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Hello and welcome to the Own Your Health Podcast. I'm Cyndi Lynne and I can't wait to help you step into your health power. We're continuing our fall series, our Happy New Year in Fall series this week talking about supplements. Now, a few months back in the Get Started series, I did an episode about supplements and getting started on supplements.
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And if you got started then, or if you've been taking supplements for many, many years, this will be a good episode for you. This time of year is a great time to reassess your supplement protocol. Now, when I use the word protocol, it probably sounds complicated or it sounds like something that had to be prescribed for you, but really your personal protocol is what you take, how you take it, why you're taking it, how long you're going to take it.
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It's the purpose behind why you choose, what you choose to put in your body to supplement nutrition wise. So in the same way that there's exercise protocols and, and you know, medical protocols, supplement protocols should, be very intentional based on what you want to accomplish and what you want to help with your health.
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When we talked about getting started, we talked about the fact that you can't really address everything, everything at one time. It would really be kind of overload. And so when you began taking supplements, you chose one health area to focus on. We can reassess that.
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In fact, it's important to do so. And this is a good time of year as we change seasons, as we head into holidays, eventually as we head into potentially more travel. If that's what you do in the winter months, it's a good time to reassess your, your supplement protocol.
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Why are you taking what you're taking? And that's a funny question because people will automatically think they know. But very often if you hold up any given supplement and ask why are you taking this? The reasons might be forgotten or you may have at the time that you selected it, read through everything, major choices, and then went ahead with your supplementing.
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And that's great. We really don't want to be remaking decisions all of the time, but we do need to revisit periodically. If you were taking a supplement because you were deficient in it, based on blood work or symptoms, we can reevaluate.
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Are you still deficient? Does your blood work still look the same or has it improved? Has your, have your symptoms improved? Did you start the supplement on a little bit higher of a dose with the intent that once your symptoms subsided or your blood work got in a normal range that you would then taper off or go to a maintenance type dose.
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It's different for everyone. But these are the kind of questions you should consider. Did you feel like you have addressed a particular health issue at a certain time and you want to move, on to focusing on another health, health issue? We don't always want to continue adding, adding, adding.
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If we can let things fall away that either no longer serve us, maybe they didn't alleviate the symptoms or make the changes in your body that you'd like, or you've completed that course and you can move on to addressing something else.
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So taking supplements is a very active process because you want to understand when you look at your protocol and I encourage you to write it down, how much you're taking, what you're starting out with, how long you intend to take, that, two, three months can slip by very quickly.
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And if you had a protocol that you intended to do for 90 days and then evaluate again, that 90 days sometimes can come and go very quickly and we don't do that evaluation step to see if we want to continue taking that supplement. Is there other forms of that supplement that you may want to take in a rotation?
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This is very often done with magnesium, depending on the purpose, the reason that you're primarily taking the magnesium, but the body can often respond differently to different forms. I also did a full episode on the different types of magnesium and why you may want to take them.
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I can link that in this show notes, in these show notes as well. So, that's your protocol, that's why you're doing what you're doing. You may have a new intention, you may have a new health focus that you're working on, or it may be going into a season of heavy travel and mixing with a lot of different people.
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And you may want to add a focus on immune support, or you may want to add a focus on sleep support. So pick what works for you, continue, bring that forward and then look and see what other things you may want to address.
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Update your protocol, document the reason that you wanted to, what was your thought process? I find myself reading a great article or picking up a study and following it through and thinking, yes, this is, this all makes sense. And this is why I want to do this.
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This is why I want to take this and this amount for this period of time. And, and then I forget about it. I take the supplements, I get it all set up, and then I forget about the study. And if it was supposed to be an increasing dose A decreasing dose.
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So really go back to your documents, your resources, your reason for taking your supplements, and gather a folder when you see something interesting, when you hear something interesting, make some notes. See how it fits with your protocol.
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See if it's something you may do in the future. See if it's something that you are already doing and can tweak a little bit. This is a very active process. It's a very vital process. You are working to make changes in your body. And anytime we do that, we want to assess and adjust.
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And that process, although it can seem scary at first, is integral to owning your health, is evaluating what works, making a decision, what do you want to change? It's also a good time to take a look at your supplements themselves.
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Supplements as well as any medications you take over, counter, over the counter medications that you may have. Pull everything out. Look at the dates, how long have they been around? If they're past date, by all means get rid of them.
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If it's something that you like to have on hand, maybe it's time to make that shopping list and go out and get a fresh supply. As we head into the winter season and you want to have things on hand, and make sure that what you're taking is fresh and is the very best quality.
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You may start out with the supplement and give it a try. You may learn more about new forms or about where the company makes products. And we can continually improve and upgrade the quality of what we take, especially in supplements that are really working for us and that we want to continue.
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So it is an ongoing process while you're at it, and this is a little bit outside of supplements, but while you're in that area of the bathroom or the closet, take a look too. If there's any other sort of supplies, bandages, peroxide, alcohol, any of those kinds of things that we keep on hand in that same general area of the house, usually, if it's a time for refresh.
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So people don't realize that things like bandages expire. They do for a couple of reasons. One, the adhesive actually gets old and either sticks too much or not at all. And the packaging that keeps the bandages sterile also can fail after a certain number of years.
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So it's just a good time to give a good clean to your health supplement and first aid supply cabinet. So I'm going to cut it off there because that's very focused and I want you to take the time to go ahead and do that, Document your protocol, sort through what's serving you, what's no longer serving you.
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Let that fall away and refresh anything that needs refreshing. So until next week, let's go out and own it. The information contained in this podcast is provided for educational purposes only.
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It is not intended as medical advice. I am a nurse, but I'm not your nurse. Please see your personal health care provider for any concerns.
