For how little the mineral magnesium is discussed, you might think it’s not all that important to the our health and well being. However, that couldn’t be further from the truth.
Once you start to understand the important role of magnesium as it relates to overall mood and cognitive function, as well as the basic metabolic functions of the body, you’ll definitely want to start including a magnesium spray or magnesium salt soaks (epsom salts) in your routine.
Mood regulation, improve brain function
Magnesium plays an important role in the performance of your brain. It also improves mood control and increases the ability to focus, because it works on the entire brain as an overall facilitating mechanism for brain function.
Magnesium suppresses cortisol levels and allow a person to return to a “relaxed” state sooner again after a period of fight or flight response. Because it is an essential electrolyte and mineral, it also improves the electrical activity in the brain, improving memory and retention.
It also has the capacity to keep the synapses open and firing more easily, with minimal interference. This means you can think quicker on your feet, focus better and even improve your overall intelligence and cognitive abilities by increasing your body’s stores of magnesium.
Deeper, higher quality sleep
You should notice shortly after supplementing with magnesium via transdermal absorption that your sleeping patterns and quality of sleep greatly improve. Some may notice this benefit right away while others may take a few days to experience the full effect.
Not only does it allow you to fall asleep faster, but it also typically sustains sleep throughout the night without those critical deep sleep hour interruptions.
The reason for this deeper, more restful and restorative sleep is two-fold. First, magnesium acts as a relaxant to the nervous system. It also helps to alleviate the effects of cortisol, the “stress” hormone.
It also acts as a muscle relaxant, helping to relax tense muscles. This is why Epsom salts, which are magnesium sulfate, are used by athletes to soothe sore muscles and by people with afflictions such as arthritis and other painful joint and muscle issues use them as well.
Role in metabolism
Magnesium plays a key role in the metabolism of food. It helps synthesize food into energy more effectively, minimizing fat storage. This means less caloric waste and more effective use of calories or energy. Those who have trouble losing weight even after diet modification and increasing activity may be magnesium deficient.
It also helps to regulate your blood glucose levels and prevent the onset of insulin resistance. It also efficiently burns off carbohydrate calories. Not only does this accomplish healthy weight maintenance, but it can also be a contribution to diabetes prevention.
Magnesium also metabolizes the stress hormone cortisol. Those with higher levels of cortisol can be more prone to put weight on and tend to have a higher BMI than those with controlled levels of the hormone.
How to get your daily dose of magnesium
It can be found most abundantly in darker leafy greens and vegetables, nuts and legumes. However, even if you do eat this type of food every day, there is some evidence that magnesium is simply more effectively absorbed by the body when it is transdermally (through the skin) absorbed.
There are two ways to go about this. One is to purchase a good, pure magnesium spray. They are very inexpensive and a bottle will last you a long time as you only need a few sprays to get the job done. Two is to soak in epsom salts, which are magnesium sulfate. Recommended soaking time is about 30 minutes for maximum benefit.
Danna Norek founded AuraSensory.com, where you can find popular natural hair and skin care products.
Sources for this article include :
http://science.naturalnews.com/pubmed/3075242.html
http://www.naturalnews.com/041695_transdermal_nutrients_vitamins_nutrient_absorption.html
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1855626/
