Everyone on TikTok is bleary-eyed and anxious, it typically appears. The generations that dominate the app—Gen Z and Millennials—are additionally these most beleaguered by anxiety, which is carefully tied to sleep disturbances. It’s little surprise, then, that supposed sleep aids—like tart cherry juice, brown noise, melatonin, and CBD—are fixed fixtures on the social media platform.
Now, the app’s wellness group has latched onto the newest complement touted to heal each poor sleep and nervousness: magnesium glycinate, one among almost a dozen over-the-counter dietary supplements that can be utilized to spice up the physique’s ranges of magnesium. Content material creators insist that it helps them go to mattress hours sooner than they often do, eases insomnia, and lets them unwind on the finish of the day. One nurse practitioner on the app known as magnesium glycinate her “holy grail supplement.”
So does it actually work?
What’s magnesium?
Magnesium, in fact, isn’t new. It’s a mineral component that you have already got in your physique, due to meals like nuts, seeds, beans, and sure vegetable and dairy gadgets. It really works throughout the cells of multiple body systems to maintain muscle mass, nerves, and different elements functioning correctly. Somebody making an attempt to promote you dietary supplements may inform you that as many as half of U.S. adults are magnesium-deficient, and whereas that is technically true, most of us nonetheless get sufficient to stop any actual noticeable results, says Emily Tarleton, a registered dietitian and researcher at Northern Vermont College. Vital magnesium deficiencies are a lot much less widespread and infrequently come with symptoms like fatigue, weak spot, and nausea. Some researchers, nevertheless, have additionally recommended that there could possibly be connections between even gentle magnesium deficiency and sleep disorders.
In nature, magnesium is at all times discovered together with different components, which means that there are a lot of methods to ship it into the physique. Magnesium merchandise and dietary supplements mirror this variety of type. You should purchase capsules (like magnesium citrate), beverage components (like magnesium lactate), or salts, which embody magnesium sulfate (aka Epsom salt) and are designed to ship small quantities of the mineral by way of the pores and skin. Magnesium glycinate is well-liked as a result of it’s among the many capsule kinds which are probably the most bioavailable, which means {that a} bigger quantity of the mineral can be utilized by the physique.
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Do magnesium dietary supplements enhance psychological well being or sleep?
Tarleton is without doubt one of the few researchers who’ve studied magnesium’s impact on despair in a randomized medical trial, the gold commonplace for remedy research. In her 2017 study, she discovered that individuals who took 248 mg of elemental magnesium from magnesium chloride tablets every day reported enhancements in emotions of despair over six weeks. The identical yr, a review of 18 small studies discovered that individuals who took numerous magnesium dietary supplements reported enhancements in signs of tension. In Tarleton’s examine, “one of many different unwanted side effects was elevated sleep,” she says. Although she hasn’t studied magnesium dietary supplements’ results immediately on sleep, it is sensible to her that the mineral would work as a sleep help, significantly within the extra bioavailable kinds like magnesium glycinate and magnesium chloride. “Magnesium performs an enormous function in muscle contraction,” she says. “Athletes will typically use it for muscle cramping. So our concept is that the muscle rest facet impact may assist with sleep.”
When sleep high quality has appeared in magnesium supplementation analysis, it’s most frequently as a facet impact. In research the place magnesium has been given to folks with migraines, polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), and some different well being circumstances, sleep enhancements have typically been reported however are not often formally tracked.
Just a few research have checked out magnesium dietary supplements solely as an insomnia therapy, however they’ve all been too small and focused to particular populations to attract conclusions from. One such study in 2012 included solely aged contributors and had a pattern measurement of solely 46 folks. One other more moderen study from 2019 included magnesium as an insomnia therapy, however solely as a part of a complement that additionally contained melatonin and vitamin B. In 2022, the authors of a review that analyzed all research of magnesium as an insomnia therapy concluded that with out extra and longer-lasting analysis, no definitive hyperlink between magnesium and sleep could possibly be drawn.
Magnesium’s largest starring function within the well being world has lengthy been for the therapy of migraines; sure formulation and strengths are made obtainable by way of prescription to those that endure from the assaults. Present theories about how magnesium works to alleviate these signs primarily recommend that magnesium offers the mind a kind of increase to renew regular operate, together with moderating the discharge of chemical indicators and drawing therapeutic components into the world. Whereas there’s no agency proof that any of those processes would additionally apply to the sleep-addled thoughts, Tarleton says that it’s believable.
The right way to use magnesium safely
If you wish to strive magnesium for sleep, rest, or some other purpose, it’s necessary to be sure to really know the way a lot you’re taking. And since dietary supplements aren’t regulated in the identical method drugs are, magnesium tablets might produce other substances blended in. “There are only a few magnesium dietary supplements which have been examined and verified when it comes to figuring out precisely what’s in them,” says Tarleton. She recommends at all times checking the bottle’s label to ensure the producers have listed the quantity of elemental magnesium (primarily, the amount of simply the mineral itself) current within the capsules. A well being care skilled is greatest suited to level you towards a very good beginning dosage—and weigh in on whether or not you need to take magnesium in any respect, since dietary supplements aren’t risk-free. “The massive unwanted side effects of an excessive amount of magnesium are diarrhea, upset abdomen, and ultimately nausea and throwing up,” says Tarleton. “These are kind of the primary indicators” that you could be be taking an excessive amount of.
Like all sleep help, it’s additionally greatest to make use of magnesium dietary supplements sparingly, since their results can weaken over time, Tarleton says. And earlier than you begin popping dietary supplements, think about revamping your sleep hygiene and habits. “It’s a lot simpler to take a complement than to attempt to actually take a tough have a look at what the explanations are that you simply’re not sleeping properly to start with.”
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