Like pretty much everyone else in the world today, I’m busy. Between taking care of my toddler, working from home, attempting to cook healthy meals with said toddler in my arms, and occasionally scrounging up enough time to throw some dumbbells around in my basement, life is pretty go-go-go—and I often feel like I barely have enough gas in the tank to keep up.
Let me guess: You’re thinking, That’s what coffee is for! I know, I know. The thing is, coffee (and anything stimulating) usually leaves me feeling too tightly wound. I want to love it, but it just doesn’t love me.
Without a caffeine crutch to rely on, I spend more time than I’d care to admit in the trenches of fatigue.
A couple of months ago, I started seriously considering the potential culprits behind my around-the-clock exhaustion. Sure, there was the obvious fact that I’d spend much of the last two years up multiple times a night with my baby. And was I probably trying to overachieve with work and home life? You bet. But there was another factor I knew needed tending to: my nutrition.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m what most people would dub a “health nut.” I don’t really eat processed foods and even my breakfast usually contains some form of vegetable. After almost two years of breastfeeding, though, my body had become a black hole for nutrients and I started to feel pretty depleted, even despite my colorful, balanced meals.
So, I upped my protein and made sure I always had snacks at-the-ready, which definitely boosted my focus when working and kept me feeling more alive in between meals. And then, one day, I was reading an Instagram post about how depleted soil, filtered water, and other factors can leave us low in minerals, which are important for all sorts of body functions, from nerve transmission and cell growth to hormone regulation.
Coincidentally (or maybe not so coincidentally, given the algorithms), I came across another post that same day in which a mom suggested that adding trace mineral drops to her water had been massively helpful for feeling more like a human throughout her postpartum recovery.
Adding Minerals To My Routine
Honestly, that was enough for me. (Well done, algorithm!) Within an hour of seeing that second post, I’d added a bottle of Trace Minerals ConcenTrace Trace Minerals Drops to my cart—and a few days later, it showed up on my doorstep.
At first, I was super-careful to follow the bottle instructions when adding the drops to my water. The drops are made from concentrated seawater, which means that they are both packed with dozens of naturally occurring minerals our body needs and that going too hard on them can cause a very real laxative effect. I started with the recommended 10 drops per day for a few days, and then slowly increased from there. (You can take up to 40 drops throughout the day.)
Even on that very first day: shock and awe. I sipped down a glass of water with minerals added before running downstairs for a quick strength workout and about halfway through (when I often started to fade) realized that I was killing it. I squatted my heavy weights with ease and churned out a few extra pushups up off my knees every single set. I practically ran up the stairs afterward to tell my husband what a beast I was.
Staying On The Bandwagon
Since then, I’ve done my best to remember to get my minerals in throughout the day. Of course, modern mom life is still generally insane, so I won’t pretend I’m 100 percent consistent here, but the energy boost I feel from these itty-bitty minerals really helps me power through everything from answering emails to reading bedtime stories without any not-so-nice side effects and a true sense that I’m doing something to give my body what it needs to meet the demands of the day.
Recently, I’ve even gotten my husband on board. He now uses the minerals before and during recreational cycling events and training rides to ensure he’s not depleted by the literal buckets of sweat that pour out of him when he’s on the bike. Modern life demands a lot of us, and it feels good to know something as simple as some extra minerals can help our bodies thrive.