs amputated, I immediately went, “Well, what can we do to prevent this?” And, you know, ” We’ll do some research together. Let’s figure this out. You know, we got lots of experts we can lean on.” And what I thought was really interesting is you said the doctors really wanted to amputate his legs 20 years ago. And that’s when you kicked in and said, “I am going to help you get as healthy as possible.” Because he was born with less veins than his
body needs. So it’s baked into the cake. Right? But you were able to extend it 20 years. You were able to give him 20 years with both of his legs because of all the natural medicine and the magnesium soak and supporting his health for 20 years. So kudos to you and your husband for leaning into natural medicine for that long. I think that was cool.
[1:03:25] Kristen Bowen: It was so interesting, we were at Stanford and they were doing some procedures to help increase the blood flow and trying to save the legs. And the doctor walked out and she looked at us and she said, “If I wouldn’t have seen that with my own eyes, I would not have believed it.” And we were like, “Well, what did you see?” And she said, “His body has created thousands of little teeny tiny micro arteries trying to get blood flow to his legs.” And she said, “They have kept him going for years.”
And it was – our bodies are amazing. And so a lot of people look at it like, “Oh. He lost his legs.” But we look at it like, “Wow. He kept his legs so much longer than what he should have been able to because of his body and his ability to try different things and try to give his body what he needed to build up that blood flow to his legs.”
[1:04:32] Ashley James: Very cool. Awesome. Well, I love following you on Facebook and following you and your husband’s journey. And it’s really inspirational what you guys have done and what you guys are doing.
Naomi says, “Yes. I love liquid magnesium. And just ordering my second bottle,” in the thread where I’m asking for questions.
Lina asks, “One, when taking a bath, does it matter if I use a quarter cup or half cup of magnesium?” Your liquid magnesium, obviously. “I mean, does it make a significant difference in uptake in the magnesium?” So she wants to basically know should she make the bath more concentrated or is a quarter cup enough?
[1:05:16] Kristen Bowen: So here’s what we found when we did the thermal imaging, your body can’t uptake more than a quarter of a cup. So it’s just wasting the magnesium. And you want to make every drop count toward uptake in what your body is utilizing. So adding half a cup isn’t going to get you to cell saturation any faster. So I, personally, wouldn’t do it. And I make sure that my family has a measuring cup. I have attached it to the magnesium jug so that they’ll measure it out. Because your body just doesn’t have the ability to uptake more than a quarter of a cup of magnesium.
[1:05:54] Ashley James: Got it. And for small children, it’s an eighth of a cup.
[1:05:57] Kristen Bowen: An eighth of a cup. And I always say, waist and below is an eighth of a cup. Waist and above, even if there is still a child, if they’re above your waist, then it’s a quarter of a cup.
[1:06:10] Ashley James: So if the child is shorter than below your waist, they’re an eighth of a cup?
[1:06:14] Kristen Bowen: Yeah. I have a nephew that both of his parents – one is 6’3″ and the other, I think, is 6’4″ or 6’5″ and he’s six or seven and already – I mean he is tall. And so even though he’s “a child,” he is so tall, he does need that adult dose. And so really looking at their body size. But just a ballpark, just below the waist, an eighth of a cup. Above the waist, quarter of a cup.
[1:06:44] Ashley James: Got it. She says, “If my toddler throws a bunch of plastic toys in the tub, does it decrease the uptake? You mentioned not to use a plastic foot tub for foot soaking. So I was wondering if this would decrease the uptake too. I’m dying to know because my toddler threw about 20 plastic animals in the tub last week while I had magnesium in there.”
[1:07:05] Kristen Bowen: I wish I knew. We did not even think to put plastic toys in the tub when we did the thermal imaging testing to see if it made a difference. So I don’t know. I don’t have anything to pull from on this one.
[1:07:21] Ashley James: So I have an intuition. And that is the reason why – just for listeners who don’t know, listen to Episode 294 and 341. You instruct people when they’re doing the foot soak, so just get a basin put five or six cups of warm water and it could be cold water too. I had a friend says, “I’m not going to soak during the summer because it’s too hot.” I said, “You could use cold water.” The temperature doesn’t matter. In fact, it’s really nice because we don’t have air conditioning. So in the summertime, I’d soak with cold water and I’d still get the same great results. But you, basically, get a few cups of water and then you get the fourth of a cup of magnesium – the liquid magnesium, put it in there and then soak for 40 minutes to an hour.
I like to do the full hour because I want to really make sure I caught every drop into my body that my body is going to absorb. But you said, “Don’t use a plastic basin because we noticed that in the thermal imaging people wouldn’t uptake the magnesium when they use plastic versus ceramic, glass, or metal.” And my intuition is, it has to do with grounding. That plastic insulator does not allow for the electrons to flow. But all those other materials would conduct on some level. And so I think it has to do with conductivity. Because you said that in the bath – because a bath isn’t necessarily made of metal or glass.
[1:08:52] Kristen Bowen: Oh, right. Most of them have plastics, right, that have been put on them. And that’s why I thought, “Oh no. This is affecting – ” because I soak in the bath and so I thought, “Oh my goodness.” But in the bath, it was up taking just like it was in the foot soak. And so it’s that moldable plastic that they’re using for bowls that just stops the uptake.
[1:09:17] Ashley James: Right. But a plastic – these tubs that are made from some kind of material that isn’t glass, you know, ceramic or metal, it’s still going to conduct because the bathtub is attached to the faucet which is grounded.
[1:09:36] Kristen Bowen: Right? I think that it would but I don’t – I just never done anything to make sure. But I would think that it would still update.
[1:09:45] Ashley James: Yeah. And one thing to test is to see does your toddler get really calm and sleepy after a bath with magnesium in it. And if they do, do they have the same calmness after a bath with 20 plastic toys in it or with no plastic toys in it. So that would be my thing. But I really think it has to do with conductivity. So that would be really cool to go back and do the thermal imaging and experiment with being grounded or materials that are conducting versus insulated.
Her third question is, “So much number two above, does it matter if I use plastic cup to rinse my body in the tub? I have been using a glass mason jar just in case.”
[1:10:25] Kristen Bowen: And again, I don’t think so. But I didn’t do any thermal imaging on that. But I wouldn’t think that it would affect the uptake.
[1:10:35] Ashley James: Her next question, what are your thoughts on using soap to wash the body while doing a magnesium soak? Does soap decrease the uptake of magnesium?”
[1:10:46] Kristen Bowen: We had – we use body wash and we use a natural handmade soap. And we did notice a slower start when people used just a typical off-the-counter body wash – a more chemical access body wash. And we did notice a slower uptake but it did still uptake but it just started a little bit slower.
[1:11:13] Ashley James: So it kind of like, at the beginning, coded the skin. And then stopped the body from absorbing it but then it kind of washed off.
[1:11:20] Kristen Bowen: Yeah. So it definitely – it made it for a slower start. But once it got started, the uptake was the same.
[1:11:28] Ashley James: Okay. I love this next question she has. “Does pee decrease the uptake of the magnesium? My toddler pees right when I set him in the bath.” My son does the same thing. I’m like, “Why didn’t you -” he’s four-and-a-half. He’s potty trained. “Why didn’t you go in the potty? The potty is right there.” The second you put them in hot water, they’re just – they get -you know. Yeah. But she wants to know –
[1:11:50] Kristen Bowen: Okay. So on this one, I do have some feedback on. We grabbed a bunch of little kids. I wanted to know if you put two kids in the tub – and because I know when my kids were home and young, I popped everybody in the tub. I wanted to make sure, is everybody getting magnesium? Like let’s say, you put two kids in the tub and a quarter cup for you and eighth of a cup for you, eighth of a cup for you, quarter cup total. Are both of them pulling up the magnesium? And so a couple things that we – and the kids when we were testing them did the same thing. They all peed and it would make any difference whatsoever. We saw no difference in the thermal imaging.
What we did see is when you have multiple kids in that bathtub, the one with the weakest levels of magnesium will pull more than the other one. And that was really interesting to me. So it doesn’t divide itself exactly. Like, “Okay. You got this eighth of a cup. And you got this eighth of a cup.” And so one of the children would get more of the magnesium than the other one when there was more than one in the tub.
[1:13:04] Ashley James: Right. That’s very cool. And so if you have multiple children, should they just put a bit of extra magnesium just in case one is absorbing more than the others?
[1:13:16] Kristen Bowen: You know, I wouldn’t. It wasn’t enough that it I felt like it was something that we need to even address with parents. There was a small difference. And so I would still just do that quarter of a cup for each and celebrate the fact you got them in the tub, you got the magnesium in, and they soaked. And as you continually do that, both of their levels are going to go up.
[1:13:39] Ashley James: Lina’s last question which I think you’ve already answered. “How much should I use in the tub for a one-and-a-half year old?” And a one-and-a-half year old is not going to be waist high unless they’re my husband who was six-foot-seven by the time he was 14.
[1:13:54] Kristen Bowen: [Inaudible 1:13:54].
[1:13:53] Ashley James: Yeah. Yeah. He was towering over – I think when he was like six years old, he could, you know, basically could buy alcohol because people – he was just so tall. When he was one-and-a-half, he was so tall. So unless your child is like really, really, really tall and above waist height, you’re giving them an eighth of a cup in a bath.
Now, does it matter how much water is in that bath? Like, I’ve got one of these three person – like, this triangular three person bath? It’s huge.
[1:14:23] Kristen Bowen: No, it doesn’t. It doesn’t matter.
[1:14:25] Ashley James: So concentration of water, the magnesium doesn’t matter. The body is going to uptake it.
[1:14:29] Kristen Bowen: I’m sure at a certain point if the tub – you know, if the container that they were sitting in got bigger and bigger, it would make a difference. But we did the thermal imaging on just regular, what I would call, [inaudible 1:14:43], you know, a small bathtub. And then we did some in large, very spacious, jetted tubs. And we didn’t see a difference from the size. I’m sure, eventually, if the size got large enough, it would dilute how much you are actually coming in contact with. But the size of the tubs that we used, it didn’t.
[1:15:05] Ashley James: Got it. Great. Cindy says, “I’d like to know the science behind the absorption levels.”
[1:15:12] Kristen Bowen: So absorption levels, so back in the 50s the FDA thought and assumed and everything was based off of our skin is like an armadillo pad and nothing goes through it. And we know now that that was bad science because, you know, nicotine patches and all sorts of – hormone patches and all sorts of things that we put on our skin. We know our skin is our largest organ. And so we’re just utilizing that largest organ to get that magnesium in. Because think about it, if synthetic – oral magnesium is synthetic. It’s been heated. It’s been put into a powder. No matter which kind it is, it’s still synthetic magnesium. If synthetic magnesium got you healthy, we could all eat cold cereal and get enough magnesium from our cold cereal. Synthetic magnesium doesn’t move your cell saturation levels. And that is always my goal to get to cell saturation. And so taking it in through your skin is a way that we can bypass the gut, which is beautiful because so many people have compromised digestive systems. And that’s an issue. And so we’re just using our largest organ to get that mineral in and move those numbers.
[1:16:44] Ashley James: Awesome. Very cool. And you notice the difference when you start soaking in it. I’ve had magnesium intravenously before at a Naturopath’s office. They called it the Myer’s push. It’s a concoction of big, huge syringe, maybe four ounces full of different vitamins and minerals. And the biggest mineral being magnesium. And they warn you, don’t stand up right away. Like, just sit for a few minutes after having it. So they take maybe five minutes or, maybe ten minutes to slowly push it in into your vein. And while it’s happening, you begin to taste the B vitamins. And then you start feeling high and that’s the magnesium. You start feeling out of it. You start feeling warmth in your whole body. Because magnesium opens up all the blood vessels and then if you stand up too quickly – because your blood pressure goes down because all your blood vessels open which lowers the blood pressure. And if you stand up too quickly, you’d get dizzy. And so I’d always have to sit there for a few minutes. Just enjoy the feeling. And then go home
But that’s not realistic for people to get their magnesium levels up. Because not many doctors do it. You’d have to find a doctor that does it. And you have to pay and go every week to have magnesium put into your vein. So it’s definitely not sustainable. But when I first soaked in your magnesium, I felt the same effects. And I thought, this is really neat that I know I’m absorbing it because my body is showing me – is demonstrating to me the same feelings as if I had an intravenous magnesium.
[1:18:32] Kristen Bowen: And there’s two reasons for that, Ashley. One is, our magnesium chloride is not synthetically manufactured in the lab. It’s pulled from the sea. And the other reason is, we don’t water it down for profitability. I want you getting healthy. I want people experiencing health. I do have to keep a profit going in my company to make payroll and keep the lights on. But that’s not what drives me is profitability. What drives me is when I connect with people like you and they look at me and say, “That magnesium made a difference in my life.” And so our magnesium will never be watered down and we will never go with a lab version of magnesium. Because that synthetic liquid magnesium does not move your red blood cell numbers like a magnesium chloride that comes from the sea brine.
[1:19:27] Ashley James: I love it. Yes. The Zechstein Sea that you also test it to make sure there’s no metals. I love that you do that.
[1:19:35] Kristen Bowen: I’ve been burned too many times by companies. They’ll send you a test but it’s for five years previous. It’s not from the current batch. So I realized, “Okay. Their standard and my standards are different.” Because I had so many chemicals after those seizures and I had so many chemical sensitivities and my body had to react. And I needed to know what was going on and so I really started testing. And so we always run our own test before it goes on the shelf.
[1:20:12] Ashley James: Love it. Rachel asks, “I have been wondering about the benefits of soaking while pregnant. I’ve been doing the foot soak and I was curious about any stories Kristen has, if any.”
[1:20:24] Kristen Bowen: Oh, Rachel. I love it when a pregnant mama soak. Because when I was having – and this will date me. I have six children. They’re all launched. They’re adults and they’re launched out of my home. And when I was having babies, acid reflux was not something that was common among newborns. And now when you’re with a group of young moms and they’ve got their new babies, many of those babies are already on a prescription medication for acid reflux as newborns.
And the reason for that is magnesium deficiency in the mama. Because a mama can only give her baby as much magnesium as she has. And that magnesium is crucial to close that sphincter valve for that baby. I cannot tell you how many moms have come to us and said my first two babies were so fussy and so high maintenance and spit up so much. And we have them on medication for acid reflux. This baby that I soaked in magnesium during the entire pregnancy has been my easiest delivery and my easiest baby. Magnesium makes a difference. We want not only that mama to experience cell saturation but we want that baby to experience cell saturation. Because we know how crucial magnesium is for the liver. And we want that liver strong. And being born with as much magnesium to kick in all of those processes that need to happen to give him or her a viable strong functional liver.
[1:22:21] Ashley James: Love it. Excellent. Oh, yes. So magnesium is so helpful during pregnancy and so helpful for the aches and pains that come with being pregnant.
[1:22:34] Kristen Bowen: You know, your family and you get excited about something, and as my business grows and more and more people will – you know, seeing the benefit of magnesium. And sometimes your family doesn’t get as excited. And sometimes it’s this pull. It’s like, “Oh, listen to me. All these other people listen to me. Why won’t you?” And my kids were teenagers. And I realized the more that I tried to get them to, the more they pushed away. And so I just thought, “Okay. When they are ready. I’m backing off. This is not a fight. I will fight with them when they’re ready. And when they’re leaning in, I’m here.”
So one of my daughters during her pregnancies was experiencing swelling. And so she reached out to me, she leaned in, and she said, “Mom, do you have anything that will help my feet? I’m swelling and my shoes don’t even fit by the end of the day.” I said, “Oh. I do have something. Could I bring you some magnesium?” And she goes, “All that stuff you always talk about?” I said, “Yes. I’d love to bring you some.” And so they used it. And, literally, feet went in the water. Little puffy, swollen toes and feet, and the tops. And you could tell she was just miserable. And the swelling so visibly went down that her husband called me and said, “Could we make sure we have a couple jugs of that stuff?”
And so sometimes when it’s family, you have to be really patient and you have to wait for a very long time for them to catch the vision of what your passion is. But during that pregnancy, magnesium is so critical. And if you’re retaining water and swelling, the magnesium, literally the first soak, you will see the difference.
[1:24:42] Ashley James: I love it. That reminds me – you know, I told you at the beginning that everyone that comes to my house to visit gets a soak of magnesium. And I am not kidding. Everyone does. A friend of ours who lives in Texas flew up here and was going to drive her car down from Seattle to Texas. And flying – she has some health issues and she’s gotten worlds better – worlds better. She was practically unable to get out of bed and very sick. And now, she is worlds better. But she still is working on some things. And one thing is edema. She lost 80 pounds of water weight. I mean, that’s how bad it was. But she would blow up like a balloon. She was poisoned by an old building that had PCBs and all these different chemicals, I can’t remember the names of, that was poisoning people. And now there’s a big class action lawsuit because hundreds of people were poisoned by this building. Her body just could not detoxify. She, like I said, blow up like a balloon. Gained 80 pounds of water weight. So she was on diuretics. Is doing much better the last two years.
But flying triggers a lot of that. So she flew here and her legs swelled up. She was wearing compression socks, but it was still very bad. And I got her in the magnesium soak every day while she was visiting. And she could not believe it. She’s never seen something. I mean, water pills weren’t even working. She could not believe it that after soaking for an hour, she pulled her feet out and said, “Look. Do you remember what my feet looked like? Like, look.” And it went from like elephant, where it’s just like there’s no difference between the knee and the ankle, basically, down to where you could see her toes and you could see the joints, you could see her ankle move. And then she drove so she had to sit. She drove all the way back to Texas and didn’t have the edema because she had soaked every day in magnesium while she was here. And she could not believe it. And she’s in the Facebook Group now and then raving about it. When people ask, “What do you think about that magnesium soak stuff?” So I love seeing that that people have that their body – it helps equalize the edema and helps equalize the water retention.
[1:27:14] Kristen Bowen: If I wouldn’t have seen the difference and if I would have just seen my daughter’s feet and not knowing it was my daughter, and if I would have just seen that online, I would have been like, “Oh. They doctored that.” That’s how drastic the difference was.
And flying is hard on people. And so one of the things that I do to help my body recover because I’m on the road a lot teaching classes and giving presentations, one of the things that I do is I’ll ship magnesium to wherever I’m going to be so that I can soak when I get there. Because I just feel better. It puts me back in my game. And for me, it decreases inflammation which decreases that achy joint kind of thing. And so I just send some. And then that way if I land, it it’s at the Airbnb or a hotel, it’s waiting for me and I can soak.
[1:28:08] Ashley James: Very cool. Now, why not – you know what? That makes me think of something. I’ve been meaning to ask you this off air so I’ll just ask you on air Have you ever thought about coming out with travel sized sample bottles? Because, you know, when we travel, we have to have – what is it? – like two ounces or less per container?
[1:28:30] Kristen Bowen: Two or three?
[1:28:31] Ashley James: Yeah. Maybe it’s three. I don’t know. But it’s these small little – and so I have a bunch of these little size bottles, like reusable, for when I travel. So I put my shampoo in one, conditioner on the other, body cream, whatever. And I was just – the other day, I looked at my travel – my empty reusable travel bottles and I thought, “I’m going to fill these up with magnesium.”
[1:28:56] Kristen Bowen: We actually had some that we sold for that very reason. Because I’m on the road a lot and said, “Okay. I’m wanting to take my magnesium with me. Let’s do a three ounce” At that time it was three ounce. It may have gone to two. But the problem that we had was they were leaking. And so we’ve haven’t been able to find a source. Like, we source some and they were really good and they weren’t leaking. And then we lost that source. And so we had about 6,000 bottles was all. And we blew through those really fast. So we’re always on the lookout for sourcing a bottle that doesn’t leak with them. But I would love to.
[1:29:39] Ashley James: Yeah. You guys are great about – I’ve never had a bottle from you guys leak. Do you guys – the way you package it is wonderful. So I’m always very grateful.
[1:29:50] Kristen Bowen: Every once in a while we do have issues. But it’s interesting to me, Ashley, it’s always from about October until the end of the year. Because mail – shipping goes up with holiday things. And sometimes those boxes are just annihilated. It looks like a Mack Truck run over the top. But I have to say, our shipping department is actually run by my daughter and she does such a good job. And if someone ever does have a problem that they’re magnesium leaked, all they have to do is send us a picture of the problem and we will send out a replacement. Because we want to take 100% responsibility that it did not get to you how it should have.
[1:30:33] Ashley James: Yeah. Well, I’ve had just 100% great experiences with your shipping. And you know, other companies I’ve had problems where I’ve had liquid shipped to me and it’s just exploded. And other companies are just, you know, the same thing. Send them a picture and they will refund me or they send me a new bottle. And it happens. We have to be forgiving to these companies.
[1:30:53] Kristen Bowen: Every once in a while. We don’t – it’s less than a half of a percent.
[1:30:58] Ashley James: Oh, that’s cool.
[1:31:00] Kristen Bowen: So it happened often. But man, when it does and you’re that person, it can be frustrating. So if a listener has that happen, please know, you send us a picture of what happened and we will send out that replacement.
[1:31:12] Ashley James: Awesome. Gretchen asks, “My husband wakes up in the middle of the night crying out in pain because he has a cramp in the back of his thigh or calf. What do you recommend for him? And then he does take supplements that are really high quality.” She mentions them but he has this problem. So he is on a multi-mineral and multivitamin and everything.
[1:31:38] Kristen Bowen: Right. Soaking in magnesium. We can’t get enough of that orally. And the type of magnesium that we have to take orally is not going to move the dial on getting to cell saturation. And so soaking in that magnesium is going to be crucial. And we just have hundreds of emails and messages and maybe even thousands now – probably thousands of messages saying, “My cramping has gone away.” For some people, it goes away with the first soak and it never comes back. Other people, it takes longer. And so it really depends on some things that are happening in your body how long it will take. But we can always get that to clear up.
[1:32:24] Ashley James: And for those who don’t know the physiology, the two major minerals in the body are calcium and magnesium. Calcium is used in the muscle to contract. Magnesium is used to relax. So when we have a problem with cramps, the muscle isn’t relaxing. There’s a magnesium deficit or an imbalance in the calcium to magnesium ratio because they should be two to one in the body – in the soft tissue.
But it’s so important. Magnesium and calcium are so important that when we’re deficient in it, our parathyroid will tell the bones – will create a hormone to tell the bones to release magnesium into the bloodstream and release calcium and other minerals into the bloodstream. So if you get – and this is something I want to talk about because you had posted recently about this. If you get certain blood tests, the doctors will be like, “Oh, your calcium-magnesium levels are fine.” But what they’re testing is the serum level. And that is always going to be high – or always going to be on healthy levels because the parathyroid will leach these metals from your bones causing osteopenia and eventually osteoporosis in order to compensate for the soft tissue. And so the blood test you recommend is the magnesium RBC test. Can you can you go into that just a little bit for those who didn’t hear about it in the other episodes?
[1:33:54] Kristen Bowen: I love the magnesium RBC test red blood cell because Magnesium so crucial for your body that it’s going to do everything it can to keep your serum at 1%. And so it just doesn’t give us an accurate picture of what’s really happening.
[1:34:14] Ashley James: When you get the serum test.
[1:34:16] Kristen Bowen: Yes. And so that magnesium RBC, we want ultimately to be between 6.3 and 7. And that’s where we want to stay. And that’s where that burn rate comes in, Ashley. Because, let’s say, you do the 30-day challenge and you get your magnesium RBC and you’re at 6.4. That’s awesome. But how do you stay there? And that will be different for you than it will be for me. How you manage cortisol, how much sugar you eat, how much sleep you get, all of those things will play a role in how you burn through your magnesium.
So for example, my husband’s amputations, fighting the insurance, they kicked him out, they denied a double amputee rehabilitation time. And it was incredibly stressful. Like, just every time I turned around, I was having to fight another battle. Plus, make sure I was taking care of him in the best way possible. So I knew I needed to soak every day again because I was just burning through that magnesium. Now, we’re out of that intense and we’re just in that learning curve. Normally, I have to soak one to two times a week to keep my magnesium levels where they need to be. But because we’re still – we have lots of extra doctor’s appointments, we have lots of people in our home, occupational therapists, physical therapists, and it’s just – we’re still in that learning curve of just one leg, getting them showered, and that kind of thing. I’m having to soak three times a week – three to four times a week to keep my levels where they need to be.
And so not only does that magnesium red blood cell test show you where your numbers are. It can show you how you’re burning through your magnesium. And so I’ve taken that a couple of times. And so I know how much I need to soak in really stressful times, how much I need to soak during holiday times, and how much I need to soak in the summertime. And so it can really give you personal feedback on what your body needs.
Because, Ashley, you and I have very similar goals, what we want. And we have very similar businesses. We’re both in the same industry but our burn rate is very different. And so that RBC test can help you and give you feedback for your own personal burn rate.
[1:37:01] Ashley James: Awesome. Since we’re on the subject, let’s cover it and then get back to the rest of the questions. The website and we’ll have a link to it is, walkinlab.com. And I think it’s, like, $50 for the blood test.
[1:37:18] Kristen Bowen: Forty-nine. And they run sales. Anytime you go to do that, if you don’t have – I’ve got a little thing on my laptop that scans for coupon codes. But search for coupon codes for Walk-in Labs, because there’s almost always a coupon code you can use to bring that cost down a little bit.
[1:37:39] Ashley James: And so we can go – and I don’t know about Canada or any other country. I just know that this website specifically is for labs in the US. But you buy the lab online and then they direct you to a local lab. You just bring the printout. And then they draw your blood, send it in, and then they’ll send you the results. So you don’t need to go see a doctor to have this blood test. And then, basically, for $49 or less, you have now received the results of where your magnesium is and where your levels are.
You said that when the first month when you do a 30-day challenge, you want to reach 5 – 5.0. But that is an optimal. That’s just kind of getting us in the ballpark. Can you talk about the ballpark versus optimal?
[1:38:26] Kristen Bowen: Absolutely. So one thing I want to throw in about the labs, I have a really good friend who lives in South Dakota, who actually teaches magnesium classes and will do magnesium classes. And so she went on and got the lab and then went to see where she needed to go. And her lab was six hours away because she’s in a very rural area.
So for example, I live in Morro Bay, California and I have 30 labs within 15 minutes of me. And so please make sure, before you buy that test that you’re in an area that there’s a lab that’s within drive-able distance. Like, where my warehouse and retail are in Logan, Utah, I have to drive about 30 minutes. So it will really vary depending on where you live in the United States.
[1:39:15] Ashley James: Sure. And you might –
[1:39:16] Kristen Bowen: So just [inaudible 1:39:17] throw that out.
[1:39:18] Ashley James: Right. Right. And you might be able to talk to a local doctor’s office into doing it or your PCP might be willing to draw the blood if they draw your blood normally. So you might be able to figure something out if it’s, like you said, within like, six hours drive away.
[1:39:35] Kristen Bowen: Doctors didn’t even have access to that lab. But more and more I’m hearing back from people, “Hey, my doctor was able to pull that lab and my insurance paid for it.”
[1:39:46] Ashley James: Oh, cool.
[1:39:46] Kristen Bowen: Yeah. So there’s a real shift coming that way. And three years ago, there wasn’t a doctor that had even heard of that. And now I’m getting feedback from more and more people, “Hey, my doctor had that lab available on his list of what he could ask to be done for me.” So always ask, you know, the worst thing that will happen is, they say, “No. We don’t have access to that lab.” But if you don’t have that you can always go to walkinlab.com.
[1:40:14] Ashley James: Got it. And it’s not walking labs. Don’t put the S in. Because it’ll just be -it’s just a broken site if you put the S in. It’s walkinlab.com I learned that the hard way.
And yeah, I love your recommendation of ask. Worst case scenario, we’re stuck back where we were at the beginning but at least we could ask. You’re really on the cutting edge. You know, it’s like you said three years ago, people hadn’t even heard of this blood test. And now, doctors are starting to get connected. So you are on the cutting edge.
[1:40:47] Kristen Bowen: I love the relationships that I’ve been able to build within the western community – western medical community, especially those that are really into collaborative communication. And because I think western has some things to offer us and I think we have some things to offer Western. And I think a lot of doctors and nurses, we have some amazing doctors and nurses, and they recognize they are working within a very broken system. And the breakdown of that system is creating an opportunity for them to look somewhere else. And the benefit of that is, they’re starting to look at better solutions. It’s happening but very slowly. I do want that to happen faster, but it is happening and that’s a good thing.
