Dreaming of Better Sleep: The Magnesium and Melatonin Guide

[00:00:02] What you want when you want it, where you want it. This is the Mesh.

[00:00:36] Hey everybody and welcome to another episode of Healthy AF. This is the episode that you may or may not have been waiting for.

[00:00:44] It is September and we have been talking about sleep. So I think I've told you all about just random things about sleep sleep hygiene.

[00:00:54] It's like, you know, all of those behavioral things. I get asked two questions over and over and over again. What about magnesium and what about melatonin?

[00:01:04] So this episode is going to be a little bit different because I'm going to give you the coaches perspective that I have and I'm also going to give you like the nursing perspective that I have.

[00:01:15] So this episode, if you please check the show notes, you're going to have like a whole slew of links to click on videos on studies on like I personally could really like geek out on,

[00:01:34] the science, the neuroscience, the biochemistry happening in our bodies and like, well, how does magnesium do that? And what does it matter how it, you know, like I could really get going on all that stuff because that's something I love. So I'm going to give you the resources in the show notes. So if you want a dive deep and get all crazy town, you can do that also fun fact.

[00:01:59] You don't have to spend your whole day like I remember when I was getting my master's for becoming a nurse practitioner.

[00:02:07] It meant like all day on the like PubMed search engine, which was not, you know, like you had to go in through your university to get to it and doing all the searches for all the abstracts but all you could get where the abstracts.

[00:02:22] And then you had to go to the library at the university and like use your copy card to copy all these articles. You come home with like 27 articles, have to read through all of those half them didn't work 3M or on the wrong thing for I'm didn't apply and you'd have those like five articles that you were living by.

[00:02:43] Oh my gosh, it's so much easier now. You don't have to do that. I'm including a couple links for two minute neuroscience videos on YouTube.

[00:02:52] They're really great. They're pretty accurate from what I could tell and you can just get a two minute research, you know, on on melatonin and magnesium in your pineal gland and your brains and your neurotransmitters and how all that stuff works.

[00:03:09] So I hope I've done some of the legwork for you. When we talk sleep, I have said, a, um, most of the time when people come to me and they start working and they've got this whole list of the things in their life and their help that they want to address.

[00:03:24] And we finally say like, okay, where's the first place to focus right now what's the first step? It comes up all the time from me sleep. This I need to I need to do my sleep. Okay, great. Even when I'm really surprised, no, they always pick sleep.

[00:03:38] Because sleep is such a core component of our mental health and motivation and gives us sort of like the power and the drive to do all the other things.

[00:03:48] Okay, so we talked about behavioral patterns of sleep.

[00:03:53] What about adding in magnesium? So I actually wrote my notes up so that I don't say these things wrong and it please forgive me too if I butcher some scientific something, you know, it's it's not a strong suit for me.

[00:04:10] Magnetium. Okay, so when you think about magnesium, I want you to think muscles and nerves. Magnetium is a it's just an essential mineral that we have and we get in our diet.

[00:04:23] It contributes to like 300 processes in your body 300. So it's not one of those, like yes, you take magnesium and then this one thing happens in your body.

[00:04:35] It's not like that. Okay, in fact, when you think about muscles and nerves, you might think about like muscles and nerves like your brain is telling your finger to move nerves.

[00:04:50] But I want you to think a little deeper than that. Now when we think magnesium, we think like it just like settles us down a little bit.

[00:04:59] How does it do that and how does a muscle settle down? How does a nerve settled down? Well, magnesium helps that happen. Okay, so when you think about your muscles.

[00:05:15] I know when I'm trying to go to sleep and I get that restless leg feeling like there's electricity in my legs or like they just need to kick or they're a little bit.

[00:05:27] Itchy, but not like scratchy itchy, but just they feel itchy if you've ever had restless legs syndrome, you're probably like nodding.

[00:05:34] Yeah, girl, I got it. Yeah, so magnesium is really good for that because it just settles those muscles down.

[00:05:41] We also have muscles in your blood vessels. So what happens when we settle down a muscle that's in our blood vessel, the vessel opens up our blood pressure goes down.

[00:05:52] So magnesium can affect your blood pressure in that way.

[00:05:58] Your heart of course is a muscle.

[00:06:01] We have all these cramp cramping recovery after sport. All of that is impacted by how much magnesium we have not only in our bloodstream but in our tissues. Okay, that's two different things right.

