The Right Amount Of Magnesium To Take For Deep Sleep—But No Grogginess*

If a great night's sleep is what you're after, reducing your caffeine intake, avoiding screens before bed, setting a regular nightly schedule, and making your bedroom more conducive to rest could help. And if you're already doing all these things and still feel like your sleep could be deeper, it may be time to consider a sleep supplement.*

Two of the most common types you'll find are the mighty M's: melatonin and magnesium. While melatonin can help you fall asleep at a certain time, it doesn't do much in the way of improving sleep quality or quantity.*

"[Magnesium] helps the whole body calm down,"* functional medicine doctor Robert Rountree, M.D., explains on the mindbodygreen podcast. "It may also support healthy blood pressure1. So it does basically all the things that you want to do to get the body ready for sleep and to help maintain sleep."*

In a study, magnesium glycinate supplementation subjectively improved sleep quality2.* Research shows that magnesium can also help us stay asleep longer by reducing the stress of the nervous system and promoting a steady state of relaxation.*

The National Academies recommends that adults cap their supplemental magnesium uptake (i.e., the amount we get in things other than food) at 350 mg per day5. As mbg's director of scientific affairs Ashley Jordan Ferira, Ph.D., RDN explains, "This upper limit is actually 'the maximum daily intake unlikely to cause adverse health effects,' so while it's prudent for most people to stay below it, your health care practitioner may recommend you take a higher amount, and many published clinical studies leveraging magnesium supplementation exceed 350 mg as well."

Luckily, it doesn't take much magnesium to reap the mineral's relaxing benefits. mbg worked with scientists, nutritionists, and health care practitioners to develop our own targeted magnesium supplement, sleep support+, that comes in at 120 mg of magnesium bisglycinate per serving.

While everyone's different, 120 mg of supplemental magnesium tends to be a sweet spot that can help support rest in many people.*