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Oh Mg! The Science Behind Magnesium Supplements with Natalie Jurado
27 Plays1 year ago
Magnesium is an essential mineral in the human body and one of the most abundant elements on Earth — and it's an increasingly popular natural sleep aid. But what's the science behind magnesium, and does it really work? Learn the reasons most people are magnesium-deficient, how the body best absorbs magnesium, and what to look for when choosing a magnesium supplement.
Natalie Jurado is a magnesium expert and the founder of Rooted In, where she empowers individuals to reclaim their lives through the natural healing of anxiety, chronic pain, and insomnia.
Get your free magnesium resource guide at https://berootedin.com/pages/magnesium-resource-guide.
Connect with Natalie at https://berootedin.com/ and @berootedin on social media.
In this episode:
- Natalie's experience with anxiety and insomnia
- Why magnesium? Understanding its purpose in our bodies
- The reasons most adults are magnesium-deficient
- The limitations of blood testing at the doctor's office
- How the body best absorbs magnesium
- Three ways to get more magnesium in your diet
- What to avoid when choosing magnesium products
- Other lifestyle factors that help you rest well
Connect with us at SuenoLabs.com. We're currently looking for contributors and podcast guests!
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Transcript
Magnesium as a Sleep Aid
00:00:00
Speaker
There are all sorts of supplements and teas and natural remedies that allegedly help you sleep better. But in recent years, one of the more popular ones has been magnesium.
00:00:12
Speaker
And this is something that I can actually speak to. My wife and I are magnesium users in our family. When we're putting our one-year-old to bed and even our older kids, we will take a little bit of magnesium lotion and just put it on his feet or for the older kids, put it on their backs. And it really does seem to help them calm down and sleep. When you walk into the health section of a store, you are seeing more and more magnesium products on the shelf.
00:00:40
Speaker
And there seems to be this growing interest in magnesium as a so-called miracle mineral for all sorts of conditions, including sleep. But I'm curious about the science behind that. Why magnesium?
00:00:56
Speaker
This is a mineral that is relatively abundant in the earth, it's in many foods, and it's highly involved in bodily processes, and yet many people are actually deficient in magnesium.
Introducing Natalie Gerardo
00:01:07
Speaker
So to learn more about why that is and how magnesium may help with getting a better night's sleep, I turned to an expert on the subject.
00:01:22
Speaker
Today, I talked to Natalie Gerardo, a magnesium expert and founder of the wellness company Rooted In, about her personal journey from anxiety and insomnia to discovering natural healing through magnesium and the scientific basis for using magnesium supplements. I'm Jimmy Leonard. This is Swenio Labs.
00:01:49
Speaker
Natalie Gerardo, welcome to Swenio Labs. How are you today? I am fantastic. Thank you so much for asking. And I'm so excited to talk about my absolute favorite topic in the world.
00:02:01
Speaker
Yeah, I'm excited to talk about this too. I know prior to the show, we were talking about this a little bit, but my wife and I have a one-year-old. He just turned one, actually. Happy birthday to him. We use magnesium lotion to like help him sleep, and then we've kind of gotten into it too, and so i'm I'm probably going to have some personal questions as we get going here, but there's a lot to talk about for sure. So before we jump into all of that, I thought it'd be good to just start with your background. so Tell me a little bit about
Natalie's Personal Experience with Magnesium
00:02:29
Speaker
you. What put you on this journey into natural healing and all of the different things that you do?
00:02:36
Speaker
Absolutely. so you know Most of the time, it starts with a problem. right Most people, whenever they go on a journey, it always begins with that problem. and For me, that problem happened probably about 10 years ago. um I was struggling so badly with anxiety. It was leading to panic attacks. I was struggling to sleep. The insomnia I had was leading me sleeping like two hours a night. I was really having a hard time functioning. right but Wow. and It was really awful. I was doing everything that they tell you you're supposed to do, which was really frustrating. So, you know, I was eating a good, healthy, clean diet. I was exercising regularly, managing stress in my life, you know, checking off all the boxes. And I still was struggling really badly. So I did what any normal person would do. And I went to my healthcare practitioner, you know, made an appointment with a doctor, and she was really gracious enough to listen to me and then offer every single test
00:03:28
Speaker
under the sun. I felt like a human pincushion. you know So much blood was taken. I met with specialists. And then and at the end of the day, she sat me down with all of my results. She looked me straight in the eyes and she said, Natalie, there's nothing wrong with you. She's like, your blood work is perfect. You're perfectly healthy. And then she sent me on my way telling me that you know this is just a common effect as a woman gets older. These are the things that happen.
