How magnesium can help you sleep with Linda Lee

According to the World Health Organization and the American Sleep Association, 50 to 70 million Americans struggle to get adequate sleep. Over 1/3 of us are sleep deprived and 70% of us are magnesium deficient. 

Magnesium is one of my favourite minerals, and if you struggle with sleep, then I’m sure your Google search suggested magnesium at some point. 

What Makes Magnesium Magical?

Magnesium is one of the body's main minerals and it is required for energy production. It regulates over 300 biochemical reactions in our bodies, helps with sleep issues, stress, anxiety, depression, and muscle soreness, helps support a healthy immune system and gut microbiome. 

Magnesium aids in the absorption of calcium, helps regulate our blood glucose levels, and aids in the production of proteins - and that's just the tip of the iceberg of what magnesium does.

Recently, I had a chance to sit down and interview a true “magnesium expert”: Linda Lee for our Sleep Like a Boss Podcast. 

After struggling with anxiety since childhood, Linda wanted a natural remedy for her symptoms and started a meticulous search.

She discovered that mainstream “cures” only made things worse. Then, six years ago after learning about the magic of magnesium, her world changed. This also led Linda to create her own product Magnesium Body Butter as well as her own company Mineral & Co..

How to Know if You Suffer from Magnesium Deficiency  

Magnesium has relaxing properties and thus, symptoms of magnesium deficiency are:

• insomnia

• anxiety

• chronic fatigue

• muscle tension

• headaches and migraines

• poor cognitive processes like brain fog 

• inflammation

• sugar cravings

• etc.

Also, there are things that can deplete your magnesium levels, like stress, a diet high in processed food, alcohol, different medications (like proton-pump inhibitors) and antibiotics. 

If you think that you might be deficient in magnesium, your first action could be to add magnesium-rich foods to your diet. These include pumpkin seeds, baby spinach, dark chocolate, almonds, bananas, etc.  

And who doesn't like dark chocolate?

Magnesium Supplements

Your next option could be the use of magnesium supplements. 

When it comes to magnesium supplementation, there are a lot of options available. Supplements come in many different forms and can be taken orally as a powder or capsule or applied topically as a spray- onto the skin. 

While supplements are available prescription-free even at supermarkets, you need to be cautious about the dosage.

Can you take too much magnesium? - Yes.

Our body is sensitive and tries to always stay in equilibrium, so if you high-dose magnesium supplements for long periods of time, your body can kick other minerals out of balance. Calcium - for instance - competes with magnesium for absorption in the body. 

Also, when taking magnesium orally as a capsule or powder, in many cases the body will not absorb and use everything you took as a supplement form. A lot of us have compromised gut function (I have to yet see a client's stool test that didn't have some sort of dysbiosis, parasite or digestive dysfunction). 

That can prevent us from absorbing and using magnesium optimally. 

But, magnesium is still a magical mineral and we use specific forms in practice regularly.  I really like to suggest magnesium topically in the form of magnesium spray or oil to bypass the absorption issues or add the spray in addition to a supplement in certain cases.

Once Linda started using topical magnesium on a daily basis and saw the benefit of it - finally cleared her anxiety for instance. 

She quickly noticed that the topical supplement products on the market were either sticky, drying, or greasy. They also required applying much more than what was comfortable, so she set out to make a new kind of product. 

Her vision was to create a unique, lush, silky, and concentrated formulation that provided the healing power of plants and minerals with research-backed science. She had one criterion — to be vegan, with pure organic ingredients and no harmful toxins or fillers.

After three years of careful exploration, she created Magnesium Body Butter.

The great thing about this product, besides the fact that you apply it topically, is that you only need a teaspoon a day to get 200 milligrams of absorbable or elemental magnesium. 

If you’re interested in learning more about Linda and trying out her amazing Magnesium Body Butter or any of her other products, visit her website.