How to Choose the Best Magnesium Supplement for You: Quick Overview

Have you looked into magnesium supplements but felt overwhelmed by so many options? Wondering how to choose between magnesium citrate, glycinate, oxide, or the many other compounds you see on the labels? And then there's choosing between capsules, powders, bath flakes, and oils. 

Your body needs magnesium for hundreds of biochemical reactions—including those that help you deal with stress—but most people don't have enough magnesium for those reactions to run smoothly. Low magnesium levels are linked to increased stress, anxiety, poor sleep, muscle cramps, and a range of other health issues. 

Many of my clients have seen fast improvement in their sleep quality and stress resilience, reduced pain, and many other health benefits from supplementing with magnesium. 

This overview hub post will get you started learning key considerations when supplementing with magnesium and provides links to more information.  

What's in This Article

This post should not be taken as medical advice. It is always advisable to consult with your personal medical professionals. 

My Interest in Magnesium

Magnesium was the first elemnent I researched when working on my book Feed Your Calm: Anti-Anxiety Anti-Stress Diet and Supplement Tips for Stress Resilience. It is used by hundreds of biochemical reactions in your body. You need it for dealing with stress and you burn through it when your stressed. 

It became my first-line supplement recommendation for people challenged by anxiety, diffiuclty sleeping, body aches, restless leg syndrome, and more. I have take it every evening myself. 

I've tried many of the magnesium supplementation formulas out there—so I can pass on first-hand experience as well as what I've learned through hearing about my counseling clients' experiences.  

Introduction to Magnesium Supplements

There are so many ways to supplement with magnesium that I've broken the information into several posts. 

This post gives you an overview and links out to other articles you may be interested in. 

What is Magnesium?

Magnesium (Mg) is an essential mineral that plays a vital role in over 600 biochemical reactions in the body. Magnesium is essential in 2 ways:

1. Your body needs it to function properly
2. You cannot create it in your body—you have to consume it

Magnesium supports muscle, nerve, and hormone function, heart health, bone strength, and energy production. It’s also crucial for stress management, relaxation, and sleep.

You need magnesium to deal with stress, and you burn through it with stress. 

Despite its importance, many people don’t get enough magnesium from their diet. Factors like processed foods, soil depletion, certain medical conditions, and stress can lead to low magnesium levels, which may contribute to anxiety, muscle cramps, fatigue, headaches, poor sleep, and many other problems. 

Magnesium is found naturally in foods like leafy greens, nuts, seeds, whole grains, and legumes, but some people may need supplements to meet their daily requirements.

For the benefits of magnesium, related research, and list of conditions that it can help with, check out this post:  Magnesium Supplement Benefits for Anxiety, Depression, and More

2 Types of Magnesium Supplements: Oral vs. Transdermal

Magnesium can be taken in two ways:

1. orally (pills, capsules, gummies, or powders) or
2. transdermally through your skin (oils, gels, baths). 

There are some doubters about magnesium being absorbed through skin, but I know for sure that it works because I've experienced the results. 

I had chronic neck pain for a decade after a rollover car accident. After I started using transdermal magnesium, I noticed my neck pain went away, which makes sense because magnesium is a muscle relaxer. For several years, if I slacked off on using magnesium oil or footbaths, my neck pain returned after about three days. When I started using them again, the neck pain went away within a few hours.

I now use Naturally Calm Magnesium Gummies for my daily magnesium intake. For more on this and other oral magnesium supplements, check out this post. I continue to use the oil spray for acute muscle pain after a challenging workout since you can spray it exactly where you need it. 

Magnesium Overdose and Toxicity: Negative Side Effects to Know About

Magnesium is a muscle relaxant. If you take too much magnesium, it may relax your intestines and result in diarrhea.

An advantage of using transdermal magnesium sources is that you are going to get your blood level of magnesium up before it hits your intestines with its relaxing effect. With oral magnesium, it hits your intestines first—so your blood level might still be deficient even if you experience diarrhea. 

Oral magnesium can be more or less diarrhea-causing depending on what it is bound to. (More about this in a minute.) This is most prevalent with magnesium citrate powders used in a supplement drink. You can mitigate the impact by starting with low doses and working your way up to your limit. 

Also, while we're on the topic of intestinal impact, gummies seem more intestinal-friendly than pills or powders since much of the magnesium is absorbed into your bloodstream in your mouth. 

For a long time, I suggested that my anxiety clients who already tended toward loose stools avoid magnesium supplements. But I began getting feedback from clients saying that the diarrhea they had suffered for years went away when they started taking magnesium citrate powder drinks (which is the most likely to loosen stools). My assumption is that the magnesium had a calming effect on a cramping intestinal tract or that their diarrhea was anxiety-induced. Possibly, the magnesium calmed the anxiety and, in turn, calmed their intestines.

Contraindications: Key Health Considerations Before You Supplement with Mg

In The Magnesium Miracle Dr. Carolyn Dean states:

“Four contraindications to magnesium therapy: kidney failure, myasthenia gravis [a chronic autoimmune neuromuscular disease], excessively slow heart rate, and bowel obstruction.”

Guide to My Posts About Magnesium

Click on the links below for posts I've created to tell you what you need to know about supplementing with magnsium.

🟢➜ Magnesium dosage guide: How much do you need per day?

🟢➜ Best and worst oral magnesium supplements

🟢➜ Three magnesium supplements to avoid (and why)

🟢➜ Magnesium citrate supplements: My top pick

🟢➜ 13 oral magnesium supplements: What to consider

🟢➜ Foods that block magnesium absorption

🟢➜ Magnesium oil and flakes: How to use transdermal magnesium

🟢➜ Magnesium supplement benefits for anxiety, depression, and more

Anxiety Diet and Supplement Book

Feed Your Calm: Anti-Anxiety Anti-Stress Diet and Supplement Tips for Stress Resilience

In Feed Your Calm, you'll learn: 

• What's happening in your body as you try to deal with stress
• How specific vitamins, minerals, fats, proteins, probiotics, and herbs help you deal with stress
• 5 types of foods that add to your stress and hurt your ability to be calm
• 12 anti-anxiety foods for stress resilience
• 10 anti-anxiety supplements for stress resilience 

"Anxiety is at epidemic levels today. In Feed Your Calm, Ann Silvers gives readers an approachable antidote to this epidemic."

--Dr. Megan DeBell, MD

NOTES:

No part of this post should be taken as medical advice. It is always advisable to consult your personal doctor and other medical professionals about your individual circumstances. Pregnant and nursing mothers and people on medications should take special care to check with their doctor regarding any potential contraindications for specific natural remedies.

I include product links for your convenience. I may receive a small commission on sales from these links, but it doesn't influence my suggestions or affect your cost.

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