00:03:51
Speaker
Sure. Yeah. Like, cause that totally explains why you can't sleep and you're having panic attacks and it's like, Oh, wow. I'm sorry. That was your experience, but I know that's not uncommon. Well, it it it really isn't uncommon. Um, oftentimes um our symptoms can really be, you know, like, Oh, it's no big deal. Kind of pushed to the side or, you know, you're fine. You know, yeah this is normal, which is to me the most frustrating thing in the world when somebody says this is normal, right? Because who gets to define what's normal for you?
00:04:20
Speaker
So um when I left there, I felt defeated and happy at the same time, happy that everything was fine, but really defeated that I didn't have any answers.
Discovery and Impact of Magnesium
00:04:28
Speaker
So it led me on this like wild journey that over like, I think it was about a year, I was experimenting with different therapies, looking into different nutrition, meeting with chiropractors, acupuncturists, nutritionists, trying to figure out the root cause of all this. And it wasn't until I bumped into a lady at a farmer's market of all, you know, of all days,
00:04:46
Speaker
I was at a farmer's market there was an an older lady and her and i started talking and she says have you tried magnesium i'm like lady i would stand upside down on my head and say the alphabet backwards if it's gonna help me sleep at night yeah and she's like.
00:04:59
Speaker
Give it a try, get some magnesium spray from the store, spray it all over your body, see if you sleep. Sure enough, I slept within that first week. I went from sleeping two hours a night to sleeping six hours a night. I didn't have a single panic attack that whole week. My anxiety started to get better. And I thought, what is going on here? Why did no one, no one, nobody that I met with mentioned magnesium. And now I've made it my mission to tell everybody I possibly can about this mineral.
00:05:26
Speaker
Wow, that's incredible. And I love that story, by the way, but I think like someone listening to this that might give almost this folksy sort of air around this, you know, the older woman at the farmer's market. But of course, that is not true at all. Magnesium supplements are are truly having a moment right now. I mean, you mentioned like someone can say, go to the store and look for this.
Global Magnesium Trends
00:05:47
Speaker
I looked this up before the episode, but I think over 12 billion in global sales was the number in 2023. So this is definitely catching fire. I think there are still a lot of people who maybe don't know about it, or they have questions about it. But
00:06:02
Speaker
I want to just start there. I mean, why magnesium, of all things? If your last touch with magnesium was, I think that's on the periodic table somewhere. Like, isn't it a metal? Like, what's going on? Why magnesium?
00:06:15
Speaker
Absolutely. So magnesium is literally found in every single one of our trillions of cells. And there are 64 different conditions that are associated with magnesium deficiency. It is involved in over 700 different biochemical reactions.
00:06:33
Speaker
So if we think about it, there's so much in our body that simply will not function if we don't have magnesium. It's just related to just about everything you could possibly imagine, from sleep, to muscle contractions, to heart health, to memory. like It really is the miracle mineral. For you know for for for lack of words, there's no other way to describe it other than it's a miracle mineral. The problem is that close to 70% of our population is not getting enough in their diet every single day.
00:07:03
Speaker
So, we're seeing a disconnect from the amount that people are getting to the amount that they need, and that's when we start to see these issues rise.
Nutritional Sources of Magnesium
00:07:11
Speaker
And i I think if you tell us some of the foods that magnesium is found in naturally, it will make sense. So, you know, like magnesium, it is everywhere. It's highly abundant. What are some of the foods that we would normally be getting magnesium from?
