How to Detox from Heavy Metals

Sometimes the healthiest thing you can do is stop trying to “fix” everything—especially yourself—and let wellness be simple again.

In this solo episode of Wellness in Every Season, Autumn shares a bit of the heart behind why she started the podcast: to “manage her fixer,” create space for people to feel safe, and offer guidance without rushing past the root of what’s really going on. From there, she dives into a practical, back-to-basics topic that’s showing up everywhere lately—saunas—and why they can be a powerful (and surprisingly accessible) support for stress recovery, detox support, and overall wellbeing.

Autumn talks through how she’s been using sauna sessions alongside her own health protocols (including supporting her body as it detoxes), and why you don’t need an expensive retreat or fancy wellness gadget to benefit. You’ll hear a simple, realistic starting point: 15 minutes, 2–3 times per week, and how to make it sustainable using tools like habit stacking, the stages of change, and small “rubber bumper” supports that keep you from falling off your routine.

And if a sauna isn’t available? Autumn offers grounded alternatives like hot Epsom salt baths, foot soaks, and magnesium support options—plus the bigger reminder: your body gives feedback when you slow down long enough to listen.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction and Podcast Purpose
• 1:13 The Benefits of Saunas
• 4:35 Stages of Change
• 7:09 Incorporating Saunas into Your Routine
• 11:55 Epsom Salt Baths and Detoxing
• 14:51 Final Thoughts and Encouragement

Transcript

Hello again. I am so grateful that you are continuing to listen and to share this episode and other episodes. It means a lot to me. My goal in all of this was to help other people and to, it's called Manage My Fixer. It happens in coaching. Where instead of letting the person really have the space to come up with their own answers and to feel safe, where I quickly jump in and try and fix things for them.

And the problem with that is that we never get to the root of the problem. So I started my podcast before I ever took on paid clients, it was when I was still going through my certification and it was. This is my space where I can offer my advice so I'm not doing it in sessions. So those are the two reasons why I started, and it's been so fun to see the show grow and to see that it's resonating with other people.

So today we are talking about saunas and why they're so good for you.

Welcome to Wellness. In every season, we talk all things wellness, to help you align yourself, align with your goals, find balance in your life, and just recalibrate yourself if you are listening for the first time. Welcome, welcome. I'm so glad you're here, and let's get started in the rest of the podcast.

I have been noticing a big difference for myself as I spend more time in the sauna. I don't spend a lot of time in the sauna and I don't do it every day. My body is detoxing from Mercury and one of the really great ways to get rid of it is sweating it out, as well as taking a compound to help it clump together to get outta my body.

So let's talk about saunas. Some people, and I've heard of this and it's yes, I totally wanna do this, and then I wanna do this for other people. And it's that whole marketing thing, right? Where we have this ideas that we need to buy a thing or go do a thing that, like it's the spending money thing in order to have our health.

But if we look back at. What has worked over time for people, it's more of the wellness lifestyle. What is that? So wellness lifestyle really goes back to getting more in tune with yourself. So it that slowing down anti-stress and really what are my needs right now? So if you're craving a food, why are you craving it?

Because it can go back to an emotional need, or it could go into, maybe you're missing this vitamin or mineral and that's, your body's telling you, you're craving that for that reason. So it can go either direction, right? And so many times it's take a pill, take vitamins, take a vacation to a specific resort that offers a specific thing or go on.

Retreat, whatever. There's a lot of good with it. I, do all of those things, but that doesn't mean that you need to, so a lot of us have joined a gym. Have you checked out their sauna room?

Let me tell you about sauna. It's, you're in there for 30 minutes or less. The sweet spot is actually 15. And we are so pendulum in the way that we think, right? Human nature, and maybe you need to accept that and know that you're gonna get here and here and then try to stay here in this middle ground.

But with the sauna, 15 minutes is really good a couple times a week, and it's really easy to put into your workout routine. And you need to realize this. 

I was talking to somebody in the sauna about this, and it goes with the stages of change that are right behind my head right here that you can't really read them, but let me read them off to you and then we'll start there.

Stages of change. I'm gonna take my microphone over here with me. So it starts here. It's pre-contemplation. This means you have no intention of changing the behavior. The next stage that you go to is contemplation. You're aware of the problem, but you don't have a plan to change it or you don't plan to change it.

Preparation is you're planning to take action. Then you have action. You're actively making new habits. Then there's maintenance, sustained change with new behaviors, and the last one is you relapse and fall back into old habits when triggered. This is actually the most important part of the stage of change is the relapse, because that's when you start to really realize this is what's causing me to fall back into this behavior that I don't want or to not do this new behavior that I do want.

