142. Hair Tissue Mineral Analysis for Women Running on Empty

If you’re waking up tired, dragging through the afternoon, and wondering why you still feel depleted despite eating well, exercising, and getting decent sleep—you are not alone. So many midlife women are told their labs are “normal,” yet they still don’t feel like themselves.

In this episode, I sit down with naturopathic doctor and functional medicine expert Jennifer Nelson-Hawks to talk about one of the most overlooked pieces of midlife health: minerals and electrolytes. We dive into why sodium, potassium, magnesium, and calcium play such a critical role in energy, stress resilience, sleep, hormone balance, and overall wellbeing—and why standard blood work often misses the bigger picture.

Jennifer shares how her own experience with burnout and grief led her to discover Hair Tissue Mineral Analysis (HTMA), and how this testing has helped women uncover hidden imbalances contributing to fatigue, brain fog, inflammation, joint pain, and stubborn weight struggles.

In this episode:

03:04] – Why “normal” lab work doesn’t always mean you’re healthy or thriving

04:22] – The difference between conventional lab ranges and optimal health ranges

[07:18] – Why midlife women are especially vulnerable to mineral depletion

09:30] – The connection between burnout, stress, and cellular energy depletion

[12:05] – How sodium and potassium impact adrenal function and daily energy

[14:57] – What Hair Tissue Mineral Analysis (HTMA) can reveal that blood work may miss

[16:12] – The surprising link between mineral imbalances, joint pain, and bone health

[18:46] – How custom mineral support can help improve sleep, clarity, and resilience

Links and Resources:

Jennifer Nelson-Hawks, BCND, is a Board-Certified Doctor of Naturopathy, author of Your Labs Are Lying, and founder of Jennifer Hawks Health. With over 20 years of experience in holistic and functional medicine, she helps high-functioning women who feel dismissed by "normal" labs uncover the real drivers behind their fatigue, stubborn weight, and digestive struggles using advanced testing. Through her signature Unstoppable Method™, she turns complex data into clear, personalized strategies so women can restore energy, confidence, and lasting resilience.

Instagram: ND + Mineral Maven + Gut Health Expert (@jenniferhawkshealth) 

Facebook: Jennifer Hawks Health | Jackson WY

Link to Freebie Electrolyte Opt-in | JH Health

Connect with me, Sara Poldmae:

• Website: https://risingwomanproject.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drsarapoldmae

If this episode resonated with you, I’d love for you to share it with someone who needs to hear it. Don’t forget to follow, rate, and leave a review—it helps more women find this space so we can all rise and thrive together