00:07:24
Speaker
So foods that are rich in magnesium include your dark green leafy vegetables, your nuts and your seeds. So we're talking spinach and chia seeds and pumpkin seeds. And it's also in dark chocolate. But of course, I mean dark chocolate, not like a Hershey's bar that you you find in the grocery store, but like the good stuff. Those foods are all rich in magnesium. But those foods are also the foods that we simply don't eat enough of in the standard American diet. I mean... So true.
00:07:49
Speaker
It really is like i'm actually like you have a one year old so i have two kids myself and getting them to eat leafy greens is like an act of nature to get that to happen like you know they it's just not as tantalizing as chicken nuggets. So we see this especially in children we see um magnesium deficiency really impacts children and teenagers and we see it a lot in the elderly population as well.
00:08:11
Speaker
But when we look at the foods that have magnesium, you actually have to eat a lot of them in order to meet your daily requirements. So for reference, it would take 10 cups of raw spinach just to meet the bare minimum amount of magnesium that you need in a day. um So our food doesn't have as much magnesium in it now than it did even 50 or 100 years ago.
00:08:33
Speaker
Sure. Yeah. So I think it's that combination of things is that it's in all of your cells. It's part of all these biochemical reactions. I i think it makes sense when you say it naturally occurs in dark green vegetables that you don't eat. It's like, okay, that's the root of so many health problems, right? But i I know so many people and myself included, my version of healthy eating is a lot of the biohacking that's really trendy right now. So I am very much a protein shake kind of person, you know, where I'm adding all sorts of supplements, and i've I've got a little bit of this. But if you really think about it, a lot of that stuff that you're buying isn't magnesium, right? You know, it's it's protein, it's vitamin B, whatever, and and you're mixing that in, but that is not a substitute for the 10 cups of spinach. So even if I'm thinking, oh, I eat healthy, because I do you this shake, I could still be really deficient in this key mineral. Yeah, absolutely. I see this a lot, especially amongst athletes, because you use up a ton of magnesium when you exercise, right? You sweat out magnesium. It's involved in energy production in your cells. So we see our athletes are suffering from cramps all the time. They're getting those leg cramps. They're feeling exhausted after a workout. And when you tell them, hey, you know, you might want to get some magnesium, they're like, yeah, I take an electrolyte drink.
00:09:51
Speaker
and They're like I drink the Gatorade, I drink the Powerade, that has electrolytes in it. But what they fail to realize is that they those drinks have potassium and sodium in them. They don't have magnesium in them. It's very rare for you to have find an electrolyte brand that has an adequate amount of magnesium in it.
Challenges in Addressing Magnesium Deficiency
00:10:05
Speaker
So um yeah, you're completely right. There really is no substitute for just real food. you know you can't I always tell people you can't supplement your way out of a bad diet.
00:10:16
Speaker
Sure, that makes sense. So why do you think this isn't more talked about with primary care physicians if it is such a common thing to be deficient in?
00:10:26
Speaker
Oh, you're asking a loaded question here. I know. Yeah. Like what what is Natalie's hot take on the American healthcare system? Isn't that what this is turning into? But I i mean, because what you said is common where it it goes straight to like, let's test your blood or let's do this. and And I guess I'll answer the question first and you can tell me if you agree or disagree. I think sometimes the way our healthcare care system is built is we're looking for the like the really wrong thing.
00:10:53
Speaker
It's like, well, you don't have cancer or like you don't have heart disease. And so and this is going to sound really cynical, but it's like, you know, I don't necessarily have this flow where I'm going to recommend you to a surgeon and all of this stuff. And so you're standing here, you're talking, you're living, you're breathing, you're fine. And and it it's there's not necessarily like,
00:11:12
Speaker
that space in the system to test some of those smaller things because it's not killing you today, even though over time it could actually turn into a huge problem. You're not sleeping and so on.
00:11:25
Speaker
Absolutely. I would absolutely agree with you on that. And I think if we take it a step further, our system tends to focus on treating the symptoms, not not the cause. So oftentimes when you go into your doctor and you're like, Hey doc, I can't sleep, you know, like i have terrible insomnia, instead of them looking at why the insomnia is happening and really trying to get to the root cause, they treat the symptom, which is you can't sleep. So they'll give you some Ambien, you know, so now you can sleep again.