That's when you start to have that grit come into place. This is where you start to put in, think of bowling. The best way that I can bowl is when I have those the buffers, the, I hate this brain fog. It drives me crazy, but the rubber, bumpers. Bumpers, that's what it's called. They're bumpers. This is when you start to put those in your life so that you can't go out of bounds as easily.

If we're talking about going to the sauna and going to the gym, maybe it's finding a friend to join the gym with you. Maybe it's finding a routine, like a drive home or to work that is along that same path as the gym. Maybe it's having your gym clothes picked out first thing in the morning, so they're right there on your dresser first thing in the morning.

That's what I do. I was putting away laundry. I just didn't put away the gym clothes. I put that pair on my dresser for tomorrow. It's building your routine around the thing that you want to do, but falling off of that routine is what gets you back through those stages of change and where you actually make the change on whatever you want to do.

So for me it was wanting to do the sauna because it was recommended from the functional medicine nurse to go to a sauna. And I've heard this tons of times before, but my thinking, 'cause you know that whole, you make things harder than they have to be, is I don't wanna drive all the way to the gym just to use the sauna.

And then it was, wait, I'm already going to the gym. Why don't I just add it onto what I'm already doing? How many times do we make things harder? And then we have this moment and we're like duh. So I just go across the street because we have the warehouse where I play pickleball that is attached to my gym, but it's across the street from the regular gym.

And it's not a busy street, but it's still because enough cars parked there. It could feel a little bit like plain frogger to get across. So it's right there. I go to another gym, depending on class. There's two gym locations and the sauna is even more on the way. I just have to go downstairs and through the locker room to get there.

So it's just adding it into what's already my routine. It's called habit stacking. I love that concept. For me though, it's that pendulum. I wanna have it stack a whole bunch of stuff. So then one, one doesn't work. It's that House of Cards idea. Maybe it's having less, wanting to do less for me, but sauna, couple times a week, two to three times a week, 15 minutes.

Right now I just set a timer for 10 minutes. I'm getting up to 15 and there's people who, there was one guy in there, he's trying to make it to 30 minutes talking loud, cussing every other word. And I wanted to tell him to shut up so bad. And then I realized, hold on. That's a reflection on me, not on him.

What am I trying to control? And I can just spend this time to meditate. So for me, I try not to be on my phone and because I am trying to reinforce meditation, for me it's, I'm putting myself in those situations where it's already there. So yoga class, the sauna. I have a massage chair. That's my meditation space.

I need to remember, not to be reading my Kindle at that time, but he was sitting there and he had this huge jug of water and he kept pouring it on himself. That defeats the purpose of the sauna, so you're actually supposed to sweat, which feels really weird. You'll start sweating in places you don't normally sweat.

It feels really weird to feel those drifts of sweat going down those places, but what I've noticed is how much better I feel afterward. Yeah, and for me, especially with getting the mercury moving and out of my body, that's important. But how many of us have toxins in our body and don't even know it? This mercury happened in my childhood and I've finally relieved enough stress in my life that my body wants to get rid of it.

So this actually helps your body to get into a state of relaxation. I know weird being in a sauna. And there are studies that actually cold plunges aren't as good for women. It's actually being more heat saunas, so it makes sense why the females wanna be hot, the hot showers and hot baths, all the men that make fun of us for it.

There, there's a lot of scientific data about why saunas are good for us. That doesn't mean you need to go out and buy one and build one in your house and then never use it. If you already have a gym membership, find a class that you really wanna do and start building into that habit, and then add the sauna on top of it.

And what can you do to make this feel like a reward? Because, let's go back to caveman style, or even when you were a child, you probably learned how to potty train, or you probably potty trained your children using a sticker chart. Or some kind of reward at the end of it. What can you do to reward yourself along the way?

That really helps you get through the stages to change better and know along the way that you're gonna fall off the bandwagon and that is where you are putting into place Other things to help you have what I was saying before, the rubber bumpers to make sure your bowling ball is going down the lane and not ending up in the gutter.

So you're actually doing your goal, so that is saunas. 

You don't have a sauna. Another alternative. I actually do both and it makes a big difference because I have been low on magnesium like my whole life. I actually think that it goes back to my mom. I know for a fact she's been low on magnesium her whole life.

And if your mother did not have all the nutrients that were needed while you were growing and developing, you might still be missing them from your own body, if that makes sense. So if you think about generational trauma, that also goes through with nutrition, right? Things that have been lacking through the generational line, you're still lacking, but you'll need more of.