[1:41:40] Ashley James: Excellent. So yeah, let’s get into just understanding – getting to cell saturation. So you’re getting to 5.0. In the first month of soaking, you’re getting to 5.0. If you were to do the blood test, you’re getting a 5.0. And then the next step is getting to optimal Can you explain why 5.0 is sort of – it’s in the range of good but not optimal? And what is optimal?
[1:42:04] Kristen Bowen: Okay. So we used to – when we started, we used to have what we call the 21-day challenge. And in 21 days, we wanted people soaking, you know, every day to get their numbers up. And that worked. And then we started noticing 21 days was not enough for some people to really move the dial on that magnesium RBC number. Because as a society, we’re getting more stressed and sicker. And so we realized we needed to make it a 30-day challenge because we wanted people seeing that dial – that RBC number move. So within a 30-day challenge, we want to come to a 5. But you’re right, 5 is not optimal.
But the thousands of magnesium RBC tests that I have looked at with people that they have taken, when they’re at a 5 we know that their magnesium numbers will move up as they soak. Because sometimes people will soak and nothing happens. They’re moving very, very little. And that percentage, we don’t want that. We want them testing to make sure that their numbers are moving fast enough. So if they test after doing a 30-day challenge and their number is 4.2, we know we have a crack in their foundation. And I cannot tell you how many women have soaked for years and they finally go get tested. And they’re like, “Kristen, I’ve had benefit from the magnesium. But I just did a 30-day challenge and I only tested at 4.7.”
Just think if they would have known that four years ago when they started testing, we could have addressed the crack in their foundation versus them soaking for four years thinking they were doing optimal health magnesium soaking for their body. So in my opinion, it’s really crucial. Because if your numbers aren’t moving, we need to look and find out what crack is happening in your foundation. And how can we go in and support that so we can get those numbers moving?
[1:44:30] Ashley James: Right. So it’s part of the discussion about maintaining your optimal levels once you reached it. But if you’ve never reached optimal, if you’ve never got to 7 – 7.0, for example, no matter how much you soak, then you’re burning faster than your body can absorb. And magnesium being a major nutrient the body needs, It’s easier to identify. Right? Like, “Oh, wow. It’s really – no matter what we do, we can’t reach optimal.” Just think of the 59 other minerals, what’s happening to them? What’s happening to your levels of the other nutrients in your body? Because if your body’s burning through magnesium quickly, it’s burning through those other ones as well. And there’s so many symptoms that arise from mineral deficiency that people brush off as normal aging. Right? But they’re not.
I’ve seen people have a reversal in gray hair because they were copper deficient. They didn’t know that copper deficiency can cause early gray hair and premature lines and wrinkles. For example, I don’t recommend people go out and get a copper supplement. It’s more of a hole – you want all the minerals together. But if we’re burning through our minerals quickly, and like you said, how we have cracks in the foundation of our health, we’re going to start to see our body degrades faster, sooner. So we want to be able to reverse that and discover those cracks.
Can you give some examples of cracks in our foundation? I know we’ve already talked about not going to sleep on time and not managing our cortisol, not managing our stress. What other cracks in the foundation are really common?
[1:46:24] Kristen Bowen: So one crack is about lifestyle. And in that lifestyle, we would put their eating habits, their sugar intake, their sleeping habits, and their mindset. Are they always looking at the glass half full? And so that’s a lifestyle crack. On the nutrient crack, it can be an alkaline acidity issue and if they’re just too acidic. And so one thing that we can do to very quickly course correct that is have them drink some baking soda. But you have to be really careful because drinking that baking soda, if you are low in hydrochloric acid, it can drop you even lower. And so we don’t want that to be a long term solution that you’re doing that every day. But it can jumpstart your body up taking that magnesium and get your numbers moving.
Another thing that it can be is a boron deficiency. More and more people are experiencing a boron deficiency. And so adding a boron supplement can help. Minerals need buddies. And boron is a buddy to magnesium. And so adding a boron supplement can help you uptake and hold that magnesium longer in yourself. And another nutritional deficiency it can be is B vitamins. And so taking a good whole food B vitamin or – I’m a bee pollen girl. I want that natural. And so I do a combination of both. I take bee pollen and a whole food B vitamin, and that can be another crack also.
[1:48:09] Ashley James: Very cool. Yeah. I got my boron concoction right here on my desk. And listening to and following your advice on how to prepare it – and that’s in Episode 341. I believe we get into.
[1:48:27] Kristen Bowen: The second one we did, we talked about that one.
[1:48:27] Ashley James: Yeah. The second one. Right. Yeah. And boron is also just like vitamin K2. For example, it’s necessary in laying of healthy new bone tissue. So the body – obviously, the body is always creating bone tissue. Every seven years we have a new skeleton. And we want to as we age – especially as we’re aging, we want to maintain healthy, strong mineral foundation in our bone tissue. And boron helps to do that. People who have bone spurs like in their wrists or in their feet, that is – or some kind of arthritis where there’s bone spurs, that is a symptom where the – showing that the body’s minerals are out of balance, especially the boron, vitamin K, and the calcium-magnesium because the body is unable to lay bone correctly.
And I’ve seen people who had bone spurs after they corrected it. So they started taking boron. They started getting calcium-magnesium in their body. They started eating healthier. They were correcting that issue. Their body reabsorbed the bone spurs. So the bone spurs went away and the body started laying healthy strong bone tissue afterwards.
[1:49:54] Kristen Bowen: My bone spurs are gone. I can [inaudible 1:49:54] sandals. And it is something that is so doable for people. It’s not out of reach to get rid of those bone spurs.
[1:50:05] Ashley James: Very cool. And the boron that we talked about in Episode 341 is very affordable.
[1:50:12] Kristen Bowen: A little outside of the box.
[1:50:15] Ashley James: You know what? I looked into it more after we talked about it and started discovering other people in the health space doing exactly what you recommend. And there’s articles on it. And there’s lots of episodes of other podcasts talking about it. And there’s lots of health people doing it. So it might be out of the box for some people. It’s very normal for others. But people are getting really great results. And that’s a point.
[1:50:39] Kristen Bowen: I think one shout out people with PCOS, it is not a good fit for them. Because it will increase their body converting estrogen to testosterone. So it is not a good fit for those people with PCOS.
[1:50:56] Ashley James: Would there ever be a time when it is? So once they have corrected the PCOS.
[1:51:00] Kristen Bowen: Yes. Absolutely. But it’s not where they start. Because it will make that testosterone conversion worse. And we don’t want to make that worse. And so it’s a game changer for me. It keeps my arthritis, just my symptoms, my pain down. I love it. But it is not a good fit for those with PCOS.
[1:51:25] Ashley James: Got it. Very cool. Now, Lori asked a similar question to Gretchen, “Does magnesium stop leg and foot cramps? What are the possible causes of leg cramps?” And we did talk about it, that magnesium being the most important thing. But sometimes there are other things like potassium. Can you touch on that?
[1:51:44] Kristen Bowen: Yeah. That voltage issue. We want to make sure that voltage is really strong and potassium is a part of that voltage. And so a lot of people don’t realize we need 4,700 milligrams a day of potassium. And you need to be getting that from your foods, your diet. And so a lot of times that cramping will go away with magnesium. But when it doesn’t, or when it becomes more severe, we know we have a potassium issue. And so getting that potassium from potassium rich foods, coconut water, lentils, avocados, eating 4,700 milligrams a day is crucial. And you’ll see it in your skin. You can tell when someone has that potassium voltage in their skin because their skin just glows.
[1:52:38] Ashley James: Now, most minerals we can’t get from food adequately because of the farming practices. But potassium is one of those minerals we can get from food because farmers will put NPK, nitrogen potassium -and I am totally blanking right now on the other one. I’m going to kick myself in a second if I can remember. But we put potassium in the soil as part of fertilization. And so I wish they put all 60 minerals in the soil. Sixty minerals and elements, I wish farmers did that. But unfortunately, we don’t. We stopped doing that about 100 years ago. Farmers used to put ash – wood ash in the soil. They burn a forest and put that in the soil. Or we’d all have our own gardens. A-hundred-and-fifty years ago, everyone had their own garden. It was very common. And of course, we heated our house and we cooked food on a wood stove. And we’d always take the wood ash and put it out into the garden and mix it in our soil. And wood ash, the minerals is minerals from the tree that’s leftover. And so we would always remineralize our soil. Up until electricity, we stopped needing wood stoves. And then we started – instead of having these little tiny farms and putting wood ash in soil, now it’s big industrial.
Unfortunately, how we farm now and, unfortunately, with the chemicals, they spray, these chemicals on the soil chelate minerals. So we’re not getting our minerals from the food, unfortunately. And we’re seeing more and more nutrient deficiency and, thus, people getting great results with your magnesium. Now your soak also has other minerals in it. So we’re actually getting other nutrients as well. Is that correct?
[1:54:29] Kristen Bowen: So when you pull – when you’re using a magnesium that comes from the sea that’s made from brine, depending on what nutrients – and they really shift and they vary, and so when you’re using that brine, you’re getting the cofactors that help support the uptake of that magnesium. The reason that we don’t list those is they change every single – every single time, they’re changing. But that brine does have other nutrients that will help you to uptake that magnesium.
[1:55:06] Ashley James: So there’s some co-factors to magnesium in there naturally? Yes. Now Gord says, “I don’t remember this being covered in the last show. I’m cheap. So instead of soaking, I’m applying 20 sprays a day directly to my skin. It stung too much using it straight. So I mixed it with jojoba oil and now it’s good. Is this an acceptable –
[1:55:28] Kristen Bowen: [Inaudible 1:55:29].
[1:55:31] Ashley James: You love jojoba oil?