00:11:51
Speaker
But the problem is is that if we continue to treat those symptoms, the the magnesium deficiency continues to build up and now it's not not that you just can't sleep, but it's also that you have leg cramps and now you have chronic headaches and now your blood pressure is high and now your cholesterol is out of control because we never got to that root cause. So I think that's part of the problem. The other thing that I see um happen very often is that doctors don't necessarily get nutritional training. right and you know when we When we look at the stats among medical schools to see the average amount of nutritional training that doctors get, it can be as low as one class or just a few hours. So they're not necessarily well versed in nutrition enough to make nutritional recommendations.
00:12:33
Speaker
um you know i say i don't I don't mean that for all doctors. There are some amazing physicians that you know go out of their way to learn about nutrition and and really you know understand it and how it works in the body, but you know you have to find them. You have to look them out and search them out. and Then the third reason I think that that this often happens in our medical system is that testing. and it It really all comes down to testing.
00:12:57
Speaker
so Magnesium deficiency um is often overlooked because we don't have adequate tests to determine if you are deficient so about sixty percent of your body is magnesium is stored in your bones the other forty percent is in your muscles and tissues leaving less than one percent in your blood.
00:13:16
Speaker
So what do we test for? We test people's blood from magnesium. So we're looking at less than 1% of what's happening in your body. And by the time your blood shows magnesium deficiency, you have been deficient for years without even knowing it. So I think testing really, really holds us back from diagnosing more.
00:13:33
Speaker
That makes a lot of sense because you can't exactly give like a bone marrow sample. And so like, you know, that it would be really hard to see that. I think that's true for a lot of nutritional related things really across the board because they're, I mean, magnesium is what we're talking about, but there's probably so many vitamins and minerals that people are deficient in, but we are, we're used to functioning at some version of okay. And so it's like, well, I can still get through my day.
00:14:03
Speaker
So I must be fine, I think is how we approach a lot of things. And it can even be harder to identify in ourselves, this could be related to what I'm eating or what I'm not eating, because I'm not keeling over right now. Totally. and you And I think you said something really important there. We kind of just sometimes we just get used to not feeling good, you know? um And I think that we don't hold our culture and our society to a higher standard of health you know like we we often say oh you know it's normal for you to like especially in women it's normal for you to gain weight as you get older it's part of menopause it's normal for you not to be able to do ten push ups at the end of the day you're you know you're fifty years old what fifty year old does ten push ups.
00:14:44
Speaker
you know We kind of attribute aging to getting sicker and we see other cultures around the world and as they age, they age healthfully. you know Their culture is is culture that really um puts a lot of of um importance on aging healthfully, staying fit, you know movement, that type of thing. So I think you really, really spoke to something that's really important there.
00:15:13
Speaker
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00:15:30
Speaker
So you mentioned that this is your mission to tell people about this. So tell us what that looks like at Bruton. Like what are some of the things that you're doing to get the word out? Absolutely. So um I always talk about the the three phase approach to raising your magnesium levels and it's accessible and it's not expensive.
Maximizing Magnesium Intake: Methods and Advice
00:15:50
Speaker
You know, magnesium is is a mineral that it's readily accessible. it's It's cheap. It's not going to cost you thousands of dollars. There's no intricate plan.
00:15:59
Speaker
So the three phase way of boosting those magnesium levels easily is simply like we said get those foods and you know add the the spinach to your smoothies you know add some of those chia seeds in the morning to your oatmeal so try to get more and more magnesium into your diet.
00:16:15
Speaker
The second phase, of course, is to get magnesium onto your skin. What people don't realize is that magnesium absorbs beautifully right through your skin. When when you soak in an Epsom salt bath, like that right you that little bag of Epsom salt that they have at the pharmacies, that's usually like $3, super affordable, super cheap. When you take two cups of that and add it to a warm bath and soak for 20 minutes, you're sending magnesium straight to all of your cells.