[00:06:17] We could talk for days about you can put something in your mouth. That's not guaranteed it's going to go through your gut into your bloodstream and then into your tissues and then get processed and filtered back out this.

[00:06:30] That's not a guarantee, all we know is that we're putting it in our mouths.

[00:06:35] Okay, so in supplements are funny like that when we talk about supplementation, we talk about well sometimes it's more readily available if we eat it from food.

[00:06:45] Rather than taking a supplement different forms of magnesium have different availability.

[00:06:52] So you might take 400 milligrams of that magnesium, but your body might only be able to absorb and utilize 100 of that.

[00:07:02] So they're just so many things to talk about and I want to give you enough that we tell you what you can use.

[00:07:12] Now you have to find the deeper dive stuff and never let you believe that it's just super simple because it's not super simple.

[00:07:23] Okay, so let me just check out my paper here on my magnesium for one thing I'm going to give you a link in the show notes to a video that are really like that goes over different types of magnesiums.

[00:07:34] You can Google different types of magnesiums.

[00:07:38] Your fine videos that come up that are like seven types of magnesium, nine types of magnesium.

[00:07:44] Because we combine magnesium with something else like magnesium, oxide and magnesium chloride.

[00:07:53] All of those types of magnesium because of what it's bound to are going to react differently in the body and they are going to be absorbed differently in the body and they are going to give you a different benefit.

[00:08:10] So if you really need to poo and that's all you need to do like I just got a poo I'm so concentrated hit your some mac rocks and sit near the toilet.

[00:08:18] That's what we're used to do and nursing, you know they'd be drinking that mac rocks and the next thing you know we are cleaning some stuff up and that's okay right probably that's not the one you want to use to help you sleep.

[00:08:31] So if you're looking for sleep.

[00:08:34] We what we talked about how magnesium helped muscles and where muscles were in some of the effects you could see when you take magnesium that relaxes your muscles.

[00:08:47] But we didn't really talk about nerves so.

[00:08:51] So magnesium also sort of settles those nerves down so it has been shown to help people fall asleep easier and have better sleep quality the data is not like super extra solid on that.

[00:09:07] But there is data out there talking about magnesium giving you an easier time falling asleep and better sleep quality.

[00:09:16] So knowing that there are different types of magnesium and knowing that each type works a little bit differently in the body and knowing that each of us have different needs.

[00:09:28] You've got resources now to go look at different types and decide what you'd like to start with on your little magnesium journey.

[00:09:38] I will tell you that I recently made the choice to do a three and one actually magnesium it's a blend where it blends three different types of magnesium.

[00:09:51] I chose magnesium glycinate.

[00:09:54] It is a precursor for a neurotransmitter called GABA and that neurotransmitter is like one that says like okay chill out nerves just like chill out so for me.

[00:10:10] You know this is so funny I got a little ADHD right I'm going you know I'm going going going going going I might feel anxious I might that's going to like sort of help that settle down and that's really going to help me get to sleep.

[00:10:25] I also choose to others and these two are very similar and they cross the blood brain barrier now if you're not familiar with blood brain barrier.

[00:10:35] Basically what that means is your brain has a little gate for lack of a better term that keeps crap out and lets brain appropriate stuff in okay it's called the blood brain barrier and only certain things can pass through.

[00:10:53] So these two types of magnesium pass through the blood brain barrier one is L three and eight.

[00:10:59] It has a great neurological effect and does help with the anxiety the depression the ADHD and the memory now there's some studies about that and Alzheimer's dementia I don't even want to get into that I don't know if they're solid enough to.

[00:11:18] Really suggest anything but that is in the cooker so if you have a concern about Alzheimer's or dementia you might want to do your own research on the magnesium L three and eight.

[00:11:33] And the L four and the magnesium Tore.

[00:11:36] So similar effect there and it's been linked to decrease migraines and the reason I chose it because there are some rat studies that show a possible slowing of cataract development.

[00:11:52] And if you want they already told me that I had some early cataract development so I was like okay yes please I'll take the glycinate and the L three and eight and the Tore it all in one big.

[00:12:08] Big box so that I can sleep well poop in the morning have less anxiety depression ADHD mind racing.

[00:12:19] Maybe better memory with that Alzheimer's gene that I do have and put off some cataract development.

