One of the side effects of losing a loved one can be lack of sleep. How to sleep well started to evade me when my late husband died in 2006, I seemed to be awake day and night and nothing I did or took helped.
How to sleep well with Magnesium
When you are under stress, you actually use up more of your nutrients and there is one nutrient in particular, which will stop you sleeping if it is depleted. That nutrient is the amazing mineral we all know as Magnesium (Mg).
How does Mg aid sleep?
Now you may be wonderering what it is about Mg that aids sleep. The first thing to remember about this mineral is that is a relaxant. It has an antagonistic partner mineral we all know as Calcium (Ca) and this mineral causes tension and tightness. These two minerals are for ever at odds with each other, each as important as the other but each affecting the other’s modus operandi.
How to sleep well? you won’t with an excess of Ca!
Unfortunately, Ca is more abundant than Mg which gives an imbalance in our modern world. It wasn’t always this way. Before modern farming practices when the soil was replete and balanced in natural vitamins and minerals, Ca and Mg were well proportioned and complemented each other. Now Ca has taken over as the ‘star’ mineral which everyone seeks to consume in abundance. An excess of Ca causes dangerous health problem worldwide, with many populations severely depleted in the ‘spark of life’ known as Mg. This person definitely has too much Ca in their body. This in itself will stop them sleeping ouch! Let’s hope this calcification hasn’t migrated to other areas like the heart!
Insomnia is just one of many Mg defeciency conditions
Lack of Mg can cause many conditions, one of which is insomnia. Here are some other Mg deficiency symptoms for your information. This is from a more comprehensive post on insomnia, so if you do suffer from this condition you may be interested in reading this more in depth post. It also gives you some tips to make sure you have a restful sleep.
A Mg supplement will protect you!
There are some really serious problems that can be caused by a deficiency of Mg. These include: heart disease, osteoporosis, seizures, kidney disease, hypertension, diabetes and epilepsy, but lets get back to how to sleep well.
Mg relaxes, Ca tenses
Mg is the relaxing mineral whilst Ca is the mineral of tension. Most of the problems suffered by a Mg deficient person will be to do with being tense. Tense muscles, muscle spasms, cramping, anxiety, twitching, hypertension, migraines and headaches, depression, arrhythmia, angina. It is no wonder that insomnia is added to this list.
Ca excess = diseases
If your Ca intake is excessive then you will be Mg deficient by default and you will show that deficiency with tension type effects. There is no way we can gain enough Mg with our modern diet. We can do our best to eat a diet high in Mg, but foods today are grown on Mg depleted soil so the Mg content of that food is much lower than it was in days gone by when we used to keep the land in good order. But not now with all the fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides and fungicides constantly being added to our nutrient deficient soil.
Check those labels!
When you look around the supermarkets and check a few of the labels, you will notice that many of our foods are fortified with Ca. Unfortunately, no food companies think to fortify with Mg so why is this. It must be ignorance on the part of the food manufacturers. They don’t know their product and they don’t know anything about nutrition. Or perhaps it’s because they know the customer looks out for Ca. No matter that the customer has been misinformed. If they like food with Ca in, the manufacturers will oblige whether it’s good for the consumer or not. There is Ca everywhere in our natural food sources, there’s no need to fortify.
Mg rich foods is not enough!
How to sleep well is obvious, eat less Ca rich foods, eat more Mg rich foods. But this probably will not be enough to equally balance your Mg and Ca levels. If you lead a stressful life, have children to juggle, like to work out, are looking after a parent or have a high powered occupation like being a nurse, firefighter or soldier etc., you will be using 
your Mg levels up at a remarkable rate. Why not try a good Mg supplement and see how much better you sleep. There are many Mg supplements on the market. If you choose one of high bioavailability, you won’t just sleep better, you will feel more relaxed and able to cope with what the day throws at you.
Remember, Mg is not a drug, it is a vital mineral nutrient which your body cannot live without. Every one of your 37.4 trillion cells needs Mg. Without Mg your body cannot produce energy, hence those suffering from a depletion will feel fatigued and lack lustre and they certainly will not feel relaxed!
Some Mg supplements:
- Magnesium Oxide – poor bioavailability and often the cheapest on the market. Unless otherwise stated, Mg supplements will often be Mg oxide.
- Magnesium Citrate – in powder form, great for kids, easy to regulate the dose. Good bioavailability and is tasteless. Good gentle laxative, constipation is often another Mg deficiency symptom.
- Magnesium Chloride – in solution, best bioavailability, easy to regulate the dose. Has
a bitter taste but must be taken in plenty of water. This is the supplement I swear by. ReMag is a good quality supplement by Dr Carolyn Dean but it is expensive, especially if you’re in the UK. Other brands are Ionic Mg by Good State and Mega-Mag. It is possible to make up your own solution if you can buy food quality Mg Chloride powder. Take a look at this post, it will tell you all about Mg Chloride and give an in depth look into other Mg supplements.
How to sleep well is…
How to sleep well is just knowing what to do. Knowing why you’re not sleeping is a great help but if you’re having emotional problems, sleeping will become very difficult. 
Problems and stress will deplete your Mg levels but if you start taking a good quality supplement, you will sleep better. You will also feel better, you will have more energy, be less tense and be more relaxed in body and mind. Try it!
Spread the word!
Hi Ches,
What a great article on how to sleep well at night with Mg. I had absolutely now idea that it was beneficial to sleep, that’s great information to learn!
I certainly did not know that lack of Mg can cause insomnia. I am lucky in that I normally don’t have insomnia. I did have one period of my life about 7 years ago in which I had a hard time sleeping but that was due to a big stressful even that was going on at the time. I would up taking melatonin and that helped me greatly.
Thanks again for sharing this. My wife has a hard time sleeping so I will be sharing this with her.
Thanks!
Hi Mat and thanks for reading the article. More women than men seem to suffer a magnesium deficiency, although out of the total population it is estimated that up to 80% are deficient. If your wife finds it difficult to sleep well, get her to try a good quality supplement like ReMag or Ionic Magnesium. An alternative is Mg Citrate powder which is also good for digestive problems and/or a topical supplement such as Ancient Minerals. A good nights sleep is imperative for good health so I hope your wife overcomes her sleeping problems.
PS. Soaking feet in epsom salts (which is magnesium sulphate) is also very relaxing before bed and can aid sleep. Whatever she does, tell her not to eat before bedtime and not to drink calcium rich beverages as a nightcap.
Very interesting! I actually had no idea at all that magnesium plays such a huge part in quality of sleep. I also didn’t know that calcium is detrimental to a good night’s sleep.
Does this mean that if I have a glass of warm milk before bed that it’s actually not going to do me any good? I’ve heard that it’s meant to be very good for sleeping but now that I read that calcium isn’t I’m having my doubts.
Hi Stephen, Many people suffer with cramp at night and consuming calcium foods will exacerbate cramps unless you are replete with magnesium. My brother used to have a large bowl of cereals with milk before bed and got cramp most nights. Once he left it out, the cramps stopped. Milk before bed is not a good idea. In fact eating within a couple of hours before bed will not help you sleep. Remember calcium is the contraction mineral, whereas magnesium is the relaxing mineral. You don’t want any kind of tightness or tension before bed.