[1:55:33] Kristen Bowen: I’m loving that she asked this question so that I can help people understand.
[1:55:38] Ashley James: So yeah, so I mixed – he says, “I mixed the jojoba oil and now it’s good. Is this an acceptable way of using the oil? If so, how do you dose it?” I’m assuming it’s a guy asking because his name’s Gord. But it might be the his wife on his account. So either way, this person is taking some of your magnesium mixing with jojoba oil then spraying it on their skin. And they’re wondering Is that enough to absorb the magnesium and get to full cell saturation?
[1:56:06] Kristen Bowen: Right. So the first question I have for them is, what are your goals with magnesium? If your goal is getting to cell saturation, that will not do it. So 20 sprays a day will give you some magnesium and that’s great. But it won’t move your RBC numbers. And the fact that it stung when you sprayed it on, that is a sign that you are very deficient and so your body pulled it in really fast – too fast and that’s why you get that stinging. And we find 100% of the time, when people soak in magnesium that stinging factor, that tingling ,some people call it, always goes away. Now when you take the magnesium spray and you add the jojoba, you incredibly huge amounts slow down the absorption factor because of the oil.
So for example, our magnesium lotion is formulated for babies. It has oil in it and it slows down how much magnesium can go in through the skin. The oil does. And it will never get them to cell saturation. It will help to relieve muscle aches and that kind of thing. But it will not get them to cell saturation. And it’s the slowest way to get magnesium in the body. So adding that oil is actually really negating if your goal is to get to cell saturation.
[1:57:38] Ashley James: Very cool. So he should use a quarter cup and soak and do it every day. Or he could spread it out. He could try doing it every two or every three days to see because he wants to save money. So you are frugal. I know that you don’t like to have people waste the money. You don’t like to waste money.
[1:58:02] Kristen Bowen: I don’t. I don’t want – it kills me when I see – like, a little piece of my soul dies when someone comes in the shop and they were in two weeks before buying magnesium. And I’m like, “What are you doing here? I just talked to you two weeks ago.” Because I know that families are budgeting and there’s a lot of places for that money to go. And I just – I don’t want them to use half a cup thinking I’m getting more benefit. You’re just wasting half of your magnesium. And so I just want to help people maximize their dosage and use the least amount possible for the maximum benefit. And that’s my goal.
[1:58:49] Ashley James: Right. And that’s how I figured out that the optimal level for adults is a quarter cup. And that we don’t actually absorb much more than that. And I believe when we talked about the numbers – and you can you can clarify later. I know you’ll go back and look at all your science data that you have in your Google Doc. But you had told me in the last episode that it was about 24 grams of magnesium in a quarter cup. And then when you test the water – because they’ll send the water to the lab – after someone soaked that four grams are left. And so we’re absorbing about 20 grams of magnesium per soak. And that the body will only absorb as much as it needs so you can’t overdose.
But when I looked at the tingling – because you’re right, I have it on all my skin directly concentrated. I’ve had that happen. Like, it splashes on my skin, it doesn’t burn, it doesn’t tingle. But I remember when I first started using it, it did. So that’s really interesting that the tingling –
[1:59:57] Kristen Bowen: It always goes away, Ashley. That is a sign of magnesium deficiency.
[2:00:02] Ashley James: So interesting.
[2:00:03] Kristen Bowen: Extreme magnesium deficiency. Not just we’re low in magnesium. But when you go and get those people their RBC tested, they’re coming in between two and three usually when it’s tingling on their skin like that. They’re the ones who need it the very, very most.
[2:00:23] Ashley James: Really cool. So that would be a great experiment for people to try. To put it directly on their skin – on a patch of skin and see do they have burning or tingling or none at all. And if they do have that sensation that their body is sucking it in really quickly.
Letty says, “I have a question. I finally ordered my magnesium foot soak. And the first time I did it, I had an ache in my calf and skipped the day. The next day I got a major pain on my side for at least four minutes. Not sure what the deal was with that. Any ideas?”
[2:01:00] Kristen Bowen: Usually, that’s a hydration issue. When we see the pain moving, like one time it was in their foot then it was their side, then it was their shoulder. Typically – not always but typically that’s a hydration issue. And so we’ve got to really increase her hydration when she soaks in the magnesium.
[2:01:18] Ashley James: Got it. And that’s something that I found really interesting that those who are dehydrated will have some pretty negative effects after soaking. Because magnesium – when we increase the magnesium in our body, magnesium actually uses some of our water inside of us making us more dehydrated. So we need to –
[2:01:42] Kristen Bowen: Right. I always say magnesium shines the light on the problem that you’re experiencing. So if it makes you tired, Ashley, it’s shining the light that you are low in potassium. If it makes you cramp, it just shines the light on what’s happening in your body. If we understand the communication and the language that it’s talking in.
[2:02:06] Ashley James: So if they soak in magnesium and they’re wired, they’re just like – and they were expecting to calm down and go to sleep. But now they’re just totally wired. What’s it shining a light on?
[2:02:16] Kristen Bowen: Really tired and wired adrenals. And their adrenals went crazy pulling up the magnesium and didn’t know what to do with it.
[2:02:27] Ashley James: And so when they’re really exhausted after doing – like, they just fall asleep after they soak, you’re saying that’s a potassium deficiency?
[2:02:36] Kristen Bowen: Potassium and tired adrenal. So they’ve got two things going on. Super tired adrenals and not enough potassium in their diets.
[2:02:44] Ashley James: And if they get cramps, you’re saying aches or pains or cramps that are moving in their body.
[2:02:52] Kristen Bowen: [Inaudible 2:02:51] that are moving. What I do is I just keep it, like, a Google Sheet where we transfer it all over to a Google Sheet. And we’re just keeping all of people’s experiences so that we can recognize the patterns. What are the patterns? What are happening for people? And those pains that move when we went back to them and said, “Okay. Let’s try water.” Almost all of them went away when they would increase their water and continue soaking.
[2:03:20] Ashley James: You mean water intake. Like they would drink eight ounces of water a day.
[2:03:24] Kristen Bowen: Yes. Yes. Water intake, not just the water and they’re soaking.
[2:03:26] Ashley James: Right. Right. So they had to really hydrate their body and then you notice that the aches and pains went away. What if they start soaking and then they just get leg cramps or calf cramps? And it’s not like moving pain but it’s calf cramps. Would you say that that is a –
[2:03:41] Kristen Bowen: That’s usually a synthetic calcium issue. So they’ve taken synthetic calcium before and it’s breaking up.
[2:03:50] Ashley James: And what’s the solution then?
[2:03:52] Kristen Bowen: That one, they need to really keep their magnesium levels up to break up that synthetic calcium and really keep their hydration up. And then they need to determine how much of the cramping they can handle. I am someone who just wants to barrel through. Once I understand, it’s like okay. If I know that that’s what’s happening, I just want to barrel through and get it done. Some people are like, “Ah. I don’t want to do that every day.” Well, determine how often you’ll do it because it’s going to be a process to get that done. And then I love having them add some chia seeds that have been soaked in water. And that seems to really help that cramping. Chia seeds are so loaded and usable calcium. And when you soak them in water, the polysaccharides that happen along with the soaking really benefit that calcium cramping from synthetic.
[2:04:48] Ashley James: So when you say chia seeds, you’re ingesting it. You’re not putting it in your foot soak.
[2:04:52] Kristen Bowen: Yes. Yes. Ingesting. Thank you for helping me clarify.
[2:04:53] Ashley James: Sure. Sure. I just imagined, I was like, “Oh, yeah. Put chia seeds in my foot soak. It be like a day at the spa.
[2:05:00] Kristen Bowen: No. No. Ingesting. Yeah, ingesting.
[2:05:03] Ashley James: How much chia seeds you say? Like one tablespoon a day, ground –
[2:05:09] Kristen Bowen: I use about a tablespoon in about eight ounces of water. And they want that to sit for about 20 minutes. Because when we’re doing that, we’re really increasing the polysaccharides and the benefits of the chia. And it just gives our body more benefit. And so drinking at that point at 20 minutes out seems to really be when that helps with that synthetic calcium cramping.
[2:05:36] Ashley James: Awesome.
[2:05:36] Kristen Bowen: Oh, and then there’s one more. Sometimes people when they soak, the heels of their feet will just crack like crazy. There’s just cracks. And that shines the light on an omega-3 deficiency.
[2:05:53] Ashley James: Very interesting. I had that happen to me. Ha, ha, ha. So what would you do for the omega-3 deficiency? Or what have you seen help? Would you see that adding flax and chia seeds?
[2:06:08] Kristen Bowen: I do – I know a lot of people will do flax and chia seed for that. My body has never been able to uptake omega-3s from flax and chia. And so a good fit for me is cod liver oil.
[2:06:24] Ashley James: Yeah. You know, some people really respond well to the plant based healthy fats. And some people need to step it up a notch with fish. And we need to be willing to experiment with our body. And also know that the source is clean, whatever we’re taking.
[2:06:44] Kristen Bowen: I fought that one for four years. Because I wanted to get it from plants. And I just kept trying and trying and trying. And it just – I don’t understand why, but my body just does not uptake from the flax and chia. I love flax and chia. They’re super foods. And I get other benefits from them that I’ve never been able to personally convert that into an omega-3 change. And so for me, the Rosita Cod Liver Oil within three days, my body – that went away. And that omega-3 started really making a difference.
[2:07:22] Ashley James: Oh, very cool. And so the cracks went away really quickly. But you must have also noticed other benefits like hormonally as well.