00:16:41
Speaker
and now I know a lot of people are like well i don't have a bathtub or you know who has time for a twenty minute bath you can also put that in a foot soak you know if you're if you're at work on the computer you can soak your feet in a basin of salt and warm water so there's other ways to kind of get magnesium on your skin you can also use magnesium sprays gels and lotions as well.
00:17:01
Speaker
to Just get it on your skin this works really really well if you have leaky gut if you have crones ibs or just inability to absorb your nutrients properly through through your digestive tract it's a great way to get it into children who can't take pills or powders so ah magnesium absolutely prime way to get into your system.
00:17:20
Speaker
And then the third way is, of course, supplements. you know Magnesium malate, magnesium glycinate, magnesium threonate, those are great forms of magnesium that you can take as a supplement that'll do a great job of raising your levels as well. So all three ways um that you know easy things that we can implement every single day and not spend tens of thousands of dollars on.
00:17:41
Speaker
Sure. So you mentioned the importance of getting it on your skin. When I'm in the store, I see magnesium gummies, magnesium pills, like um a lot of times those things are more prominent on the end cap. So what is it about the topical application that's different than a gummy?
00:18:01
Speaker
Sure. So when you digest magnesium, so if you're taking ah any kind of magnesium supplement, the National Institute of Health says that about 30% of that will actually get absorbed into your system. So the rest of it is going to go through our digestive tract and we're going to you know basically pee and poop it out, right? So you're talking about 30% at a time. The problem is there are over 14 different forms of magnesium out there and some of them will absorb really well and and help you hit that 30%.
00:18:27
Speaker
And then other forms like magnesium oxide, for instance, only absorb at a rate of 4%. So what happens is people are like, yeah, I'm gonna go get some magnesium and they go to the health food store and they see this giant aisle of magnesium supplements and they're like, I don't know what to do. I'm just gonna change this one. And typically the cheapest one is magnesium oxide and and they find, oh, well, I didn't see any benefit, you know, or this bothered my stomach, that type of thing.
00:18:49
Speaker
So it can really trip people up so i really like topical because there's there's no side effects you're not gonna get nauseous you're not gonna have stomach issues you're it's you know. Generally recognize a safer just about everybody like you're saying you can use it on a one year old.
00:19:05
Speaker
It's very, very accessible and easy to use. and We also are seeing some you know early research that is showing that magnesium on your skin absorbs about five times faster. So the studies are showing you can raise your magnesium levels in about 12 weeks when using it on your skin versus six to nine months when using it um as a pillar of powder. So we're seeing that it actually works a lot faster.
00:19:29
Speaker
Yeah, and that makes sense. And I can say that the way we do it is, you know, with a ah baby, it's like just, I don't know, it's like a teaspoon amount. Like it's not very much. And we'll just rub it on his feet before bed or um with our kid who's older, you know, sometimes it's just like on his back before bed. We don't use a lot on them, on ourselves. It's not very much either. But I don't know if you have like a ah more exact answer than that in terms of a recommended amount to apply better than my not very much.
00:19:58
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. So the studies um the studies that we see that are showing this dramatic increase in magnesium levels over 12 weeks, in those studies, they used 500 milligrams of magnesium chloride in the morning and at night. So twice a day, 500 milligrams. so And their studies actually showed a 60% increase in magnesium levels over those 12 weeks.
00:20:18
Speaker
So a really significant amount. like the The average person who's struggling, you know maybe they're struggling to sleep, maybe they're yeah they've got leg cramps, maybe they're dealing with some anxiety, they might not need that much. you know That's a lot. They might not need a 60% increase in their magnesium levels. So simply using you know anywhere from ah even 200 to 500 milligrams of magnesium chloride can be really, really effective. And if you're using a really good quality brand, they will tell you how much magnesium chloride is in, you know, a teaspoon of their product. Okay. But even just a quarter of magnitude, we are talking more like a teaspoon or a tablespoon versus half the bottle. Yes, yeah we are talking about teaspoon and tablespoon. The other side of of a topical magnesium is that your skin does an incredible job of regulating how much you take in. So I always like to use the ocean as an example, the ocean, you know, I'm in Florida, so we've got beaches everywhere, right? So the ocean
00:21:14
Speaker
So the the ocean is made up for about thirty percent magnesium chloride so you could soak and play and splash around in the ocean all day long and nobody will ever tell you hey i need you to get out of the water you're getting too much magnesium right it's not gonna happen so your your skin does a great great job of regulating how much you take in.
