Sophia had always been a very healthy person.
Ever since she can remember, being in third or fourth grade she’d be really excited to learn about how certain nutrients and foods like antioxidants and berries etc. could serve her body.
She played varsity tennis when in 7th grade and basically ate as healthy as she knew how to and exercised a lot.
She was often known as the healthiest person people knew.
She was on the low-end of a healthy weight and she never had any health issues.
Yet, she still felt bad.
“I had really volatile energy, and not great energy. So I just accepted that was my normal and I kind of always felt something was a little wrong with me.”
It wasn’t until she had her first child in 2007 that she began to do her own research.
She had a demanding, full-time job in investment management and it was only after her infant would go to sleep around 8 or 9 pm that she would start reading about how to plan her next day for the nanny.
Like her baby’s sleep schedule, her diet, when she was awake, what she wanted the nanny to do like talk to the baby for language development.
She found herself approaching motherhood like she did her job.
It was through this nightly routine of reviewing carefully selected reading materials at night to plan her daughter’s days that she started to accidentally learn about toxic chemicals and products that would affect her daughter the next day.
When she first read about BPA (a dangerous chemical) in plastic baby bottles her first reaction was, “What? This can’t be true. These toxic chemicals couldn’t be in baby products sold in the United States!”
Her research confirmed that was true and her line of reasoning became, “if this is true, what do I do instead?”
After five years of going through this experience, she decided to organize all her research into a book.
She wanted people to be able to share her book with their physician so that together, more informed healthcare decisions could be learned.
Electromagnetic fields (EMFs) are featured in her book but she recalls feeling a lot of personal resistance to incorporating this information.
She found herself thinking thoughts like, “you’re telling me my cell phone, my laptop, might be a health risk? That just can’t be true.”
Then subsequent to having some home renovation done she found herself experiencing symptoms of EMF sensitivity first hand and she realized just how badly EMFs can affect the body.
It took her a total of 8 years to complete her book A to Z of D-Toxing: The Ultimate Guide to Reducing Out Toxic Exposures and while 100% toxic free living is not really feasible she has seen great improvements in her own health by practicing what she preaches.
For my next interview I'm delighted to welcome critically acclaimed author Sophia Ruan Gushee:
