Surprising Benefits of Magnesium for Hormone Balance
If there was one single micronutrient that I had to recommend to a client, it would be magnesium!
This one nutrient plays a role in 300 biological processes! The benefits of magnesium for hormone balance are especially astounding as you’ll learn in this article.
Almost everyone could benefit from getting more magnesium since 75% of the U.S. population is deficient! But even if you aren’t fully “deficient,” you could still have suboptimal levels which could be impacting your health and hormones.
Magnesium deficiencies are more prominent than ever because of depleted soil due to conventional agricultural practices, a more stressed-out population, and poor diets that are filled with low-nutrient ingredients.
It’s no wonder that it’s more common than not to experience fatigue, anxiety, insomnia, and other annoying daily symptoms! And the sad part is that we shrug these symptoms off as normal and struggle with them for years, or take the band-aid approach by popping over-the-counter medications (that cause additional underlying imbalances and dysfunctions).
But once you get your magnesium levels up to optimal levels, you notice a huge change in your overall health.
General Benefits of Magnesium
Magnesium can work wonders for your health including:
Better sleep
Stable mood/ reduce anxiety
Reduce period cramp severity
More energy
Improve restless leg syndrome
Enhances cognitive health
And more!
Best Food Sources of Magnesium
Seeds like chia seeds, flax seeds, and pumpkin seeds
Nuts like almonds, cashews, Brazil nuts, & peanuts
Dark leafy greens like spinach, kale, and collard greens
Whole grains, oat bran
Legumes like lentils, beans, chickpeas, & peas
Dark Chocolate
Avocados
Surprising Benefits of Magnesium for Hormone Balance
Magnesium helps promote relaxation and calmness. A magnesium deficiency can induce anxiety and HPA axis dysregulation (aka chaos to your stress response control center). By increasing your magnesium, you may experience less anxiety and stay calmer during stress, reducing your production of stress hormones. Being calm and less stressed supports a healthy balance of other hormones as well.
Magnesium is a significant nutrient for thyroid health. In fact, it’s needed to make thyroid hormones and convert them into the correct form. Magnesium helps convert the less active T4 thyroid hormone to the more active T3. If you want to give your thyroid an extra nutrient boost, pair up your magnesium with supplementing with selenium.
Magnesium stabilizes blood sugar. Magnesium is great at improving insulin sensitivity and lowering blood sugar which is great for those struggling with PCOS. Stabilized blood sugar also helps with sugar cravings, mid-day energy crashes, anxiety, and reaching an ideal weight.
Magnesium enhances sleep quality. You will notice a difference in your sleep the first night you take magnesium. Glycine form is the best for sleep since it is the more absorbable form of magnesium. Getting good quality sleep is essential for healthy hormone balance, especially for cortisol, your stress hormone, and your appetite hormones, leptin and ghrelin.
Magnesium is needed to make progesterone. Magnesium is involved in pivotal processes that allow your body to produce progesterone
Magnesium plays a role in estrogen balance: Magnesium is a critical element to Phase II detoxification in the liver, which helps eliminate excess estrogens from the body. If this phase isn’t working correctly, it could lead to estrogen dominance (aka excess estrogen in the body).
Magnesium activates vitamin D. Unlike its name, vitamin D is actually a hormone! In order for vitamin D to do its job, it needs magnesium as a cofactor.
Should I Take a Magnesium Supplement?
Even if you do eat a diet rich in magnesium-rich foods, you still could not get optimal amounts. The RDA for magnesium is 400mg daily for men and 300mg daily for women.
Produce doesn’t contain as much magnesium as it once had, compared to when our grandparents were cooking because of depleted soil and farming practices.
Gut health is worse than ever in our population. This means your body may not be absorbing magnesium even if you a consuming it. Read this article if you’re looking to boost your gut health.
Not to mention, Americans are more stressed than ever because of a combination of work-related tasks, juggling childcare/finances/career, keeping up with influencers on Instagram, etc.
It’s no surprise that most of the population is dealing with one kind of stressor or another. Because of this heightened stress, your body and adrenals require more magnesium as part of your stress response.
How Much Magnesium Should I Take?
The perfect dose varies from person to person. However, you can start with taking 200 mg of magnesium a day and work your way up to 400 mg, depending on the form of magnesium. Take note of how you feel as you increase your dose to find the sweet spot for your body.
It’s important to note that if you do take a magnesium supplement, purchase it from a trusted brand/source. You want to be taking high-quality magnesium to ensure you’re reaping the full benefits of it without consuming additives/fillers or contaminants.
Check out my FULLSCRIPT catalog for my favorite professional-grade magnesium supplements.
9 Forms of Magnesium + Their Benefits
Citrate & Oxide - Constipation
Glycinate - General Wellness, Muscle recovery & Sleep
L- Threonate - Brain Function, anxiety, sleep
Sulfate - Detoxification
Taurate - Blood Sugar
Malate - Energy
Book A FREE Consult Call With Me Today!
Hi, my name is Abigail King, and I’m a Functional Nutritionist. My goal is to promote longevity & optimal health through diet and lifestyle recommendations, lab testing, and education empowerment.
Booking a complimentary consultation gives us a chance to get to know each other and begin discussing your health concerns and goals. It also gives you the opportunity to ask any questions you may have regarding us working together.
If you’re ready to experience the benefits of magnesium for hormone balance and feel better than you have in years, schedule your free call now, and let’s get started!