Magnesium is an essential mineral that’s necessary for good health, including proper mental functioning.
Dietary magnesium is necessary in order to prevent magnesium deficiency, which may cause a number of symptoms, including anxiety, insomnia, irritability and possibly depression. In addition to low dietary magnesium intake, other factors that may contribute to magnesium deficiency include prolonged stress, excessive sweating, heavy menstrual periods and getting too much salt, alcohol, coffee or soda.
Benefits of Magnesium:
Relaxes the nervous system – Serotonin, which relaxes the nervous system and elevates mood, is dependent on Magnesium.
Furthermore, Magnesium brings balance and controls stress hormones.
Fortunately, the fats, proteins, and vitamins that are needed for healthy nerve tissue are fairly abundant in the diet. However, one nutrient that recent research has found to be lacking in the diets of most people, and which lack may be the cause, of so much nervous illness, is magnesium.
It is magnesium that maintains normal levels of calcium in the system.
How does magnesium regulate calcium levels? Inside the body, these two minerals are positively charged. When they come into contact with negatively charged particles, an electrical current is formed. It is believed that fatty acids comprising the major portion of nerve tissue are negatively charged. It is for this reason, then, that calcium and magnesium supplies must be constantly renewed; without them, the flow of current by the nerves cannot be maintained.
When magnesium levels are low, the calcium supply becomes exhausted, and in the absence of adequate calcium, the nerve cells cease to function.
Calms the Nerves
Magnesium works in other ways to preserve the health of the nervous system. By the twentieth century, doctors had learned that magnesium injections exert a depressant effect upon the nerves. In fact, one of the early uses of the mineral was to induce sleep. It is significant that hibernating animals have very high magnesium levels. Magnesium has also been shown effective in controlling convulsions, in pregnant women, epileptic seizures, and “the shakes” in alcoholics.
Yet one of the paradoxical effects of the mineral upon the nerves is that a magnesium-deficient person who takes magnesium feels more energetic than before, even though the mineral is a depressant and not a stimulant. Actually, magnesium relieves the nervous irritability and excessive energy that give rise to fatigue in the first place.
It should not be surprising, then, that when a person’s magnesium level is subnormal, the nerves are unable to control such functions as muscle movement, respiration, and mental processes. Twitching, irregular heartbeat, irritability, and nervous fatigue are symptoms of what is frequently found to be magnesium depletion.
Most often, deficiency is simply a result of failure to obtain adequate magnesium from food (dietary sources). In some instances, however, absorption of nutrients can be impaired by coexisting illness, such as an intestinal infection. In such an event, much of the ingested magnesium may be lost from the body.