00:21:33
Speaker
That's just a really easy way to kind of remind you can't get too much of this. You're already, or you should be already getting a lot of it anyway, just through the foods we eat and the way we live our lives. That makes a lot of sense. So this might sound like a weird question, but so if someone's thinking, okay, I have lead cramps or some of these other things.
00:21:51
Speaker
Is it like icy hot like do you have to put it on your leg where you're experiencing the cramp or does it not matter. Yeah so if you're taking this is where i like to to kind of show the difference between taking a pill and using a topically so if you're dealing with like cramps and you take a magnesium pill is it going to help your leg cramps absolutely.
00:22:10
Speaker
But it's going to take longer so if you take a pill it's goingnna it's going to go through your digestive tract into your bloodstream and get kind of dispersed everywhere it needs to go. Some of it will make it to that muscle tissue in your calf but the rest of it's going to go everywhere all over the place. When you use it topically you can literally isolate it to where you need it to go. It gets absorbed into your skin right into that tissue and starts working right away.
00:22:31
Speaker
So if you're dealing with an isolated issue like you know headaches, um you know soreness after workouts, leg cramps, then topical is definitely a preferred method. If you're working on just you know making sure you're not making you making up for any dietary deficiencies like, hey, I'm not eating, you the week of Halloween, I ate a bunch of sugar, so I'm gonna take some magnesium to make up for it, then taking a pillar of powder is a better option.
00:22:54
Speaker
Okay, great. And I guess that makes sense to what you said earlier, where a lot of this magnesium is stored in our bones and our muscles. So getting it as close to the muscle as possible, at least to me, that makes sense. That's how it's going to get to where it needs to be. Absolutely. So Natalie, but a minute ago, you mentioned a high quality lotion. So tell me about that. How do I know if I have a high quality lotion?
00:23:22
Speaker
So there's a couple of things that you want to look out for.
Resources and Lifestyle Advice for Magnesium Intake
00:23:25
Speaker
The first is you want to make sure it has magnesium in it. And I know that sounds like, you know, a no brainer, but there are a lot of beauty companies that are, you know, skincare brands that have a whole line of skincare that are trying to capitalize on this industry because like you said, it's a booming industry and they could just put a few drops of magnesium in their product, call it a magnesium cream. And there you go, you know,
00:23:48
Speaker
So you want to make sure that you're using a brand that will tell you how much magnesium is in their product. um You want to look for you know a brand that has 250 to 500 milligrams per use in that product so that you're getting a good amount. So that's the first thing. And a lot of times you can see on the ingredient list, magnesium should be amongst the first three ingredients on the ingredient list to show that it actually is a magnesium product, right? Sure.
00:24:14
Speaker
and So that's the first thing you want to look out for. The second thing that you want to look out for is that there's no gunk in it. And by gunk, I mean, you know, artificial fragrances, parabens, all those toxic ingredients that we typically want to avoid no matter what skin care we're using. And then the third thing is it should always be stored in glass.
00:24:33
Speaker
Magnesium chloride will degrade plastic and it'll leave all those nasty toxins and plastic right into the product that you eventually wind up spreading all over your body. So magnesium chloride, whether it's a spray, a gel, a cream, it needs to be stored in glass. Fascinating. I don't know that I have seen that to be 100% true in stores that it's sold in glass containers. It is very rare to find a magnesium product that is in glass, um but it is really important.
00:25:02
Speaker
Okay, so and I think going back to something you said earlier, ah maybe unlike some other health and beauty products, having the right ingredients and having enough of it doesn't necessarily mean that this is becoming a luxury product, because we're talking about something that is highly abundant. And for manufacturers, it's not necessarily difficult to get a lot of it. So at least in theory, right, this shouldn't be as expensive as other things we're looking at.
