Can a Magnesium Supplement Really Help You Sleep? Here’s What the Science Says

Popping the occasional magnesium supplement for better sleep may have once been a habit reserved for niche wellness circles. But we’re now living in the era of Big Sleep, where the promise of a hand-to-mouth insomnia fix looms big, and people are sucking down the “sleepy girl mocktail”—a concoction of tart cherry juice, magnesium powder, and sparkling water that went TikTok-viral in 2023—with every hope that it’ll live up to its name. And you can’t blame ’em: It only makes sense that a supplement with so much street cred for good shuteye should have at least some science behind it…right?

Broadly speaking, magnesium is a mineral that helps facilitate a bunch of chemical reactions in your body, allowing for everyday muscle movements and nerve function, regulating your blood pressure and sugar level, and contributing to the development of protein, bone, and DNA. It’s also something your body can’t make itself, so you have to get your supply from outside sources—ideally, from whole foods like leafy greens, nuts, legumes, and fish. The daily recommended amounts are 310 to 320 milligrams for women and 400 to 420 milligrams for men, but it can be challenging to hit that number with diet alone: An estimated 48% of Americans fall short of consuming that much magnesium from food. It doesn’t help that commercial food-processing practices have likely stripped some magnesium out of produce that would naturally contain more of it, Sasikanth Gorantla, MD, a neurologist and sleep medicine specialist at the University of California Davis, tells SELF.

There’s a bit of research to suggest that being chronically deficient in magnesium can, in fact, raise your risk of poor sleep or a sleep disorder (like insomnia or excessive daytime sleepiness), perhaps by interfering with your circadian rhythm (a.k.a. your 24-hour body clock). Because the mineral plays a role in energy production, being super low on the stuff could leave you fatigued throughout the day—and though it sounds counterintuitive, constant daytime tiredness could lead to insomnia by weakening the link in your brain between nighttime and sleepiness, Brian Chen, MD, a sleep medicine physician at the Cleveland Clinic, tells SELF.

But even if you’re not regularly hitting your recommended amount of magnesium with food, it’s unlikely for your body to become so deficient that you experience symptoms, Dennis Auckley, MD, a professor of medicine at Case Western Reserve University and director of the Center for Sleep Medicine at MetroHealth Medical Center, in Cleveland, tells SELF. That’s because most people’s kidneys will account for a lower intake by holding onto more magnesium when it’s in short supply. (The main exceptions are folks with GI conditions that affect their absorption of magnesium, and people with type 2 diabetes or alcohol dependence, both of which can prompt the kidneys to excrete too much of it.)

So if you’re not experiencing symptoms of magnesium deficiency, can ramping up your intake have any effect on your ability to doze off easily or snooze soundly? Here, experts break down the potential connection between magnesium and sleep, and what you need to know if you’re considering adding this supplement to your pre-bed ritual.

Magnesium has a couple effects on the body that may indirectly impact your sleep.

All the hype around guzzling magnesium for sleep likely comes from a few things we know about how the mineral functions in the brain. For starters, magnesium essentially tells your NMDA receptors—which are involved in anxiety and excitability—to chill out, which may help calm you down. And it also has the opposite effect on GABA receptors, which promote sleepiness, by binding to them and boosting their activity, Dr. Auckley says. This is similar to how sleeping pills like benzodiazepines (e.g. Valium and Xanax) and “Z” drugs (e.g. Ambien, Sonata, and Lunesta) work, he explains. Together, these properties of magnesium may produce an anti-anxiety effect and promote relaxation, making sleep more likely to happen.