So for me, that would be electrolytes, not just magnesium. So one of the things that I am adding into my life and making it more non-negotiable and feel, yes it can be a treat, but I see it as more of a necessity now than I did before, is taking a bath with Epson salt and I like to take it hot instead of cold.

And. I feel a difference with that too. So I've added those two things together. So realize that you don't need to go on, if you've heard of these before, special detoxing retreats, you can do this at home or in your hometown. So for me, it's both right? Because I have my Epsom salt bath that I'm taking and I'm taking it hot, so it's allowing me to sweat.

And I'm also doing the sauna, and it's made a huge difference in my life. And this is something that I will be recommending to my clients as well, is do this because it helps. So try those two things on, see if you can add those to your routine or your diet. If you don't have a bath, there are epso sprays or magnesium sprays.

It's epso salt. You can find lotions that have it. I have not found a brand that I like for lotion yet, so if you find one, let me know. You can do a foot bath, an Epsom salt foot bath. You don't even need to have those special fun little bath tub for your feet. You can just use a bucket.

You can go really low cost on all of this, and you can buy Epsom salt in bulk, which is cheaper. So remember that you don't need to overcomplicate things and that if you really can't think of a way to have a sauna in your life, it's fine. Start with a Epsom salt bath and then go from there. Know that you don't need to do everything at once.

The point of this podcast is to listen to things. If they resonate with you, try it on. If it feels like not right now. Then just bookmark it for later in your brain. Or you can even bookmark the podcast. You can download it, you can save that episode and you can come back to it later. What I want you to do is take things that feel like, yes, I need this in my life right now, and go with it.

And the nice thing is that when you start putting more of the things that you need in your life on the other things tend to naturally slough off, go away. And that makes such a big difference. And then we still need to, a couple times a year have that moment of what else do I need to get rid of and do that declutter of the thoughts that you have in your head about yourself, of your routine, of things around you, 

Maybe even detoxing from friends or decluttering your friend group and putting in new things in your life. So I hope this helps and this resonates for you. There is a lot to be said about taking Epsom salt baths several times a week and about going to the sauna several times a week.

And there are so many other things that. We have new gadgets coming out all the time that they put a wellness stamp on, and some of them are amazing, but a lot of them are replacing the tried and true. It's been around for a long time type of things like taking a bath with Epsom salt, going to a sauna, drinking enough water, having a rainbow colored diet.

Eating enough fruits and vegetables. The, thing is, we need to go back to the basics here. So that's the point of me having some of these solos on is to bring you back to here's what the basics are and here's what I'm trying on that we've heard from experts that I've interviewed and other places that I've been to

try it on. See if it works for you. See if it resonates for you. If you know somebody else who's struggling in a specific thing, have them try it. So here's what I've noticed in my own life in regards to the bath side of things and the electrolyte side of things. After I would take a bath, then my eyes would be twitching like crazy, and it's one of those, hold on, I thought if you had twitches within any of your muscles, and mine always start in my eyes.

Unless I am pregnant, which I'm done by the way, in case you're wondering, I would get to Charlie Horse on my leg while I was pre pregnant in, in the middle of sleeping. So annoying, so painful. But that is a late indication that you are low on electrolytes, especially magnesium. It was interesting to me that I would take a bath and then the next day I would have muscle, twitches.

I found out that you can become, and I was so depleted that your body, when it's processing it, then it starts twitching. So it means you need even more of the thing. So it really goes back to how do we get to a spot in our lives where we're really tuning in with our bodies? So think about that. What is standing in the way of you quieting your brain and quieting your body enough to really tune in?

What can you do about it? No excuses. What can you do about it? Remember that you are in control of your life. That's what I love about being an adult. PS I love being an adult, being over being a child, probably because of my childhood, or no, absolutely because of my childhood. But remember, you are in control.

And while we're talking about it, let's go back to parenting for a second. How can you give up control in the parenting realm and let your children have more of a say in things? 'cause it feels like it'll add more stress, but I promise you in the end it does not. Because if you let them have more opinions, then they're more invested in whatever it is, which means less stress for you.

So see you in the next episode.

Thank you so much for listening to this episode. I hope that you found the answers that you needed, and you had some amazing aha moments. Please share this episode with others because it helps us align ourselves and then better align the world so that we can seek the healing that we really are looking for as part of the legal language.

I am a certified life coach with a Bachelor's in Applied Health. That is what I am leaning on for this. This is general advice. Take it as such. See you in the next episode.