Transcript

Sara Poldmae: 0:01

Sarah, welcome to menopause. Rise and thrive. I am Dr Sarah pulled May, and this podcast is your go to guide for navigating perimenopause and menopause. If you are feeling a little overwhelmed, trust me, you are in great company. Each week, I'll bring you expert advice, raw, honest conversations and simple tips to help you stay grounded and maybe even find some humor in the process. Let's rise thrive and tackle this wild ride together. Welcome back to the podcast. Everyone I am Dr Sarah pulled may with menopause, rise and thrive. I am super excited to have Jennifer Nelson hawks on the show. Jennifer is a board certified doctor of naturopathy, author of your labs are lying and founder of Jennifer hawks health, with over 20 years of experience in holistic and functional medicine, she helps high functioning women who feel dismissed by normal labs uncover the real drivers behind their fatigue, stubborn weight and digestive struggles using advanced testing. So basically, Jennifer and I do almost the exact same thing. However, I have a feeling that she has a slightly different approach, as we all do, because medicine is not only a science, but it's also an art, and through her signature unstoppable method, she turns complex data into clear, personalized strategies so women can restore energy, confidence and lasting resilience. Welcome, Jennifer, thank you so much. It's so fun to be here. Yeah, super, super good time. I think we're gonna have a great conversation. You know, I get a lot of requests to be on the podcast from different people and different women especially, and a lot of things are very similar. Like I said, Jennifer and I work with probably a similar group of women, but we all have our own kind of specialties. I work a lot with stress and nervous system, but Jennifer works a lot with mineralization, and I thought when I saw you come across my screen as a potential podcast guest, I was like, Huh? I've never really done an episode on that, and it's so important. I mean, I tell all of my midlife women, almost all of them, that they need electrolytes. And I am by no means a an expert in that little sub specialty, so I couldn't wait to have you on the show Jennifer, to tell us more about why electrolytes and minerals are so important for our health. Oh, I love that. You know. I mean, I think about minerals and electrolytes particularly, just like the spark plugs of the car, like you have to have those spark plugs that are working in order for different body systems to function properly. So, you're right, you know, having mineralization. I mean, it's all it's all art. It is not, you know, there's so many pathways, and we're all so individualized that we have to be able to take, you know, an honest, big picture approach as to how to support the body. And I really think that your your approach with mineralization is optimal. It's key. Because if that is not happening underneath the hood, you know, we're we do, you know, I hate the saying of you know, are you doing everything right? You are doing everything right. You're sleeping, you're eating, you're, you know, all the things. But the truth is, is what, what capacity does the body have at a cellular level to be able to manage and adapt to all the things that you are doing correctly? And it really does, in my opinion, boil down to sodium and potassium at a cellular level. The blood work doesn't quite always show, yeah, yeah. And blood work is, I love the name of your book. Your labs are lying. And I will challenge that. I don't think they're lying necessarily. They're just not telling you the full picture. And that's exactly it's a great hook, yeah,

Jennifer Nelson-Hawks: 4:03

hook. But the lie is that your blood work is going to create health. I think, I think that's where the lie is, right? It's just a snapshot, a glimpse. It's a glimpse. I also think, you know, blood work is really designed to catch disease. It's not really designed to look at how, how well are you thriving? So we have these perimeters and these values that we're looking at that are most of the time, unless you have a functional lens looking at them, we're looking at it from a conventional standpoint, which doesn't tell the whole story. So the labs do kind of lie, in a sense, depending on what those those ranges are, but it really does boil down to the interpretation, in my opinion, of those labs as well, because, you know that 15 minutes at the doctor's office just, it's dismissive and it's it's frustrating. You know, there's so much around that in itself that just makes us as women, midlife women. Feel like, what's going on inside of me? Am I dying? Is something really wrong? But yet my blood work comes back normal. And, you know, even sodium and potassium look quite well on blood work sometimes. And then, you know, I'll look at it through a different lens and be like, Oh my gosh. Like, there is no potassium, really, not very much sodium or opposite. There's so much that the body is, you know, sodium can be such a driver of inflammation at the site. At the same time, it could also be a driver of like, energy,

Sara Poldmae: 5:36

yeah.

Jennifer Nelson-Hawks: 5:36

So where do you find that fine line and balance of how much do you really need.

Sara Poldmae: 5:41

I love that. And I love that you said the 15 minute Marc, because I think that's an important thing to call out. You know, the 15 minute visit, there might be something on your blood work that a western medicine doctor is more concerned with than, let's say, your vitamin D levels being 35 so they're going to focus that 15 minutes, as they should, on something that's more acute, more concerning, or something that's like your metabolic system is really off, like, you know, you have, you have diabetes, or something. They're obviously going to shift their focus to the things that they find more clinically relevant in the immediacy, and not focus on the fact that a vitamin D level of 35 you're never going to feel great. You're never going to be able to fight off infections the same way you would with optimal levels. So there's a difference between adequate, normal within range and optimal. And I always remind my patients that's where the functional medicine lens comes in, right? Jennifer, I mean, we have to look at like, what keeps us alive, what keeps us out of danger, versus what's really optimal? And those things are radically different,