[2:07:30] Kristen Bowen: Oh, definitely. Because your hormones need – and I think omega-3 is like a bridge. And they create a bridge in your body. And you can have all the hormones that you need. But if you don’t have a strong omega-3 fatty acid bridge, the hormones can’t walk on it to get to each other. And so that omega fatty acid profile connects your hormones. And so there was an incredible hormone balance that I experienced also.
[2:08:00] Ashley James: Very cool. All right. Getting to the end of the questions. Bonnie says, “If your thyroid was removed, what can you do for improved health? This might be off topic but please go over the benefits of her enzyme and cherry powder.”
[2:08:15] Kristen Bowen: Okay. So when the thyroid is gone, you really need to be working with someone who is helping you to re-balance your body with those thyroid hormones. And testing the complete picture. Not just part of it. And so that’s something that you have just got to find someone that’s helping you do that. The reason that I love enzymes is enzymes help your body to uptake and utilize more of what you’re taking in and make it think of like smaller pieces. And so it’s easier for your body to utilize the goodness of things and it’s increasing that energy factor.
And then the acerola cherry powder, I love because it’s a whole food that has a strong copper core. And that helps to re-balance that copper issue that so many of us have.
[2:09:12] Ashley James: Yes. That’s right. I remember that you said that he has the copper, which is so needed in the production of elastin and collagen. And that copper deficiency can lead to aortic aneurysms. So just some – we don’t want to take it synthetically just copper on its own. We want it a whole food source.
[2:09:36] Kristen Bowen: No. No, no, no. You know, some people will say, “Oh, magnesium is overwhelming.” And I definitely want to listen to that and understand why they’re getting overwhelmed so we can cross that bridge. But when you think about it, you soak in magnesium and we get those numbers moving. Copper is the one that – you can’t just take copper and move your numbers. It’s a much more layered process. And so getting it in foods is crucial.
So many of us are not eating because copper in the soil and there’s just lots of details. And so getting it from whole foods is crucial. And the acerola cherry that we import, it’s grown in a permaculture system. And that permaculture system means that they’re focused on the land and rebuilding the minerals and nutrients. And so because of that, it has a strong copper core. And I just love it. I love what I see it do for people. It helps convert from T4 to T3 because of that copper. It helps with the collagen. You can see a difference in people’s skin. You can see a difference in their immune system. If people’s hair is breaking because of a thyroid issue, you see that change in the first couple weeks of using it. And it’s not only valuable as a vitamin C but when you combine that copper core it has because of the way it’s grown and because of the way it’s processed, it just makes for a super food.
[2:11:13] Ashley James: And it tastes really good. I like it. I like it.
[2:11:18] Kristen Bowen: [Inaudible 2:11:18].
[2:11:19] Ashley James: Sorry?
[2:11:20] Kristen Bowen: Do you think it tastes good?
[2:11:22] Ashley James: I do think – I like it. I like the flavor.
[2:11:23] Kristen Bowen: It’s not one of my favorites. I take it and I’ve figured out a way to take it that I enjoy it. But it took me a little bit to get to that point. But some people love the taste of it.
[2:11:34] Ashley James: It’s not strong. It’s not strong. I really like the flavor. But you know, I drink a lot of water so, I guess, I dilute it. I don’t drink it super concentrated. But I really – I like the flavor. You know, compared to vitamin C powders out there, which are just so tart. It’s not tart. Anyways, I find it enjoyable. Maybe my body craves it because it knows it’s really good
Now you give us a discount and I’m so thankful. So listeners who want to try your acerola cherry powder or the magnesium soak can use coupon code LTH. Get a discount on those. And I love that you do that for us.
[2:12:12] Kristen Bowen: One last thing, can I throw out on the acerola cherry powder, Ashley? And we get a lot of questions on this one. They’ll say, “Kristen, it’s a different color than that was the last bottle I purchased.” We test our acerola cherry powder because they can actually add fillers, and they’re called stabilizers. And because they’re non-food intended, they don’t have to tell you what’s in the food. What it does is it makes the color consistent. I don’t want a non-food stabilizer added to my food to make the color consistent. And so a spring berry is going to be different than a fall berry in color. And so to me, when I see the variance, that’s the variance of nature. And I celebrate that. That means there’s not a stabilizer and the non-food additive put in my food to make it look consistently the same every single time. But we’re so used to that, that when we see something that does have variants we kind of worry. But that’s because we make sure that that non-food additive and stabilizer is never a part of the acerola cherry powder.
[2:13:22] Ashley James: Very cool. That’s such a great explanation. But the spring berry and the fall berry being different colors maybe they have a different phytonutrient profile.
[2:13:33] Kristen Bowen: Absolutely.
[2:13:35] Ashley James: But they offer the – they still are – like, you’re testing it to make sure that there’s vitamin C, and copper, and no heavy metals, and no pesticides or whatever. So you’re testing it for purity.
[2:13:47] Kristen Bowen: Yes. But the rainfall can make a difference. You know, how much rainfall that season got. And so there’s variances in nature and I want to see those in my food because that means I’m eating real food. Not food that’s been covered up and marketed to me that is one thing that it’s not.
[2:14:10] Ashley James: Very cool. Awesome. Well, thank you for that explanation.
Now Jennifer asked – and I love this question – “I’ve been doing the soaks for almost a year. I love them!!! I would like info again and why each of the ingredients needs to be added. How they work in the soak? Epsom salt, baking soda, and boron. Thanks.”
[2:14:31] Kristen Bowen: That’s a great one. So Epsom salts add sulfates. Magnesium chloride does not have sulfates. So Epsom salts – and I think it – was it the first one, Ashley, or the second one in our podcast interview that we went deeper into the Epsom salt?
[2:14:48] Ashley James: I feel like we did it in the second one, 341. But I just really want to clarify because so many people keep asking. “I’ve soaked in Epsom salts for years. Isn’t that enough? Don’t I get enough magnesium for soaking in Epsom salts?”
[2:15:00] Kristen Bowen: No, they don’t. They do not. Epsom salts are great for sulfates. And those are good for your liver. Magnesium chloride does not have sulfates. But Epsom salts cannot get your body to cell saturation. There’s not enough magnesium. So I add them and I just add a cup into my soak. Now I soak in the bathtub. So if you’re soaking in a foot bath, you may want to do a half a cup. And so that’s how much I add of the Epsom salts to make sure that I’m getting those good sulfates.
And then the boron, I just add a pinch, whether it’s in a foot bath or whether it’s in a bathtub. And then the baking soda, you can add anywhere from a quarter a cup to a half a cup in your foot soak. And then in my bathtub, I like to add more than that. I like the charge that I feel in the water. And so I’ll add a couple of cups in my water in the bathtub.
[2:16:03] Ashley James: Now, I didn’t do any of that.
[2:16:05] Kristen Bowen: And you don’t have to.
[2:16:07] Ashley James: I didn’t do any of that. I just soaked with the magnesium.
[2:16:10] Kristen Bowen: Keep it simple and just soak in magnesium. And that’s what I did for the first 15 years. It’s just recently we’ve learned different benefits that people have experienced. And so absolutely you can keep it simple, soak in magnesium. But if you do want to add some extra things – and please note to those people listening, I do not add them every single time. The most common soaking for me is straight magnesium. If you want to though, make sure that – like let’s say your numbers are not moving, add some baking soda in that water. It’s going to help the uptake. Add some boron in that water, it’s going to help the uptake.
[2:16:51] Ashley James: But if their numbers aren’t moving, it might be that their body’s burning. And this is we’re going to get to next. The body is burning through it quicker than it can absorb it.
[2:17:02] Kristen Bowen: Right.
[2:17:03] Ashley James: Right. I’ve also added – so I played around since learning from you about adding some stuff. I’ve added some Epsom salts sometimes because my whole thing is to support my liver. I haven’t done the baking soda yet. I’m going to try that. And then I’ve added hydrogen peroxide. Have you ever done that?
[2:17:21] Kristen Bowen: Oh, I haven’t. How has that gone?
[2:17:24] Ashley James: Well, so I heard from some people that adding hydrogen peroxide to your bath or foot soak actually will help your body increase the oxygen in your body. And I don’t know if I noticed a really big difference. Maybe a little bit of a difference. But I mean, you know, it was just a few times I tried it and just as an experiment. So I was trying that out.
[2:17:47] Kristen Bowen: [Inaudible 2:17:48] hydrogen peroxide in our – not sauna – in our jacuzzi to absorb more oxygen. But I have never even thought of doing that in my foot soak.
[2:18:00] Ashley James: Yeah. And seeing what would happen. So I played around with that. And I have put a little bit of boron in it. My friend, she uses a metal basin – and she’s a huge fan of yours, Naomi, one of the listeners. I’m doing a shout out to Naomi. The extra stuff she was adding like the baking soda and the boron or whatever, it changed the color of her basin. And so her family thought that the magnesium was going to harm the plumbing of the house because it affected the base – the metal basin. And she’s like, “No. No. It’s because I kept adding this baking soda to it.” And so for whatever reason, the metal changed color, basically.
[2:18:44] Kristen Bowen: That’s why one of the reasons that we changed so many of the metal bowls – the stainless steel bowls now are really inexpensive powder coat. And so that’s why we now recommend just soak in ceramic, stoneware, like a crock pot insert, or glass. Because so many people were having issues with the newer bowls that are just a powder coat. Not at that higher quality stainless steel from years ago. We’ve had plumbers, because I don’t want to sell something to people that’s going to harm their plumbing. And they have absolutely no concern whatsoever about magnesium causing a plumbing issue. I would not use it in jetted bathtubs.
[2:19:34] Ashley James: Don’t use magnesium in jetted bathtubs.
