Comment by interlocutor | Hacker News Reader

Comment by interlocutor | Hacker News Reader

I have seen many doctors, including sleep specialists, regarding insomnia. They all pointed to one source as the reason for the sleep issues: stress. And they all wanted to put me on prescription sleeping pills. I said no to that. Sleeping pills are addictive and you have to take them for the rest of your life. As a software engineer, I am used to finding and fixing the underlying problem as opposed to the quickfixes these doctors were offering me.

After much research I figured out the underlying problem, and the fix for it. The underlying problem is magnesium deficiency. As a software developer I am using my brain more intensely than most people. This is the stress the doctors are talking about. Stress depletes magnesium. The cells in our body depend on two essential minerals for normal function: Calcium and magnesium. Cells go into ON state when calcium goes in, and OFF state when calcium goes out. Calcium doesn't go out on its own: magnesium has to go in and displace the calcium. When you are low on magnesium, cells can't go into OFF state. When that happens your muscles become stiff and you need massages, and your brain can't turn off and you can't sleep. The solution is magnesium supplements. This fixed my muscle stiffness issues and my sleep issues. A special compound of magnesium called magnesium l-threonate is especially helpful for sleep because it can penetrate the "blood brain barrier".

Scientific sources for this are hard to come by. I had to piece together all this from multiple sources. Here are some: https://www.westonaprice.org/health-topics/abcs-of-nutrition... http://www.drsinatra.com/benefits-of-magnesium-supplements-f... http://paleoforwomen.com/soul-crushing-stress-and-the-miracl...

I feel like this could easily be read as "software engineer finds placebo sleeping pills".

You very well could be right, but those sources are not scientific. If you want to show me that magnesium helps people sleep, show me a PubMed article on the subject.

"Supplementation of 500 mg of Mg has been associated with significant improvement in the insomnia severity index, sleep time, sleep efficiency, sleep onset latency, serum cortisol concentration, serum renin, and melatonin" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5637834/

More: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3703169/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23853635 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8232845

I'll pit my anecdata against your anecdata: Magnesium supplementation didn't do anything for my insomnia. I used the magnesium glycinate formulation from reputable brands at appropriate dosages.

On magnesium, most people need supplements because the food we eat is deficient in magnesium. I'm currently taking 375 mg of ionic magnesium daily.

That said, you're lucky that your sleep problems are related to an electrolyte imbalance and that you found it. I've been experiencing sleep issues too, but it's not the electrolytes.

In my case I believe it's the subclinical hypothyroidism. I wake up in the middle of the night, with my heart rate elevated, like I got an adrenaline shot and it's impossible to fall back to sleep. I'm now on treatment for hypothyroidism and it seems my sleep has been getting better, but I still can't sleep for more than 6-7 hours and I used to be able to sleep much more than that.

I'm a man btw, hypothyroidism is becoming more common in men too. I now advise people to monitor the health of their thyroid and note that the reference range for TSH is not correct, the aim being to have TSH lower than 3 μUI/mL, possibly even 1 μUI/mL. I'm also one of those cases where all other blood work (FT3, FT4, RT3) and the ultrasound look normal, except for having a TSH over 10, so don't believe the Internet's bullshit (e.g. stopthethyroidmadness.com).

Check your HPA axis for elevated heart rate from epinephrine, and try liposomal glutathione for it.

Good on you. As pointed out in Matthew Walker’s “Why We Sleep”, most doctors don’t have a lot of experience or training in sleep science. I’ve heard of magnesium supplements for increasing melatonin levels, since your body needs it in the production of the latter. Do you think that was the underlying cause?

While I’m here commenting, my breakthrough moment in getting good sleep was having a strictly enforced bed time. It took a couple weeks of struggle and mediocre sleep to get there, but it has made getting to sleep a lot easier now.

I've read that a strict wake up time is important, and then going to bed as soon as you feel tired at night. If you force yourself to stay up after you start feeling sleepy, you mix up your signals.

Magnesium Threonate contains very, very little elemental magnesium. It is claimed though not well proved to better cross the blood-brain barrier, but correcting a magnesium deficiency needs to be more than just a (possible) brain tweak for sleep. And it's expensive.

Magnesium glycinate is easy to take (sweet, no stomach issued) and Magnesium citrate is cheap in bulk and easy to add to water.

> Sleeping pills are addictive and you have to take them for the rest of your life.

This is a common myth. You don't though if you use then like they are intended to. Sleeping pills are correcting your relationship with sleep, its for resetting the expectation in your head that you will fall asleep once you go to bed. bed =sleep.

Let's see, I have neck cramps and weird sleep schedule right now, and I happen to have some Mg supplements on my desk right now.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com