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Comment by benjaminwootton | Hacker News Reader

I'm quite skeptical on supplements, but I have to say that Magnesium helps me sleep like a baby and feel much more relaxed generally.

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I recently realised that Mg is a reliable way for me to stop teeth grinding in my sleep.

I am interested in hearing more. Did you try Mg with the intent of grinding your teeth less?

First I had toothache. After a while it occurred to me that this coincided with my stress level at work and that it actually was caused by my teeth grinding at night. And then I remembered how Mg helps me to become much more relaxed when under stress. Tried it and it worked.

So what form of Mg are you taking?

Also very skeptical, and I try to test carefully. So far, it seems that Passionflower extract does boost my sleep quality and helps with early-morning-waking style insomnia. In the evening, CBD helps me downshift to a relaxed "end-of-day" mode that makes falling asleep much easier. Magnesium's next on my list.

I’m also one where magnesium has almost magical positive effects on my sleep. When I started getting some anxiety several years ago, taking magnesium before bed was the only thing that kept me both asleep at night and sleeping deeply. I still take it often to get deeper sleep. I’ve always taken the citrate type.

Do you know why Mg helps you so much?

Same here. Taking magnesium L-threonate and melatonin before going to sleep has improved my sleep quality like nothing else.

Magnesium glycinate is even better. Glycine turns out to be important too, but it's just used as filler.

Glycine’s not a filler in this instance. It’s used to aid absorption [1]. Mag glycinate is one of the only worthwhile forms of magnesium for supplementation, unless you’re using it as laxative. The latter being caused by gut irritation from unabsorbed magnesium.

But yes, glycine also has many of its own benefits. Including a very interesting theory regarding life extension due to its interaction with methionine. [2]

[1] https://examine.com/supplements/glycine/#nutrient-nutrient-i...

[2] https://www.fasebj.org/doi/abs/10.1096/fasebj.25.1_supplemen...

Thanks for that second link. I had read about glycine for sleep, mood, bipolar and schizophrenia (via Glenn Close family study) but not for possible life extension. It does improve my own mood with a dose of several grams per day but the best mental effect seems to be the day I stop taking it. Lower dose does not produce that, it seems to be a dynamic response. So it seems important but complicated, but that's just my anecdote.

For the last couple of months I've been taking a 500mg magnesium and a .30 mg melatonin 10 minutes before I get into bed. Some nights I feel like I don't even roll over, I just wake up the next morning feeling like I've had really deep and uninterrupted sleep.

Funny, I see Magnesium frequently recommended for people on keto diets that have trouble sleeping.

Add me to the list of happy magnesium supplementers. I always recommend it to anyone who mentions sleep problems and I've had good feedback from a couple of people who actually went through with it based on my recommendation.

Your right to be skeptical of supplements. Supplement companies are completely unregulated, so in theory, they don't even have to put into their product what they say they're putting in.

I'm pretty sure that that would qualify as fraud, a criminal offence.

Whether it’s true or a placebo- sign me up :)

In the treatment of subjective mood the distinction between ‘true’ and ‘placebo’ vanishes

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