[2:19:36] Kristen Bowen: I wouldn’t. Because we have had some manufacturers have a concern that it would cause issues. I’ve never had anybody have feedback that it has. But where the manufacturer had concerns about the plumbing within the jetted bathtub. And so that would be a concern to me. We’ve never had that feedback. But I always want to be conservative on what I’m telling people because we don’t want to cause issues.
[2:20:06] Ashley James: Oh, sure. That makes sense. Very cool. Excellent. So to wrap up the interview, we definitely want to make sure that we fully covered how to maximize –
how to maintain. Once we’ve got – so let’s say we’ve done a 30-day soak – the 30-day challenge. We’ve gotten to 5.0 in the magnesium RBC blood test. Now, we want to get to optimal. Now, we want to get to between, like, 6 and 7. Right? And then we want to hold on to it. So we need to discover burn rate and then we need to figure out where our cracks are. And then we need to know how many times a week or a month do we soak just to maintain it. Because our bodies are constantly using up our magnesium. So walk us through that.
[2:20:52] Kristen Bowen: So what I like to have people do, if they’re interested in understanding their burn rate and how often they need to soak. After they do the 30-day challenge and they get their first number back. So let’s say, they came back at 5.4. Then soak three times a week for another 30 days. And then get tested again. And then if you went down, you know that three soaks a week was not holding your magnesium levels. If you went up, you know that that three soaks a week is going to move you to that 6.3 to 7 that we want you to be at. And so that’s going to help you determine.
And then, you know, I’ve done it for years. And so I even know -okay. In the holiday time, I know that my burn rate increases by about 20%. And so if you’re really into tracking, you can actually track during the holiday time how much you need to soak and determine during different times of your life. Because our stress levels change. Like, for example, we talked earlier with my husband and his amputations, I went back to soaking every day. I did a 30-day challenge just so that I would stay up and at my very best for him. And so understanding that burn rate and that second test of whether you go down or whether you go up.
Now, let’s say, you came in at 6 on your very first magnesium RBC test. Then only soak twice a week and see are you going to hold those numbers? Are they going down? Are they going up? And then depending on that second test, you’ll have a better idea of where you need to soak.
[2:22:44] Ashley James: How long would you wait – how many months would you wait between testing?
[2:22:48] Kristen Bowen: I like to do the first 30 -day and then do the second 30-day. So you’re doing both of those tests within a 60-day period.
[2:22:57] Ashley James: Great. And then after that, how often would you test?
[2:23:02] Kristen Bowen: You know, it just really varies. I do it because I geek out on the numbers now. And I like to have feedback loop to tell people. So that’s why I do it now as often as I do. And I only test probably about four times a year, but that’s a little excessive. I’m doing that to give people feedback and to give them that experience. I would say maybe once a year after that to be tested. After you’ve got that feel for your feedback, just to make sure that you’re maintaining. But definitely, if you wanted to do it more often or if you’re in a high crisis help situation, you definitely are going to want to do that more often.
[2:23:46] Ashley James: Now, you’ve had hundreds of customers report back to you their magnesium RBC numbers, right?
[2:23:53] Kristen Bowen: Right. Thousands now. We’re in the thousands.
[2:23:55] Ashley James: Because you’ve been collecting. You’ve been doing experiments, basically. Like clinical trials, clinical experiments with your customers, where you have them in cohorts and groups together and you do testing after the 30-day challenge. And so that’s how you were able to come to the number. I believe you shared with me 76% of people just off the street. Seventy-six percent of people after doing a 30-day challenge reached 5.0.
[2:24:22] Kristen Bowen: Yes. Most people will reach 5.0. We will have that small percentage that doesn’t. But that showing we’ve got a crack in that foundation and we need to get that figured out.
[2:24:35] Ashley James: And that’s great. It’s actually really good news to get that information. Because then we start looking where’s the crack.
[2:24:41] Kristen Bowen: And so many people will have soaked for four years and they get the benefit, which is great. But then they realize, “If I would have gotten this test four years ago, I could have dug in and really fixed this foundation.” And so I think that testing is crucial to get that.
[2:25:01] Ashley James: So that also answers Gord’s question of being frugal. The best thing to do is to go for go for the 30-day Challenge then get the blood test, see where you are. And then like you said, soak depending on where you are. If you’re still really low, we’ve got to look at the crack in the foundation. But if you’ve got to 5.0, then soak twice a week for another month and then test it. And see did it go up? Did it go down? And then adjust from there. But always look for the crack in the foundation. Because it is free to go to bed earlier. It’s free to drink more water . Like, you want to be frugal. A lot of this –
[2:25:38] Kristen Bowen: Grandma wisdom. It is grandma wisdom, baby.
[2:25:41] Ashley James: It is very affordable to eat more vegetables and eat less crap and eat less sugar. It’s free to eat less sugar or no sugar. So we can save money and save our health by looking at those –
[2:25:54] Kristen Bowen: And, Ashley, I know that my experience is really filtered by my husband’s amputation. So recognize that filter that I’m coming from. But think about it, the car that is sitting out in your driveway, you change the oil on it. You wouldn’t think of not changing the oil because of the expense of the car. Our bodies are worth so much more than that car sitting in our driveway. So much more. They’re irreplaceable. My home right now is shoved full of contraptions trying to offset that this man does not have legs. And they don’t work as well as what those beautifully design Blake’s did for him.
And so I do want to be conservative and I do want to know where every penny of my money goes. And I want to put it in the most powerful places. And building a foundation works. You stop chasing symptoms. Building a foundation reduces everything else. And so putting your money where it will build a strong foundation and taking care of my machine, that’s my body, is important and crucial to me. And coming up with and finding ways to support that, it’s where you put your importance.
You know, I was talking to a lady the other day and she said, “I just can’t afford to go get tested.” And she said, “Kristen, what do I do?” And I said, “Do you really want to know my opinion on this? Or you’re just throwing words at me?” She goes, “No. I really want to know.” I said, “Okay. As I’m looking at you, I can tell that you have very expensive hair upkeep and nail upkeep. And there are places that you’re putting your money that you’re saying this is what I value. You’re saying you want to be healthy but you’re not putting your money where you are saying you want your growth to be. And so you’ve got to determine. And maybe you’ll miss a salon day or two, take that money and put it on building that strong foundation for your body.” And because she was a good friend, she put her arms around me and said, “You’re right. I’ll of think about it.”
But you know, we put our money on what we value. Those cars, we value and we change their oil and we upkeep them. And I value my body and it took a complete health crash on my end before I really understood the value that I’d been given with my body. And so to me, I don’t see it as expensive. I see it as investing in the gift that I was given for my body.
[2:28:48] Ashley James: I’ll give you a good one. I loved it when I heard this one. I just loved it. I have a $200,000 Lamborghini brand new for sale for you. You’re thinking to yourself, “I don’t have $200,000 o put into a Lamborghini right now.” Not many listeners have $200,000 sitting in the bank account ready to hand to me for this gorgeous Lamborghini. Okay. And it’s a total deal. It’s only $200,000 for this Lamborghini. I’m selling it to you. But Kristen, if I were to say that I will sell to you for $70. Can you come up with $70?
[2:29:29] Kristen Bowen: Yeah, I can.
[2:29:30] Ashley James: To buy that Lamborghini?
[2:29:32] Kristen Bowen: Yeah.
[2:29:33] Ashley James: And I mean, I could – if people aren’t into cars, I could say, “I have $1 million house for you and Seattle. Gorgeous million dollar house. But I’m going to sell two for $70. No strings attached. No catch. It’s just $70.” So everyone listening goes, “I can come up with $70.” Because the value is this huge like, “Oh my gosh. I’m going to get a $200, whatever, big car. I’m going to get a million dollar home for $70.” Right?
But when you say do this blood test that’s $50 or $49 and it’s going to help you to dial in and figure out what’s going on. All of a sudden it’s, “I can’t afford that.” And then the next day they go to a restaurant and spend $50 on food at a restaurant. So it’s really about mindset. If we can figure out and put our priorities, like you said, in order. And I’m not saying you have to spend like millions or thousands and thousands of dollars to get healthy. There’s tons of, like you said, free things because most of the foundation –
[2:30:32] Kristen Bowen: Grandma wisdom.
[2:30:34] Ashley James: Grandma wisdom. Most of the foundation of health –
[2:30:35] Kristen Bowen: [Inaudible 2:30:35].
[2:30:35] Ashley James: Right. But that when we hear about something like a magnesium soak or sauna, whatever, it has a price tag. Or acerola cherry powder has – everything has a price tag. Mentally, if we go, “I can’t afford that. That sounds too expensive.” Because I am talking from my experiences what I used to do. “I can’t do that. That’s too expensive.” It was this little voice in my head. And that would raise my cortisol and raise my stress levels. And then inside my head I’d go, “I could never get healthy because I could never afford that.” And this little voice would just sit there on my shoulder and tell me, “I can’t do it because of this. I can’t do it because of this.”
And yet I’ll spend the money, like you said, on the oil change or on a restaurant or on these other things. And it’s like, “Wait a second. I can afford it but some little voice in my head said I can’t.” And so I figured out how to get to Sunlighten Sauna. I didn’t pay all at once. They have a payment plan system and I got on it. And it was like the cost of a credit card payment every month. And I’m paying off my sauna. But for me, it was worth it. Absolutely worth it because of the results I was getting. So we have to prioritize and figure out what is worth it for us. But just make sure that that little voice in our head that says, “I can’t afford that,” that that little voice isn’t increasing our cortisol and stopping us from taking action. Because there’s lots of free things that are really, really affordable things we can do. Like go out and put our feet in the ground every day and ground ourselves.