[00:12:28] Okay so that is how I chose what magnesium I wanted to take that's where the nurse part of me stops that's the nurse educator part told you you know a good starter so that you'll know the next steps to take the coach part of me is going to tell you this.

[00:12:48] I don't know what you need I don't know what you want in your life to have or what is the biggest thing that's you're struggling with right now.

[00:12:56] I do know if you try something you're going to find something out so it's not terribly expensive to buy supplement.

[00:13:06] You want to buy supplements start slow with magnesium you're going to know if you have too much because you're going to start pooping and it's not going to be like don't worry you're not going to go from like I haven't pooped in a week to like it's running down my legs.

[00:13:22] You're not going to go from there to there with one magnesium tablet but you're going to want to start with one capsule and see what effect you're getting try it for maybe three or four days and then you might want to increase to two caps.

[00:13:37] You take it slow dance with a little bit see how you feel see how your muscles feel see how your mood is see what your poop is doing.

[00:13:47] You're getting magnesium has a very long half life and what that means is it stays in our bodies so if you.

[00:13:57] Take some one day and then forget it the next it's probably going to be okay and you might even find that what works for you is to have more of a.

[00:14:08] You can get magnesium and food.

[00:14:22] But we have a we've got this thing going on right now in our food supply here in America at least where you really don't know how many nutrients are in the soil.

[00:14:32] So you don't know I know how much, you know maybe you can find how much magnesium was in your green leafy's.

[00:14:42] In the 1950s it's going to be different than what it is now and you've got that what's the bio availability can my body get it in can utilize it so.

[00:14:55] I hear the argument but we can get it in our food.

[00:15:00] But my counter to that is yes, but most of us don't so I don't I don't ever say to people a magnesium supplement is bad to try I think it's a great choice to try and listen to your body on what your body is telling you.

[00:15:17] It's relatively safe.

[00:15:21] You might have a few softer poops than you want to have and that's really going to be the only sort of thing about magnesium them like get on your nerves.

[00:15:31] Okay, so that's magnesium.

[00:15:32] Let me see make sure I told you everything on the utility about that.

[00:15:36] Yep, okay, melatonin let's go to melatonin so melatonin is a natural hormone that's produced in our peneal gland and it helps.

[00:15:47] It helps with our circadian rhythm so.

[00:15:49] What that means is it helps you know that when the sun comes up it's time to get up and when the sun goes down is time to go to sleep.

[00:16:00] Now, when you talk about supplements I think you first got to talk about well when when you talk about a natural like neuro hormone.

[00:16:12] That is produced in our body that now we are supplementing.

[00:16:19] You know you'd never just like oh I'm just going to take some estrogen today.

[00:16:23] You wouldn't do that right?

[00:16:25] You would not treat it like you were just grabbing something off the CBS shelf.

[00:16:30] You would treat it like you need to be mindful and understand.

[00:16:34] And I think that's where some of my rub comes with melatonin supplements is because I hear so many people.

[00:16:42] Who are struggling with sleep their first intervention it's not sleep hygiene is not a little bit of magnesium.

[00:16:50] It's not you know looking at how they set bedtime alarms or what their stress level is or whether or not they're eating right before they go to bed, it's none of that it's un-eat melatonin.

[00:17:01] And I'm not down with that.

[00:17:03] I think there are a lot of other things you can do before you do melatonin that being said when my marriage ended and my world was upside down this girl took some melatonin.

[00:17:15] Okay, there is a time and a place when you are in times of stress transition grief change those bouts of insomnia that are short lived.

[00:17:24] That's a great time to use some melatonin when you're jet lag, great time to use a little melatonin to help your body.

[00:17:32] I'm looking more at sustained long term use so what is melatonin? How is it made? How does it work? Well here we go.

[00:17:40] So it's made in your panil gland and it's not stored which means if this were a bakery we bake the bread and it sold that day.

[00:17:53] Okay, that's it. We don't have anymore we don't have you know three weeks a day old bread.

[00:17:59] When the melatonin is made it is secreted which means your body has to have an on-off switch for this is when we secrete. This is when we do not secrete.

[00:18:09] This is when levels are high and needed this is when levels are low.

[00:18:14] Levels are high when it is dark outside.

[00:18:19] Our panil gland knows to make and pump out melatonin when our retinas detect that good outside natural light.

[00:18:31] Okay, so I'm going to say that again.