Jennifer Nelson-Hawks: 6:49

absolutely, absolutely. And to your point of that, you know, again, blood work. We need blood work. I'm not dismissing blood work. I'm not dismissing doctors either. But when we are looking, from a bit, you know, from that bird's eye view of what's really happening at a cellular level, through patterns, instead of a snapshot in time, right? Because you can, I mean, how many of us I, I am, I've done this where you're like, Okay, I'm gonna get my blood work done on Friday. So starting on Wednesday, I'm going to eat healthy, I'm not going to have a cocktail, I'm no sugar, and I'm going to get my blood work back. And it's going to be perfect, right? And the truth is, is okay, it may not be perfect, but if you give yourself a little bit of leeway, and you really do try to be good. That snapshot of a picture will look like a snapshot of a picture. It will look great. But you know that dysregulation of glucose that's been happening on a day to day basis is not showing up on that snapshot, because you were really quite right, you know, optimal those three days. So when we're when I look at the health at a cellular level, under the hood, I like to look at the patterns, because the patterns tell the story, right? That's where we really get into and then we know even going back to mineralization, going back to whether it's sodium or potassium, or perhaps it's, you know, we look at the big four minerals when I when I look at anyone's lab work, when it comes to the work that I do, I'm looking at the Big Four minerals. So it's not just sodium and potassium, it's also calcium magnesium, because they are a huge driver in part of the electrolytes. And then they all talk to each other.

Sara Poldmae: 8:39

We're water, you know, and water can't hydration, right?

Jennifer Nelson-Hawks: 8:44

And we know that water follows sodium into the cell,

Sara Poldmae: 8:47

yeah, 100% and that's a really important piece of the picture that can be missing. And I think that's why people are starting to catch on. I think that's why things like function health is is becoming popular. People know that they need to look at things more often than every couple of years, and we have patients that come in that only get their blood work done every few years, and they you know, that's just not necessarily the way to truly care for people. And we have to call out that this is obviously health with a level of privilege to be able to do these types of tests and stuff like that. But if you are looking for real answers to why you're so damn tired all the time, even though you're sleeping, getting adequate nutrition, all that, then

Jennifer Nelson-Hawks: 9:30

this could be a legitimate thing to look at. I mean, there are so many different lenses and so many different ways to look at what's going on in your body. So what's the most common thing women come to you saying that their doctor told them, and what are you actually finding when you dig deeper? Like, what's one of the most common things you hear? And what do you find when you're going under the hood? You know, I think one of the most common is the burnout. You know, women come to me and they're just like, I wake up in the morning. Ring, and I have had the best night of sleep, and I still feel like I'm dragging the three that three o'clock, you know, 3pm comes by, and they are like, What can I do? They're they're they're reaching for the candy, they're reaching for the coffee, they're reaching for anything that will just kind of get them stimulated again. But what it really boils down to is that they don't have enough cellular energy to keep going. So what I do is, I mean, I look at, I personally look at hair, tissue mineral analysis. Because I was that lady. I was that girl. I was waking up and being like, how can I get through my day, getting to that three o'clock timeframe? I would literally, I would go to the I would go to the office kitchen. I would have a bag of potato chips, and I would mow down like a quarter of a bag of potato chips because I was craving the salt. I was

Sara Poldmae: 10:50

about to say, you probably felt better because you got a little boost of electrolyte. I

Jennifer Nelson-Hawks: 10:55

did. I did until my pants didn't start fitting very well,

Sara Poldmae: 10:58

you

Jennifer Nelson-Hawks: 10:58

know, then I got another problem.