[2:32:06] Kristen Bowen: That light in the morning. Sleep in a dark room. That doesn’t cost anything. And literally, the emails, since I really started pressing this end to a group of women that I work with, the emails, “Kristen, of all the things we’ve talked about, this has made the biggest difference.” And so there are so many things that we can do to create that help and build that strong foundation.
[2:32:34] Ashley James: Absolutely. I love it. Thank you so much. I can’t believe it’s been two and a half hours. It feels like five minutes.
[2:32:44] Kristen Bowen: Oh my gosh. Ashley, we did it again.
[2:32:45] Ashley James: We did it again. This has been wonderful having you back. And really answering a lot of questions that a bunch of listeners have been asking. And you are so active in our Facebook Group. Thank you so much for coming into the Learn True Health Facebook Group for the last year.
It’s been over a year. I think it’s been about almost a-year-and-a-half that we’ve been working together. I’d have to go back and look when we published the first episode. But it’s definitely been over a year. And it’s been wonderful working with you. You are so loving and compassionate and authentic. And you really – you’re hurt. You truly want people to be healthy.
And please, listeners, go back and listen to Kristen’s first interview if you haven’t already, Episode 294. Because her story just moved me to tears. And it also allows us to illustrate that wherever we are, no matter how sick or unhealthy or wherever we are in our healing journey right now that there is hope. That we can heal. That the body has the amazing ability to heal itself and we can get better.
I healed my chronic adrenal fatigue, my type 2 diabetes, and my polycystic ovarian syndrome, and my infertility. I no longer have those issues. So you can heal your body too, right? It takes time. It takes that dedication. Like you said, it takes grandma wisdom. But we’re going to get there. So thank you, Kristen.
[2:34:10] Kristen Bowen: And action. Taking action.
[2:34:12] Ashley James: Yes. Right. Taking action. Knowing the grandma wisdom and taking action.
But thank you, Kristen, for coming today and answering all those questions, teaching us what we can do to hold on to our magnesium, and discover our burn rate, and maximize everything.
And listeners can go to livingthegoodlifenaturally.com Use coupon code LTH to get the discount that Kristen gives us. And once in a while Kristen gives us some really great specials as well and we announce those in the Facebook Group. So come join the Learn True Health Facebook Group because we always have something awesome going on there. And Kristen, whenever she holds a special just for Learn True Health listeners, she lets me know and then I post it in the Facebook Group. It’s been such a pleasure having you back, Kristen. Thank you so much.
[2:35:00] Kristen Bowen: The feeling is mutual. Ashley, thank you.
[2:35:01] Ashley James: This has been wonderful. And I can’t believe two-and-a-half hours went by. But you know, we will just talk all day long if I wasn’t looking at the clock. So it’s been great. And I know listeners are going to jump in the Facebook Group and ask you more questions after having you on. So everyone who’s still has questions for Kristen, come in the Facebook Group and ask them and we will continue this discussion there. Thanks so much. And go enjoy the rest of your day with your wonderful husband.
[2:35:29] Kristen Bowen: Oh, thank you.
[2:35:34] Ashley James: Awesome, that’s a wrap. How do you feel it went?
[2:35:36] Kristen Bowen: Oh, great. Hey, should we do a giveaway in the Facebook Group?
[2:35:42] Ashley James: Sure. Yes.
[2:35:44] Kristen Bowen: Okay. Let’s do a giveaway in the Facebook Group. Let’s do a magnesium soak and the muscle cream and the acerola cherry powder.
[2:35:55] Ashley James: Oh. Oh, that’s wonderful. Thank you.
[2:35:57] Kristen Bowen: And we’ll do that to people.
[2:36:00] Ashley James: So three different winners?
[2:36:02] Kristen Bowen: Yeah.
[2:36:04] Ashley James: Okay, great. Thank you so much.
[2:36:07] Kristen Bowen: Yeah. Just to jumpstart people listening to this episode. Or I don’t know. However you want to run that. But let’s do that for three people that they’ll get the muscle cream, the jug, and the acerola.
[2:36:21] Ashley James: Or not and, right?
[2:36:22] Kristen Bowen: Everything. Like each person will get all three of those.
[2:36:27] Ashley James: Oh my gosh. That’s amazing. Thank you. Sorry. I thought you were saying like one person gets a cherry powder, one person gets –
[2:36:31] Kristen Bowen: No. Sorry. No. Each person. Because we want them to experience the benefits of that cherry powder at the same time that they’re soaking. It makes such a difference when they’re doing both. And then I just love that muscle cream.
[2:36:45] Ashley James: That muscle cream is best. The muscle team is amazing. I’ve used like – I mean, not that I’m in pain all the time. But I’ve used like 12 different kinds of muscle creams from various companies. They’re all natural. And yours is amazing. And I’ve shared it with other people.
Oh, I had a friend over the other day and got her to soak. I forgot to say this. I’ll just include it. So listeners are still listening right now because I’m not going to edit this out. But I had a friend over, she has two giant six inch scars on either side of her ankle. She shattered her ankle less than a year ago. She was in a full leg – it was, like, a huge cast. She couldn’t walk. Giant scars. And she’s in constant pain. And she’s had to change her whole life because, basically, her – and she has young kids – tiny kids. And her family has to take care of her because she hasn’t been able to walk. And she just started kind of walking around. But she can’t clean the house because she’s in constant pain. So I said, “You come over here.” She sat in the magnesium soak. She could not believe it. She was almost in tears. She said her pain was gone. She’s like, “I can’t believe this.” She’s like, “I’ve been looking for something that’s natural because I don’t want to be addicted to pain meds.” And I gave her some of the muscle cream and she said it was amazing. She loves it. It’s so great for that local pain in her joint from the surgery. Now, it’s healed, but it’s still constantly in pain.
And I said to her what you said, which is that, when we’re magnesium deficient, the pain receptors can’t turn off. And she was just blown away that in one soak her pain went away. And she texted me hours later and says, “I can’t believe I’m out of pain. This is amazing.”
[2:38:25] Kristen Bowen: When you get those pain receptors communicating with the right balance of magnesium and calcium, it makes a difference.
[2:38:34] Ashley James: I love it. I love it. So fantastic for pain. And what you talked about before in the other episodes, the cream is not to get you to full cell saturation but it’s great for localized. If ever my husband I get headaches – because we’re really sensitive that way if we don’t drink enough water, if we’re sitting at the computer too long, or if we’re kind of, like, we need to go to the chiropractor, the first thing our body says, “headache” to tell us like, “oh, I’ve got some muscle tension.”
[2:39:00] Kristen Bowen: Not too much computer time. And so now what I do is I just have a little tub of it by my computer and I put it on as I get on.
[2:39:09] Ashley James: Oh. A preventive. Ha, ha, ha. Very smart.
[2:39:12] Kristen Bowen: And I just know. And I run my business from my computer and I’m on the computer a lot. And I minimize. I take breaks kind of thing. But I’ve just started using it preventative and I like it better than waiting until the headache shows up at the end of the day.
[2:39:31] Ashley James: Yeah. Because it’s a tension – it’s a muscle tension headache from just holding your upper traps. Just holding – you know ,my mom used to say, “Don’t wear your shoulders as earrings.” Because I just noticed, I just get all that tension is right up in my shoulders. And so she’s going to drop them. Drop them. Relax.
But yeah, that muscle cream is great for that. And then soaking is great for everything else.
[2:39:52] Kristen Bowen: Permaculture olive oil is really what sets it apart, Ashley. It’s got the magnesium. And it’s got all the great – the real vitamin E, not synthetic. But that permaculture olive oil that my husband scored for us – oh my goodness – it’s literally what just sets it apart from other muscle creams.
[2:40:14] Ashley James: And you know, I’ve actually tasted it. So I read the ingredients, it’s all the stuff that would be okay with having on my tongue or in my mouth in small amounts. But I was like, “I wonder how much magnesium she actually put in this cream.” Right? And so I taste it. I’m like, “Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It’s in there.”
[2:40:30] Kristen Bowen: [Inaudible 2:40:31] has more than the lotion. Because the cream, the emulsification can hold more than the lotion does.
[2:40:40] Ashley James: Yeah. So I love that muscle cream. Thank you so much for doing a giveaway for the listeners. That’s awesome.
[2:40:46] Kristen Bowen: That’s my love language. I love to give gifts.
[2:40:50] Ashley James: That’s fantastic. Well, I really appreciate that. So three lucky listeners are going to win a magnesium soak, acerola cherry powder, and the muscle cream. And they’ll go to Learn True Health Facebook Group to participate in the giveaway.
[2:41:05] Kristen Bowen: And however you want to set that up, what they need to do, Ashley, I’ll just make sure when we know who the winners are that our warehouse will ship it to them.
[2:41:14] Ashley James: Yeah. Well, I’ll post it in the group. I usually like to say, “Tell me something you love learning from this episode.” And so it’s like a little fun quiz. And then it’s great, because then everyone learns from each other’s answers.
[2:41:27] Kristen Bowen: Oh, yeah. Well, and the other thing when they articulate what they’ve learned, it puts it in a different loop in their brain and they remember it. So that’s a great way to do it.
[2:41:37] Ashley James: Absolutely. All right. Well, we’re going to do that. Thank you so much. And listeners who are still listening, you guys win extra bonus points because you’re still here listening after two-hours-and-45 minutes.
Thank you so much, Kristen, for coming on the show you.
[2:41:51] Kristen Bowen: Thank you, Ashley.
[2:41:52] Ashley James: This is so wonderful. And thank you for the giveaway. This is great.
[2:41:54] Kristen Bowen: Oh, you’re welcome. That’s fun.
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Recommended Reading by Kristen Bowen
Healing Is Voltage by Jerry L. Tennant