[00:18:34] Our panil gland knows when to make and pump out melatonin when our retinas are seeing natural low.

[00:18:44] That's completely backwards. My bad. I'm going to start that all again. Okay, because this is important. It's an up-down ratio.

[00:18:55] Our panil gland knows when to create and secrete melatonin when our retinas see dark.

[00:19:08] That's what signals the body. Hey, it's time to chill the front door out. I'm fixing to go to bed and I need you to settle down.

[00:19:21] And that's like a two to four hour window.

[00:19:23] That is not it's eight thirty and I want to be asleep on on that is it's six.

[00:19:32] And the natural light is going down.

[00:19:37] And my brain is like, oh, it's going to be bedtime soon.

[00:19:42] I need to chill out.

[00:19:45] And that's when your melatonin starts being released and it starts helping your body chill the front door out so that you can go to sleep.

[00:19:57] And your brain continues to release that and your levels go up when you are sleeping and it is dark.

[00:20:06] Then the natural light comes back up because the sun rises.

[00:20:10] Thank God, the sun rises and our little retinas open up and we see that light and it goes through the retina and into it's this is not really the real path but for our purposes is the path.

[00:20:24] And into that panil gland and the panil gland is like, oh crap there's light outside no more melatonin needed.

[00:20:32] And it shuts that down and melatonin goes louder in the day because we're seeing all this light.

[00:20:40] And then when it gets dark again and our retinas are not picking up natural light.

[00:20:47] That message is sent to the panil gland. Hey, it's getting dark. The light is changing.

[00:20:53] And the panil gland starts pumping out creating and pumping out melatonin.

[00:20:58] And that's how we get sleepy.

[00:21:00] So what can get in the way of that being on screen.

[00:21:04] Have an own our blue lights up at full up at full brightness in my.

[00:21:12] I gotta say so my oldest daughter lives with me and she keeps a different schedule and she's actually been up in so proud of her at her ripe old age of 23 she is now like there's no more all nighters.

[00:21:24] I'm not doing that. I'm not doing that for any test. I'm not doing that for you know completely messes up my schedule.

[00:21:30] So she but she still stays up later than I do, you know I'm tucked into my room getting ready for night night between eight thirty and nine sometimes not thirty if it's a weekend gets crazy up in here.

[00:21:43] And she's probably up and studying until I don't know 10 30 year 11.

[00:21:48] So when I'm ready for it to be dark when the sun goes down outside maybe I don't know between about thirty and seven really depending on the season.

[00:21:59] I'm cutting lights off in the house.

[00:22:02] Well, she still needs to be like up and awake and ready to study so she's like mom you're killing me cutting out the lights and we sort of have this funny slash not funny war in our house about do we have the yellow light.

[00:22:17] Lamps on or do we have the overhead blue light can lights so that she can see what she's doing here.

[00:22:28] Our brains need different things at the same time of day.

[00:22:33] So you can help your body, secret and create melatonin but two really ways a lot of ways but two ways that come to mind.

[00:22:46] Going outside in the morning with your naked eyeballs not being beside a window which is good but best is to take those naked eyeballs outside and see that morning.

[00:23:00] See that morning light and then to do that again and afternoon so that your little retinas can oh it's this time of day all right come on or it's that time of day no cut off.

[00:23:14] Or and or you can adjust your indoor lighting so that when it's about that time that it's getting darker outside you know two to four hours before you go to bed.

[00:23:26] If you're going to want to decrease your lighting inside and change it from any blue to like a warm light.

[00:23:31] If you're going to take a melatonin supplement that's the time to take it.

[00:23:36] It's not 30 minutes before you go to bed like you would a pharmaceutical sleeping pill it's the time that it's like a two to four like this is the time that I need my body to start recognizing that I'm ready to chill out.

[00:23:51] All right so now you know now that I said it right about 14 times.

[00:23:57] How your body makes.

[00:24:02] Secrets and utilizes melatonin and what kind of message it gets from your eyeballs to make that happen.

[00:24:14] So if you sleep until 2 p.m.

[00:24:17] And you get up and you take your naked eyeballs outside that light is different from 6 a.m. light.

[00:24:26] So if you are a night owl late morning sleeper or or even early afternoon sleeper.

[00:24:34] Your melatonin might be a little wackadoodle and that might be a good time to work with your care provider and you might want to be using some melatonin supplements.

