Have you ever asked yourself…
Am I in need of magnesium?
You might be surprised to learn that over 75 percent of the population is not meeting their recommended daily intake of this precious mineral (1). I tend to believe that number is rather modest, too. So odds are if you’re reading this right now, you might in need of magnesium
Why is this important? According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), “magnesium is a cofactor in more than 300 enzyme systems that regulate diverse biochemical reactions in the body” (2). However, more recent reports have shown that magnesium might be responsible for over 600 biochemical processes within the human body.
That means if you’re low in this mineral, that’s several hundred things your body can’t do efficiently.
This includes:
Energy production
Glucose control
Nerve function
Blood pressure regulation
Protein synthesis
And more!
You might have heard of ATP (adenosine triphosphate) before. This is your body’s energy currency. All of the food we eat eventually converts to ATP down to the very basic cellular level to give us energy.
ATP actually needs to bind to a magnesium molecule before it can do its job properly. So magnesium is literally at the very center of your energy.
You can think of magnesium as the coach and you’re the little ATP sitting on the bench. You need to go through coach in order to hit the playing field.
But what happens if you don’t have coach? What if coach is off sick and the whole team is stuck on the bench? Your team doesn’t perform very well because you don’t have any guidance. You might be able to send a few guys on the field, but without proper instruction and direction, you’re not going to make good play calls and probably perform very poorly.
The same happens without magnesium present (or severely limited) inside our bodies.
That’s why I’m a huge fan of eating magnesium-rich foods for this reason. If you’re trying to avoid the afternoon slump, sleep better, gain healthy muscle mass, regulate blood sugar, burn body fat, or anything else for that matter, you need to get magnesium in on a daily basis.
You can find foods that are full of magnesium in things like dark cacao (chocolate - 80% or higher), avocados, leafy greens, and raw nuts and seeds. But there’s a huge caveat to this…
Due to nutrient poor soil, crops being grown half a world away and taking days to be transported to our local grocery stores, and the cows eating nutrient poor soil (which, in turn, we eat the cow being deficient in certain nutrients), we can have a very hard time getting in enough magnesium.
That’s why in this case I’m a fan of supplementation. But not oral supplementation. Taking magnesium pills can cause what we clinically call...disaster pants.
That’s right, poopy pants.
Aka...diarrhea.
Magnesium does a very good job at drawing a lot of water to the bowels. And when you start taking random magnesium off the store shelves, you can leave your body more dehydrated and do more harm than good.
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On occasion I do recommend magnesium supplements to my 1:1 clients under strict guidance to ensure the form they are taking is optimal.
In this case, I will recommend a magnesium supplement from my professional supplement dispensary. This way I can know 100% that they are getting trust-worthy supplements that haven’t been adulterated or tampered with in any way.
If you do purchase an oral magnesium supplement, I’d highly recommend to avoid getting it off of Amazon and go through a supplement dispensary.
As far as the magnesium form goes, make sure you go with these ones here:
Magnesium glycinate
Magnesium L-threonate (crosses the blood brain barrier) (2)
Magnesium citrate (avoid higher doses)
Magnesium malate
Magnesium orotate
However, avoid using magnesium oxide. It is only four percent absorbable and causes massive GI upset (3).
While I do occasionally recommend oral magnesium supplementation, by far my favorite way to get in magnesium is by using a topical magnesium spray. Our skin is our largest organ and what you put on it, it eats too.
Have you ever wondered how topical medications work? What about cigarette patches? Our skin absorbs the medication into the system. Even chemically filled sunscreens can be detected minutes after application. So all of the Victoria Secrets and Armani cologne we spray on ourselves, that all ends up in our bloodstream wreaking havoc on our endocrine system.
But when it comes to magnesium, our body only absorbs as much as it needs to do the job and leaves the rest on the surface of our skin. If you’ve ever tried topical magnesium before then you know they can leave an ashy residue and even burn/itch the skin.
I’ve only found one topical magnesium supplement that is over 99 percent absorbable and doesn’t have any harmful side effects.
That is Ease Magnesium by Activation Products.
This product uses a form of magnesium called magnesium chloride hexahydrate. It literally hydrates the skin and gives your body the magnesium it needs to function on all cylinders. I’ve been taking this on a consistent basis for the past five years and I won’t use anything else.
It helps me to sleep deeper, relax and unwind, slows my heart rate, and gives me a nice steady energy boost all day long. I can feel the difference immediately. Especially as an athlete, I like to rub it on sore muscles, use it in a nice, warm bath, and apply on little back aches I get from time-to-time.
This is something I recommend that just about everybody take on a consistent basis. If you have magnesium in your cupboards at home, I encourage you to go check the label. If it says magnesium oxide, you can just get rid of it because you’re doing more harm than good.
Magnesium sulfate is what you would find in epsom salts or, in the case of Activation Products’ Deep Soak it contains their formula magnesium chloride hexahydrate. It works a lot better than magnesium sulfate. Not to mention it’s a soothing lavender so you can relax even more while taking a nice, warm bath.
I always recommend food first as mentioned above, but in the case of magnesium my second option is to utilize a topical magnesium supplement. And then if you choose not to go that route, choose a magnesium -ate form for more optimal absorption.
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