Gretchen Lidicker - Magnesium: Everyday Secrets: A Lifestyle Guide to Nature’s Relaxation Mineral

To my friends (you know who you are), thank you for making my heart lighter and my days a whole lot more fun

Youve probably heard about magnesium, one of the many minerals found on earth and in the human body. Maybe your mom had you take Epsom salt baths when you were sick as a kid, or maybe youve heard that in pill form it helped a friend who suffered from chronic migraines. If youre particularly health savvy, maybe you know that some foods are higher in magnesium than others (spinach, anyone?) or that its an important mineral for preventing and healing muscle spasms, constipation, insomnia, anxiety, blood pressure... I think youre catching my drift. Whatever the reason, magnesium is everywherein our self-care routines, our supplements, and our meals and snacks.

If you have done some research on magnesium, you likely found that supplementing your diet with it isnt as simple as you thought. Questions like How do I know if Im deficient? How much is too much? and What form should I take? all need to be answered. And even if you did decide to supplement, you were undoubtedly confronted with making the choice between a bunch of different forms of magnesium, which gave you uncomfortable flashbacks to your high school chemistry class. I mean, who really knows the difference between magnesium citrate and magnesium oxalate? If you forged ahead anyway, you still had to choose a delivery method, a supplement brand to try, and a dosage to start with. Theres a lot to think about and it can feel unnecessarily complicated.

If you asked your doctor about supplementing with magnesium or getting tested for a deficiency, the idea might have been dismissed. Most conventional doctors dont have real training in the world of supplements andalthough this is a generalizationthey often dismiss their value. This might have caused you to doubt the power of magnesium altogether, and you might have wondered if its a waste of money. Thats all understandable.

If youve asked yourself these questions about magnesium, or any supplement for that matter, youre definitely not alone. The world of supplements can be overwhelming, even for the most health-conscious among us. It can also feel like all the information about supplements and their value is conveniently written by people who want to sell them to you. (Suspicious.) To put the cherry on top, a study will come out that praises a certain supplement only to be closely trailed by another study that questions its level of effectiveness or its value altogetherand sometimes this all happens in the very same week. Is taking a magnesium supplement even worth your time and effort?

As the health editor at mindbodygreen, a major health and wellness media company, I navigate these choppy waters on a daily basis. In this book, youll learn the basics of magnesiumone of the most popular supplements out therehow it works in the body, why many of us might want to take it, and how it can be a powerful tool when facing chronic stress. This book will also inform you of the many, many (many) health conditions related to a deficiency in this important mineral. And youll learn to navigate the depths of the supplement aisle at your local health food store or on the Interneta skill that I have acquired through years of working in integrative and functional medicine, learning from top doctors, writing and researching, and of course, through a lotand I mean, a lotof personal trial and error. Youll also notice that I recommend a few specific products, so I think its worth noting that I have no financial connections to any of the brands I mention in the book. Theyre simply brands that I think are doing a nice job and that I might use myself.

The truth is, I wrote this book because Im just as interested in how to use magnesium as a tool for better health as you are. Ive worked with top doctors in the integrative and functional medicine spaceincluding Dr. David Perlmutter, Dr. Mark Hyman, Dr. Aviva Romm, and Dr. Frank Lipmanand Im fascinated that they all agree that magnesium is a powerful tool for better health. Even many conventional doctors are starting to suggest it to their patients. Theres no doubt that magnesium is making waves.

In the last few chapters of this book, well have some fun with this mineral. Well incorporate magnesium into our morning rituals, food and drinks, self-care practices, and most important, well bring it into our bathtubs. If youre serious about prioritizing stress managementa true act of defiance in a world that gets more hectic by the dayand want to feel better physically and mentally, this book is for you.

Are you ready? Lets get started.

By now you know that magnesium is a mineral found on the planet and also inside the human body. But what does that mean, exactly? Sometimes its hard to reconcile the idea of the magnesium on the periodic table, the white magnesium powder in a supplement capsule, and the magnesium found naturally in our bodies. Well, Im here to tell you that it is pretty confusing. Magnesium is everywhere! So lets zoom out and take a big-picture look at the science of magnesium and all the different roles it plays in our body and on earth.

Magnesium is one of the most common elements found on the planet. Most of the magnesium on earth is tied up in mineral deposits, which are just naturally occurring accumulations of metals or minerals. We cant easily access these deposits of magnesium, but luckily magnesium is also plentiful in our oceans and rivers where its generally found in its ionized form, also known as Mg2+. Well learn more about minerals found in water when we talk about the history of magnesium and spiritual bathing.

Magnesium plays an important role on the earth and in the lives of plants and animals, including humans. When it comes to us humans, magnesium is an essential minerala mineral is a naturally occurring chemical and the word essential tells us that we have to get it from food or drink because our body cant make it itself. Other essential minerals include calcium, phosphorus, potassium, sulfur, sodium, chloride, iron, zinc, copper, manganese, iodine, selenium, molybdenum, chromium, and fluoride. In nutrition, we talk a lot about vitamins and minerals, especially in the context of what can go wrong when we dont get enough of them. But despite how much theyre mentioned, its easy to go through life not knowing exactly what they are.

To put it as simply as possible, vitamins and minerals are micronutrients. As the term denotes, the body needs small amounts of them to function (as opposed to macronutrients such as protein and carbohydrates, which the body needs large amounts of). Minerals differ from vitamins because minerals are inorganic elements that are essential for key bodily processes, like those that help build strong bones, allow muscles to contract and relax, and keep the brain functioning as it should. I dont want to get too science-y, but when something is inorganic it means that it does not contain carbon-to-hydrogen bonds. In comparison, vitamins are