Getting enough quality sleep is vital to our overall health and wellbeing. To achieve the best quality of sleep, it’s important to understand the nutritional needs of our body during the sleeping process. Magnesium is a key mineral that helps promote quality sleep.
It’s estimated that up to 80 percent of people do not get enough magnesium in their diets, as magnesium is found in foods such as green leafy vegetables, nuts, and tofu. People with sustained stress, intense exercise, or consuming high levels of alcohol or caffeine can also experience a deficiency in magnesium, since their bodies use more of the mineral.
Being magnesium deficient can lead to poor quality of sleep and other health problems, such as depression, learning disabilities, diabetes, and even osteoporosis. Magnesium is essential to the proper functioning of brain cells and helps transmit electrical signals in the brain, which are needed for the body to relax and sleep soundly.
How Can Magnesium Help You Sleep?
One of the major ways magnesium helps people to sleep is by promoting the production of serotonin, which is a hormone that helps regulate sleep. By consuming foods with magnesium or supplementing with magnesium, the body can produce serotonin and then convert it to melatonin, the hormone which helps us to fall asleep.
In addition to this, studies have found that taking a magnesium supplement before bedtime helps people fall asleep quicker, and stay asleep longer. Research has also found that taking magnesium helps reduce the time it takes to drift off to sleep, as well as decrease nighttime awakenings.
Benefits of Taking Magnesium Supplements
In addition to helping promote better sleep, there are numerous other benefits of taking magnesium supplements. It helps to relax tense or painful muscles, reducing cramps and aches, which can make people more prone to sleep disturbances. It can reduce stress and anxiety and has also been shown to boost cognitive function, which in turn can improve memory and learning capabilities.
Magnesium also acts as an antioxidant, helping to protect cells from damage by free radicals. Magnesium has a wide variety of uses and those who take it can experience improvements in their overall health and wellbeing.
Overall, it’s important for everyone to get enough magnesium in their diets through food or taking supplements. This essential mineral helps to promote better quality sleep, as well as a wide range of other health benefits.
Foods High in Magnesium
- Spinach
- Chard
- Pumpkin seeds
- Almonds
- Black beans
- Avocado
- Figs
- Bananas
- Dark chocolate
- Fatty fish
Conclusion
Magnesium plays an essential role in helping maintain proper sleep and overall well-being. By eating foods high in magnesium or taking magnesium supplements, it is possible to promote a better quality of sleep and overall health.