Sara Poldmae: 10:59

The whole thing

Jennifer Nelson-Hawks: 11:01

we've gotten that, but you know, it really, it's it started with me when my father passed away a few years ago. And yeah, thank you. And blood work just wasn't cutting it. I didn't know why I was feeling like this. I mean, I knew why. I knew I was grieving, I knew I was sad, I was depleted, but my blood work was coming back normal. So I reached out to a colleague. I had no idea about htma, nor did I want to. I mean, I had owned a Wellness Center. I had supplements, I had therapies, I had, you know, I had it all. I've done it all, yeah. And I was like, I am not getting into something new, like, just not. And when I reached out to my colleague, she's like, well, let's look at your patterns. Let's see what's been going on at a cellular level with your minerals? And I was like, through my hair, yeah, like, I like, what do we just pull it out? What do we do? She's like, Oh, no, no. Like, there's a process you actually have to, like, use clarifying shampoo. So strip all the metal, or all the minerals and metals off of your hair, rinse with distilled water, and then we we got it. I was like, okay, whatever. So I sent it in, just not knowing, really not knowing what I was doing, but just I needed a different lens. Is what I needed at the time. And I got my results back, and I literally cried. I cried because finally I was like, Oh my gosh, this is why I can't get my foot in front of the other one. I can't get where I want to go like I am going to the gym and I am pushing through. I am drinking water, I am eating quite well. I am working. I am doing I'm my sleep is phenomenal. Why do I feel like this? I didn't have any I didn't have enough sodium and potassium on my body. And what had happened was, because of that, my body started sequestering calcium from my bones to make sure that I was supported. Magnesium followed suit. So I was losing magnesium, sodium, potassium were low, and what the driver of the adrenal function

Sara Poldmae: 13:00

is

Jennifer Nelson-Hawks: 13:00

sodium to magnesium? Yep. So, because I didn't have enough sodium, so I started, I started doing, you know, custom mineralization. I started adding in extra electrolytes, and I stopped drinking coffee. I get up. My aura score is like 92% my readiness score every day, like it can make a huge difference, but now, having done this for years and years, well, two, two and a half years, I have everybody has a different pattern.

Sara Poldmae: 13:31

Yeah,

Jennifer Nelson-Hawks: 13:32

so I needed more sodium than potassium, but I see a lot of women that need more potassium than sodium, so it's really finding that, what does your body really need? And then there's multiple electrolytes out on the, you know, the market, and you can make your own adrenal cocktails. You know, it can do so many different things to balance those electrolytes, because at the end of the day, if, if women don't do anything else but get some testing done, they know what their mineral they know what their electrolytes need to be whether it's a higher form of sodium to potassium or a higher form of potassium to sodium.

Sara Poldmae: 14:06

Oh, I love that. And so the process is like you describe, just to take a hair sample, obviously, with with more around that, yeah, hair sample, you send it into a lab, you get your results back. And then what?

Jennifer Nelson-Hawks: 14:21

Yep. So the way that I do it, you know, every practitioner is a little different. But then what I do is I get it back, and then I create a 32 page report on it that is fairly easy to read, if you will. And then I and then I will help women essentially do one of two things piecemeal, it together. So what do like, what are the top three things we need to do? Or I use a company that I that helps me create custom blends for women and men and dogs. My dogs getting one as well. But we create these custom blends because no mineral works alone.

Sara Poldmae: 14:57

Yeah, right.

Jennifer Nelson-Hawks: 14:58

Sodium, toxic. Potassium, which talks to magnesium, which, then you've got the cobalt, the lithium, the boron, and all the other co factors involved. So when you are trying to rebalance minerals, if you're really serious about it, it really does take, it takes, it takes an Army, Army of minerals, to be able to do that. But some women aren't there. Maybe they're not there, you know, financially, they don't want to do it, or they're just not mentally prepared for that, or it's just not the right time, and that's okay. Then we then we start with what's the lowest hanging fruit that we can find real answers, you know, and get you feeling better immediately by just little, little tweaks.

Sara Poldmae: 15:38

Okay? And so what would you say are some of the results that you're seeing in clinic based on these tests? Well,

Jennifer Nelson-Hawks: 15:47

I will say that it is probably in all of my years of doing functional medicine, it is the one, the one test that gives that's finally moving the needle for for people. And I would say that when they start, whether it's again, just even electrolytes, it's getting the energy back, it's getting that cellular startup back. You know, we have, right now modern medicine. We've got a lot of peptides out in the world. And I love peptides. Nothing wrong with them. But do you have enough cellular energy to do what they need to do? Yeah, you know, because they're signaling molecules. So it's, it's really going back to the foundation, like going back to that. So people are sleeping better. I mean, my the testimonials are, you know, I have more clarity, I've got more energy. My weight is starting to shift sleep patterns. Like, there's like, there's so many things, and there's so many interactions of the foundational minerals that you know are working, not together, or they're deficient in certain areas that are creating the joint pain you know us women, as we're in this midlife space, again, the body will sequester, take away the calcium from the bones To make sure that the rest of the body supported with calcium, which leaves the bones, you know, brittle,