00:25:29
Speaker
Yeah, magnesium tends to be really affordable. Whether you're taking a supplement or you're using a topical, it should be, you know, you there's a lot of like really big, trendy brands, especially in the supplement supplement industry that are selling you $75 bottles of magnesium supplement. They're like, oh, this is magnesium three and eight and charging $75 to $80. Magnesium shouldn't be that expensive. It is a very, very affordable mineral. You can get a good quality magnesium supplement for under $30.
00:25:58
Speaker
So Natalie switching topics a little bit. I saw in the read it in website, you have this free magnesium resource guide. What is that? Tell me about that. So, um, I had, you know, when I first started talking about magnesium on social media, everybody had all these questions, you know, they're like, Hey, what's this? What's that? That kind of thing. Tell me this. And so I just took everybody's questions and put them in a guide that answers all of your questions about magnesium.
00:26:23
Speaker
how it works in the body, what foods are high in magnesium, you know how does magnesium interact with, um for women, how does it interact with your hormones, um how does it interact with cholesterol and blood pressure and all that kind of stuff. So it's a really easy to to read guide that kind of navigates the magnesium process for you. and I love it. And someone can just get that on the website. Yeah, it's free. We are. I'm a big, big fan of, um, you know, getting information out for free. You shouldn't have to pay for information that can you know potentially really change your life. So Natalie, I think just because at the beginning you mentioned so much about your journey and just how you really tried everything and you talked to so many different specialists and you tried all these different things. It sounded like there was a lot that didn't work.
00:27:08
Speaker
But I'm wondering if you found anything beyond magnesium that has been helpful for you and just dealing with the stress and the anxiety and the not sleeping in a natural way.
00:27:20
Speaker
Absolutely. So, I mean, of course, I think one of the most important things that we can do is manage our lifestyle. I mean, at the end of the day, the frustrating thing is when you're dealing with anxiety, people say, oh, well, just calm down. OK, well, how do you do that? Right. you like You know, so for me, it came down to um really figuring out what brings me joy. And what is it that me that I like? Not not Natalie as a mom, not Natalie as a wife, not Natalie as an employee. But what does what do I like to do? What brings me joy?
00:27:48
Speaker
um and I think a lot of times as we become adults, we we we kind of put our own likes and our own happiness aside for other people or for the stage of life that we're in at that moment. so I think really narrowing down, what is it that brings you joy? How can I make more time for this in my life? How can I balance out the stress? Because for the most part, most of us can't get rid of the stress in our life. We all have to work, we all have to parent, we all have to do that stuff. But what we add to our life that really kind of balances that out.
00:28:17
Speaker
And so that that was a fun journey for me. um ah you know I'm a big fan of, you don't have to grow up, you should still be able to play. You should still be able to run, play, jump, you know and and enjoy those things that you enjoyed as a kid. Yeah, absolutely. That makes sense. If you want to go swimming in the ocean, we already talked about how that's good. um Even just like as much as you can to to make time for those passion projects. i'm I'm a big fan of that as well, so I really like that. That's good advice.
00:28:42
Speaker
Absolutely. So one of the things that I'd love to bring up is the fact that yes, it's super important to get more magnesium into our system, but it's also equally important that we're aware of what we're doing to make ourselves more deficient. And one of those key things that many of us do on a regular basis is eat excessive amounts of sugar. So for every one molecule of sugar that you consume, it takes 54 molecules of magnesium to balance that out.
00:29:10
Speaker
Okay. I'm going to pause. You need to explain that that because that I need to know why that is that we need 54 times to balance it out. It's just, ah you know, in our biological processes, it takes magnesium. Remember, magnesium is involved in over 700 different processes in your body. So it takes a lot of magnesium to process sugar because sugar, I mean, yes, there's good sugars, you know, and our body can process sugar fairly, you know, fairly well. It's the problem is when we get excess sugar and our magnesium levels are already low.
