Dr. Chester Wu is a psychiatrist and sleep specialist in Houston. Lately, he says he’s had more patients ask him, ‘Hey doc,’ should I take magnesium supplements to help me sleep? “It’s definitely been something that I feel like I have been talking about more with patients in the last maybe year or two,” Wu says.
Some of that interest is fueled by social media. Take, for example, the sleepy girl mocktail that went viral on TikTok . It’s a mixture of magnesium powder, tart cherry juice and a prebiotic soda that you drink about a half hour before bed.
And while a mocktail before bed might sound like a bad idea, sleep specialist Dr. Fariha Abbasi-Feinberg , says it might be worth trying. “If you asked me, ‘Can I try the sleepy girl mocktail?’ I would say, ‘Sure.
It probably won't hurt you, but start with a low dose of the magnesium’” like a half dose or less, she says. But if you are looking for rigorous science proving it works, you won't find it. Abbasi-Feinberg, who is the director of sleep medicine at Millennium Physician Group in Fort Myers, Fla.
, and every other sleep specialist I spoke with stressed there’s really not much evidence at all on magnesium and sleep. There’s not even enough data for the American Academy of Sleep Medicine to have a policy statement on it, says Abbasi-Feinberg, who is on the board of directors for the group. What we do know is that magnesium is an essential mineral that plays a role in lots of bodily processes, inclu.