We live in such times where being relaxed and stress free is not an easy thing to achieve. Fast paced life, unhealthy eating habits, irregular sleep and many other things contribute to a very stressful lifestyle for the majority of people nowadays. Which brings up the question, how can we deal with it? Is there anything to do in order to cope with all this? Of course, the answer is yes. There are several ways which may help you reduce your stress levels and one of them is proper daily intake of magnesium.
Magnesium is an essential mineral for every human being. Even though it is one the more abundant ones in our organism, a large amount of people deal with magnesium deficiency on some level. Today, we’re going to cover how to increase your magnesium intake, how it will affect your body and how all that will translate to you leading a more stress free life.
1. Include Mg in your diet
First off all, let’s quickly go over how important magnesium is. It is one of the most essential minerals that our bodies need. It regulates tremendous amounts of bodily functions. It plays an extensive role in body’s overall well-being. However, humans do not produce it, therefore, it must come through our diet or dietary supplements. Maintaining a healthy, magnesium rich diet, is not a hard thing to do, there are a lot of foods that are rich in magnesium and are easy to come across. You can incorporate any of following foods in your regime in order to meet your daily needs.
· Pumpkin seeds
· Almonds
· Cashews
· Peanuts
· Spinach
· Black Beans
· Dark chocolate (>65% cocoa)
· Avocado
· Brown rice
· Chicken breast
· Salmon
Eating healthier will certainly make you feel better. You are what you eat, right? Aside from that, you can see from this list, there are several foods that are good snack choice. Snacking has been proven to relieve stress. We’ve all heard an expression ‘stress eater’ at least once. We’re certainly not recommending over-eating or indulging in enormous amounts of dark chocolate just because it has a high Mg levels. However, an occasional piece of dark chocolate or a handful of almonds or pumpkin seeds will not only make you feel better because it tastes good, it will also balance your body’s chemistry and make you better in several different ways.
2. Magnesium regulates sleep
You have certainly heard about the effect of good, regular sleep cycle. One of the key elements of maintaining a good sleep cycle is proper amount of Mg in your body and there is no better way to relax than to fall asleep. During sleep body does its magic and essentially resets and relaxes your body. Without a good night’s sleep, you cannot expect your body to function properly, which will ultimately make you feel stressed or anxious.
The way magnesium helps maintain an adequate sleep cycle is by regulating the GABA levels. What that allows us to do, is to sustain a deep, uninterrupted sleep all throughout the night. Since eating right before sleep is not really widely recommended, a good way to raise you magnesium levels before going to sleep could be a dietary supplement or even a body lotion which would absorb it though skin. If that sounds like something you would be interested in, you should check out healthyenergyamazinglife, they offer a range of magnesium rich
products. After your Mg levels are set, there will be no more restless nights, waking up or tossing in your bed because you can’t seem to shut off and fall asleep.
3. Mood balancing
In order to better explain how this works, we should first understand what happens to your body when you are under stress. It doesn’t matter what stresses out your mind and body, there are many reasons and many forms in which stress creeps up on you. It could be physical, emotional, you name it. What links all of these together is how they operate. When you are under stress, your body releases certain stress hormones.
What they do is create an avalanche of physical symptoms, all of which absolutely devour magnesium. Why? Well, magnesium serves as a sort of an antidote for stress hormones. It lowers their impact on your body, essentially alleviating the stress hormones’ effects and therefore calming you. What happens is, if you don’t replenish your Mg reserves, constant stress and will completely empty those tanks leaving your body without its defence.
4. It helps with anxiety
There have been many researches about correlation of the two. One of the most common symptoms of Mg deficiency and anxiety is muscle tightness. Sometimes, these are directly correlated, one causing the other. Therefore, increasing the intake could significantly lower you physical symptoms. Aside from that, it could also help in dealing with non-physical symptoms. Our brains are capable of healing themselves through creating new brain cells and connections and magnesium helps that process.
5. It helps produce serotonin
This chemical is widely known as a feel good hormone. It is not actually only that, it has an effect on every part of your body – from bowel movements to bone health. But, the part that we are particularly interested in is the mood regulator. If your levels are normal, you will calm, happy and more stable overall. What magnesium does is, it regulates production of serotonin.
6. It relaxes your muscles
Another great way to relax your mind is to relax your body. Like we’ve previously mentioned, you could use various magnesium rich products other than foods and dietary supplements. Bath salts or some kinds of oils could do miracles for your muscles and body as a whole. To be honest, there are not a lot of more relaxing things to do than to enjoy a long bath.
To finish it up, these are just some of the many benefits of magnesium. To name them all would be virtually impossible. What’s great about it is, whatever the benefit is, it should help you feel better and therefore stress free. Because if you feel good and you’re healthy, there’s no place for stress.