00:29:43
Speaker
For many of us, our magnesium level levels are incredibly low. And when we're eating that sugar, we've put our cell phone in a position where it's very difficult to process it. So what that does is it uses up your available magnesium and then you wind up and more deficient at the end of the day. So um I'm not saying don't eat sugar, you know, we're coming up on the holidays. Everybody wants Christmas cookies, you know, and potato pie, right? Not saying not to do that.
00:30:06
Speaker
But be aware of how much magnesium you are getting in during those times of your life when you're consuming more sugar. We also see this in children. you know some of the Some of the effects of um low magnesium include irritability, moodiness, difficulty focusing. And we see like right after Halloween and our kids have all eaten so much sugar, they can't sleep at night. They're having a hard time focusing in class. They can't sit still. um And some of that is due to low magnesium.
00:30:33
Speaker
um Another thing that we do that really depletes our magnesium levels is consume caffeine and alcohol. Again, we've got the holidays coming up, so most people are drinking a little bit more. They're maybe indulging a little bit more in alcohol. A little white chocolate mocha here, there, a little, yeah, for sure.
00:30:49
Speaker
pumpkin spice lattes, um caffeine and alcohol are both diuretics. And so they they will pull magnesium out of your system as well. So it's just things to be aware of if we're as we get into that holiday season is to make sure that you're getting adequate magnesium to balance how much you're burning off.
00:31:06
Speaker
Yeah. And I think that that's like, I like how you said that. It's not that we need to say no to everything. It's not that we need to have this completely unrealistic expectation for our lives, but just have some sense of how this is potentially affecting me. And especially if you're already struggling before the holidays, maybe you're already struggling with insomnia or stress or anxiety. Think about is eating extra Christmas cookies going to help me or hurt me and what I'm trying to do here.
00:31:33
Speaker
Absolutely. Absolutely. It can be that simple. um Another thing I definitely want to mention is the way that magnesium interacts with other vitamins and minerals as well. um Oftentimes people will take magnesium and they'll tell me, well, it's not working for me. I took magnesium. I don't feel any different. And then I find out that they're also taking calcium at the same time.
00:31:53
Speaker
and magnesium and calcium have an antagonistic relationship so they will fight for absorption in your body and essentially cancel each other out. So if you are going to take magnesium and you're, for instance, taking a multivitamin as well that might contain calcium, make sure that you're given in at least two hours apart so that you can get the best benefits of both.
00:32:13
Speaker
And is this another reason why we should really think about a topical application? Because i I'm guessing that for most people, you wouldn't be doing that at the same time that you're taking some of your oral dietary supplements.
00:32:26
Speaker
Absolutely, absolutely. Timing-wise, most people will will use topical magnesium like right as they're getting into bed to help them fall asleep at night, or they'll use it in the morning after they take a shower so that they feel less anxious and more grounded throughout the day. Most of the time, you're not taking a pill at that same time as you're jumping into a shower. So you know that that totally makes sense. um Yeah, magnesium, while it can fight things like calcium, it actually helps things like vitamin D too. So oftentimes people get told by their doctors they're low in vitamin D and they're prescribed a vitamin D supplement,
00:32:56
Speaker
And vitamin D, when you take it as a supplement form, is in its inactive form. It actually needs magnesium to activate it. So your vitamin D levels will definitely go up much faster and much more effectively. You'll get more out of that pill if you also take it with magnesium. Natalie, this has been fantastic. It's been enlightening. Where can listeners go to learn more about what you do and some of the things we talked about here today?
00:33:22
Speaker
Absolutely. So you can find me across all socials, Instagram, Facebook, and very active on TikTok at be rooted in. Um, and you can also find our website, the same name, be rooted in.com. All right. We'll drop some links as always. Well, Natalie Gerado, thank you so much. This has been a pleasure and thank you so much for what you're doing to spread awareness about health health and wellness. This is, it's really, really important.
00:33:49
Speaker
Swinyolabs is a show about sleep, memory, and dreams. For more content, visit our blog at Swinyolabs.com and connect with us to learn more about how you can share your story related to brain health and the daily habits that help us to rest and live better.
00:34:08
Speaker
Thanks for joining. We'll be back soon.