When NOT to Take Magnesium for Sleep and Anxiety

So if you're deciding to take magnesium to help yourself sleep or maybe for anxiety or stress , today we're gonna talk about when you might not need magnesium .

In fact , the worst thing you could do is buy some magnesium and then find out it doesn't really work for them .

That's not what they needed , or it worsens their sleep situation .

Magnesium is supposed to calm you down .

It's supposed to lower cortisol and adrenaline .

How could it actually make you more stressed out ?

That's the question .

Your anxiety could come from many different causes .

So magnesium is just one remedy to handle one aspect of sleep and anxiety .

As far as sleep goes , we dissect sleep into 2 different categories , people that can't get to sleep versus people that can't stay asleep .

When you initially try to go to sleep , if you can go to sleep very easily , chances are you have good parasympathetics .

What does that mean ?

Well , there's 2 parts of the nervous system .

You have the parasympathetic , and that's kind of like the system that actually pushes you into a deep , restful sleep .

It keeps you calm , and it's mainly responsible for the first part of the sleep , especially the deeper delta wave sleep .

Okay .

But the second part of the sleep is more what's called REM sleep .

People that have higher levels of adrenaline and cortisol tend to wake up like 2 in the morning or 2:30 or 3 in the middle of night .

And they're like laying there like , okay , so I'm more awake now than I am during the day .

So if you look at this circadian wave rhythm of cortisol hormone , the lowest point should be at 2 AM and the highest point should be roughly about 8 o'clock in the morning .

But a lot of times it's kind of backwards and you're always going to wake up feeling not very refreshed .

So then people take magnesium because magnesium is supposed to lower cortisol and adrenaline , but sometimes it doesn't .

Why ?

Because the actual cause of this high cortisol is not coming from a lack of magnesium .

You see , the problem is it's really hard to test for a magnesium deficiency because as soon as you test it in the blood , it's not gonna really show up necessarily unless you're really , really deficient because most of your magnesium , 98 to 99% is inside the cell .

Let's say you don't consume a lot of green things .

I'm talking about vegetables that are green because chlorophyll has magnesium in it , but it's also high in some nuts like almonds .

It's high in chocolate .

It's also high in pumpkin seeds .

So let's say , for example , you don't eat a lot of those foods .

Let's say instead you are heavy on the the carbs .

Okay ?

You do a lot of sugar and grains .

Refined sugar and grains will deplete your magnesium .

If you're fatigued or maybe have cramps in your legs at night , you could be deficient in magnesium .

Okay .

So you go to bed and you're lying there .

You just can't get into a sleep .

Right ?

Chances are you don't have enough parasympathetic nervous system .

If you're experiencing a lot of stress and you're not exercising , that's definitely gonna screw up your sleep .

Exercise helps .

Long walks help .

But what really helps more than both of those is physical work .

Yeah .

Outside .

Because it also handles the mental component .

It takes your mind off the stress .

Now , also , if you're low in vitamin B1 , okay , you're gonna have this situation where you're gonna lie down and you're gonna try to go to sleep , but you're thinking , you're solving problems 247 .

You can't turn it off .

That means you need b 1 , and chances are you're doing too many carbs , which deplete b 1 .

In my situation , when I was younger in my twenties , I'm in my thirties right now , and I'm being also very sarcastic .

I used to consume a lot of carbs and not any b one .

So I had restless leg syndrome .

I had a lot of nervous anxiety .

But one thing that could have helped me if just to take b one , if I would have known about it , I probably would have got rid of my restless leg syndrome .

But when you take B1 , you'll feel the sense of relief and you can finally turn it off and go to sleep .

Also , if you're doing a lot of coffee or tea , that can deplete you of the b one .

If you're gonna take a b one , make sure it's a natural version .

I'll put a link down below for more information on that point .

Now you have another factor too , melatonin .

I don't recommend taking a melatonin supplement .

Even though melatonin will help you get to sleep , it's not good at helping you stay asleep .

I suggest kind of looking at the reason why you might not have enough melatonin in the first place .

And there's a precursor thing that turns into melatonin that's called tryptophan .

But there's another thing you can do as well .

And this has to do with , I think , a better way to get your melatonin .

See , melatonin is inhibited by blue light .

Okay ?

Like sitting in front of your computer screen , the cell phone , the whole thing that can really deplete your melatonin .

What recharges the melatonin is number 1 , darkness or certain types of light like infrared .

Over 50% of the sun's rays are infrared .