[00:24:45] Treatment so that you can read a just that sleep schedule same like you would for a jet lag situation.

[00:24:52] All right, let me see if I've told you everything I want to tell you.

[00:24:57] A melatonin course helps you sleep fall asleep faster signals from the red and a light dark okay this is what I wanted to end with.

[00:25:07] Because we make and secrete melatonin.

[00:25:14] When we get a signal or don't get a signal.

[00:25:19] And we don't store it up.

[00:25:21] We call that feedback when when our bodies sort of check the levels of a substance in our bloodstream and check different signals.

[00:25:35] Um, to produce or not produce hormones.

[00:25:40] We can sometimes interfere with that if we throw more hormones in.

[00:25:47] So when we look at feedback loops in our bodies and how our bodies naturally regulate.

[00:25:53] Um, let's say.

[00:25:57] I have a hundred whatever units in my bloodstream and when that substance drops down to 60 units.

[00:26:06] My body is then told oh, create more we need more.

[00:26:12] Likewise if I had 120 units of whatever it is our bodies might be like, oh no, no, no, no, you need to stop.

[00:26:19] So we have those regulators in our bodies.

[00:26:23] It's the magic and beauty of science and art nature and spirit all in one thing right.

[00:26:30] My concern with melatonin, especially on the long term use because there's no really good studies on long term use of melatonin is what happens to our own natural regulations when we throw melatonin in there.

[00:26:44] And I don't know the answers to that or I really do not know the answers to that.

[00:26:50] And but that is one of the reasons why I'm like, oh, long term melatonin use I just I'm not real.

[00:26:55] I'm not real sure about that particularly if we haven't gone through all the other behavior changes that we can do including getting outside early getting outside in the afternoon all the sleep hygiene.

[00:27:08] Chilling the front door out with herbal teas and warm showers and all of those things those would be my first choices because I don't know the long term effective melatonin and you know melatonin is relatively safe.

[00:27:28] So if you are on the fence about.

[00:27:31] Okay, I'm ready to pop a pill.

[00:27:35] To help me sleep and I'm looking at do I want to take an ambion or do I want to take a melatonin take the melatonin.

[00:27:46] There's no withdrawal symptoms there's no addictive or dependence that you can get into with a melatonin like you can you can get into with some of the other like.

[00:27:58] Ormos pharmacology kind of bins of down at diasopens or any of those other drugs so that's what I know on melatonin and kind of the health coach slash nursing perspective.

[00:28:11] That's how your body creates its normal natural melatonin and uses it that's why it's used in your body there probably some other uses for it that we haven't studied yet or aren't aware of.

[00:28:24] Short term studies look okay long term studies.

[00:28:29] Don't know there's other things you can do and as a first step for a pill pop I think that's a good choice.

[00:28:37] All right, well I hope that that was helpful.

[00:28:40] I feel like I just threw up on your like a three to one go magnesium melatonin.

[00:28:45] But I do get those questions quite often the the health coach and me will remind you it is your body it is your responsibility.

[00:28:54] And when you make choices just listen to that body listen listen listen because that body's going to tell you something every time you do an action.

[00:29:03] I hope that that gives you some guidance give yourself some grace when you do an action that your body is like no no no no no no too much magnesium.

[00:29:12] Subscribe like and share if you ever want to just have a consultation about like hey my sleep stinks and I don't know what to do there's a link you can go to my website and schedule yourself some time and we can talk about what kind of coaching might be helpful for you to get your sleep back.

[00:29:28] Get your life back get your confidence and your motivation all the things it gets leave bring you back.

[00:29:35] All right, you'll have a great week and I will see you next time on help you AF.

[00:29:40] Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Help Yeah If podcast.

[00:29:45] I hope that it is helped you create a new possibility for your help and sets you into action to go get it.

[00:29:52] If you want more information or if you want to connect with me visit my website at my help the life dot coach and don't forget to hit the subscribe button so that each new help the AF episode will be sent directly to you.

[00:30:08] Let's take you from where you are to where you want to go.

[00:30:19] You've been listening to the mesh and online media network of shows and programs ranging from business to arts sports to entertainment music to community.

[00:30:29] I'll program to our available on the website as well as through iTunes and YouTube.

[00:30:35] Check us out online at the mesh dot TV.

[00:30:38] Discover other network shows and give us feedback on what you just heard.