Many people take magnesium for sleep. But does it really work? Magnesium is an essential mineral that most people are actually deficient in without even knowing it. A lot of people take magnesium supplements, but what most people don’t know is that magnesium can tremendously benefit your sleep cycle when used correctly.

The Benefits of Magnesium Supplements

Magnesium benefits the body in many more areas than just your sleep cycle. In this article, we are going to focus primarily on how magnesium benefits you as a sleep aid, but here is a complete list of the many magnesium benefits:

• Serves as a natural sleep aid
• Helps reduce anxiety
• Produces feelings of calm
• Improves overall wellbeing
• Soothes muscles
• Relieves stress
• Enhances brain function

Magnesium As A Sleep Aid

Your brain’s GABA receptors are responsible for calming your nerves and turning off your stress response, and high magnesium levels have been proven to be associated with higher levels of GABA. Therefore, magnesium is an effective sleep aid because having enough of it allows your brain to more easily shut down at night. Not only that, but it begins to work almost immediately. The sooner you start a magnesium supplement the sooner you will get your normal sleep cycle back.

Magnesium For Anxiety

We have already established the fact that more magnesium means more GABA, and GABA is associated with calm. Many people with anxiety tend to have overactive brains at night, but having higher levels of GABA allows their brains to slow down when it comes time for bed. When it comes to sleep and anxiety, almost all of the benefits magnesium produces are based on the way it effects GABA levels.

The Best Magnesium Supplements For Sleep

The best magnesium supplements for sleep are actually not technically magnesium supplements at all. If you were to take a basic magnesium supplement, you would likely not experience a whole lot of benefits in terms of your sleep cycle.

However, there are many comprehensive supplements on the market designed for sleep cycle correction that contain healthy doses of magnesium. It is much more beneficial to take a comprehensive supplement with 6-10 ingredients rather than just taking pure magnesium. That is, if your primary use for magnesium is as a sleep aid.

The best magnesium supplements for sleep will have several other ingredients that work synergistically with the magnesium in order to produce more efficient results and provide a real impact on your sleep cycle in both the short term and the long term.

Magnesium Side Effects

Magnesium basically has no side effects. It is an essential mineral, which means that your body absolutely needs it. It is in a lot of the things you eat, and most of the time, you don’t even know it. That should tell you a lot about magnesium side effects.

Its very rare that anyone reports experiencing any side effects from magnesium use as long as you don’t overdo it. Just don’t take more than the recommended dosage, and you shouldn’t experience any of the following rare magnesium side effects: upset stomach, nausea, diarrhea. Again, these are extremely uncommon.

Conclusion –  Magnesium For Sleep?

Magnesium is excellent for sleep, but it works best when it is combined with other nutrients that work synergistically with magnesium in order to provide maximum impact. You can take pure magnesium supplements for sleep, but they wont work anywhere near as well as comprehensive sleep supplements that include magnesium as just one of the many ingredients.