Sara Poldmae: 17:07

yeah,

Jennifer Nelson-Hawks: 17:08

that osteoporosis, so, or even osteopenia. So, when that happens, how do we get that calcium that's creating a calcium shell that, in turn, is the joint pain? Why does my knee hurt all of a sudden? My hip, my back, you know, is this age? Yeah, it is part of the aging process. There's no question about that, but we can do something about that, and so we just need to shuttle that buildup of calcium back to the bones to lower the joint pain. Perspective, it's getting more sodium and potassium on board to help with the fatigue and the energy and all, you know, all the things. And there's also, along with all this, is the emotional component that goes along with everything, right? So it's, it's just been, it's been such a game changer in my neck. So tell the audience, then how they can get in touch with you and how they can get started looking at this analysis with you. Yeah, absolutely. So if you want to learn a little bit more about me, that's it's Jennifer hawkshealth.com. That's my website. If you want to know a little bit more about this test, if you go to test my minerals.com, that'll take you to the exact test I use, and then I do have a little online portal where you get to go in, and once you purchase the test, you get to see, like, how to start balancing your elect your minerals and electrolytes right away, what it means for you. There's little quizzes and little other steps inside that back portal that is just great while you wait for your results. And then once those come back, then we get to see, you know which direction you want to do to move forward with

Sara Poldmae: 18:46

wonderful I have one more random question. I have one which is very mineralized. Does that preclude me from taking one of these tests?

Jennifer Nelson-Hawks: 18:54

Oh, no, no. In fact, that the reason why you would want to is, is there any you know, heavy metal minerals that are that your body is storing up, right? Yeah, a lot of the times we see uranium or we'll see arsenic. One of the other big ones we see is even, it's not necessarily well water, but it is coming from is aluminum, and aluminum is actually, studies are showing now that it's actually when it gets stored up in the brain. It's even worse for potential cognitive dysfunction as you get older than and then Mercury even was, or is, you know, so that's another one, but the body will only have enough energy to move that based on those big four minerals we talked about. But yeah, it's just a matter of, there's a lot of value, and it's just, it's important to do the the prep work, so the the clarifying shampoo, the distilled water, because that's going to take away anything that you're well watered. Because when you're when you're washing your hair, or when you're drinking water, you know you're you're taking that on. On. And then you get to know once you do that, because you're stripping those mineral deposits off of your hair, and you are, you're also using distilled water, which has no minerals. Then you let it air dry for three to four hours, and then you cut,

Sara Poldmae: 20:14

okay, Hmm, sounds quite simple. It's, it's, I actually always wanted to get this done, so I'm really excited to have learned more about it and learned what you can extract from that. Because I'm like, okay, minerals are important. That's about as far as I go, which, you know, I think for the majority of practitioners.

Jennifer Nelson-Hawks: 20:32

I mean, that was me. I was like, Okay, that's great, but what am I going to learn from this? And when I got it back, I was like, okay,

Sara Poldmae: 20:39

yeah, those

Jennifer Nelson-Hawks: 20:40

tears, those tears are real. Yeah,

Sara Poldmae: 20:42

well, Jennifer, thank you so much for being on the show. This was super valuable information. Audience members, please reach out to Jennifer if you'd like to get the hair mineral analysis. This is not something we do in my clinic currently. But of course, now I my appetite is wet, so that could change at some point. For now. Love it. Jennifer, I love that, and I might be contacting you for some clinical questions. Jennifer, down the road, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with the world, and thank you to my audience for listening to the another episode of menopause, rise and thrive. Amazing. Thank you. You