One really good remedy for sleep cycles is just to be outside more to get exposure to the sun .

The sunset and the sunrise has certain colours of , like , orange , yellow .

That is higher levels of infrared , which can greatly help wind things down for you .

So you can maybe even get one of those lights that , helps wake you up .

And this is really good in the wintertime when you're not outside very much .

And it's also good if you have to stay inside a lot and work a lot inside and you don't have access to the outside .

You should have some type of internal full spectrum light .

But it's these lights are really , really important .

We want to not be overexposed to the blue lights .

If you can get incandescent , that would be the best thing .

If you have a fireplace , if you could be exposed to that , that would be great .

Or a campfire .

All of this will give you infrared .

Very beneficial .

Also , I find that when people take vitamin D before bed , it really helps their sleep .

And one more point about magnesium .

Magnesium will not work if you're really low in vitamin D and vitamin D won't work either if you're low in magnesium .

If you're fasting and you're new at fasting and you go to bed hungry , that could keep you up because you're not adapted yet and starts releasing sugar .

And all of a sudden you wake up because of the cortisol .

Realize if the fasting triggered your sleep problem , maybe you need to gradually work into it slower .

And maybe even that last meal , you increase your carbs to 50 grams , like have a bunch of berries , for example , and figure out what 50 grams would be to get more carbs just to kind of , like , handle this spike in cortisol situation , which can be a problem for certain people .

Now let's talk about what happens when people cannot stay asleep .

Right ?

They're getting up , and they don't get that last part of the sleep .

The sympathetic nervous system activates adrenaline , but also cortisol can be evolved as well because they they both work together in the stress response .

And this REM sleep rapid eye movement is a is kind of a very superficial wave , Have this vivid dreams .

It's almost like you're awake , but you're sleeping .

So all it takes is this a little stress to kind of bump you out of that .

What you need to do to reduce cortisol is to exercise more , but make sure you do not overtrain .

Really working hard , and you can sweat and use up a lot of your energy , but don't go overboard and don't do this every single day , maybe twice a week .

And then you stopped exercising .

Your mitochondria now are so used to that energy production , and you're just like going to bed with all this extra energy .

You just you have to deplete it .

Long walks are excellent at reducing cortisol as well .

Anytime the blood sugars go low , you could have a situation with high cortisol .

But here's the thing .

If you do it right , you do intermittent fasting correctly and gradually over time , it'll be very smooth where you won't have a major problem with cortisol .

Why ?

Because you've adapted to your fat and you're burning fat and there's not a need to rely on sugar .

So I found that having a little bit more salt , especially if you're on a low carb diet or you're doing fasting is going to be vital .

That alone can solve your sleeping problems without even taking magnesium .

Okay .

Have some salt right before you go to bed and just see what happens .

Cool thing about salt is salt retains fluid , which means you're not gonna get up and have to use the bathroom as much if you have a little more salt versus not having enough salt .

You'll tend to pee more at night .

But what about anxiety ?

Right ?

Anxiety is kind of tied in with insomnia .

But if you just have anxiety , obviously , you wanna evaluate what's causing anxiety .

But if you just have anxiety for no reason , I'm telling you , B1 is the answer to that .

You should just try some .

If you ever notice someone with anxiety , their inhalation is not matching the timing of their exhalation .

And so what happens is that you don't get the right CO2 retention to allow the oxygen to go into the cells .

I mean , just picture someone who has a panic attack .

Right ?

They're getting too much oxygen .

So just by slowing down the breath and , I've done all the videos on this , especially , if you're trying to go to sleep or get back to sleep breathing through your nose slowly in , slowly out , the same rhythm .

Boy , that that helps a lot .

But also , like , a lot of medications , especially metformin , will deplete you a B1 .

Let's say you do need magnesium .

Right ?

Magnesium glycinate is a good one .

Why ?

Because it's especially good for sleep and anxiety .

Because of the glycinate part .

The glycinate part of the magnesium is really glycine , and glycine is a calming amino acid .

When should you take magnesium glycinate ?

Maybe about half hour before you go to bed .

And so there's other types of magnesium out there .

You can get this magnesium citrate .

It works , but probably not as good .

You can take the , magnesium oxide or the carbonate .

Those don't get absorbed as well .

They're very cheap and they don't seem to work as well as the glycinate .

The magnesium glycinate is really good because so many people are also deficient in glycine .

And if you have not seen my video where I talk more on glycine , you should check that one out .

It's very important .

I put it up right here .