Note: I am not a medical doctor, and you should consult your physician before taking any advice from some guy on the internet.

I always used to sleep easily and well. I could sleep through earthquakes, floods and the occasional alien abduction, for nine or ten hours at a stretch. Then, somewhere in my thirties, insomnia hit. Every now and then, I go through a period where sleep seems impossible for more than two or three hours a night. Four hours was a great night. You stumble through the day, just trying to cope. After a while, you feel as if you are disconnected from reality – everything is at a distance.

These days, I fall asleep quite easily, but then wake up in the small hours and can’t get back to sleep. This seems to happen to a lot of adults. Usually, you wake up stressed out and anxious, even though you might have gone to bed calm and relaxed.

This got me wondering, as I’m normally pretty easy going, and do not have abnormal amounts of stress. Sure, there is pressure on me, butI have a great job and am very happy with the work I do. In talking to friends of around the same age though, I started noticing that a lot of them are taking medication for anxiety. Some of them need to have that medication to fall asleep, or to sleep through the night. Most of these are people who seem to have stable incomes and happy home lives, so what could be the source of all this anxiety?

As we get older, the fact of our mortality weighs more heavily on us. At a certain age, you start realizing that you are simply not going to get to everything you want to, not even if you live the most optimal life possible. Your finitude becomes far more apparent. People close to you are coming down with conditions mostly associated with age. Your parents die or become enfeebled, offering you a glimpse of what is in store, should you be lucky enough to live that long.

Heavy stuff, to be sure. But this has always been the case throughout the history of humanity, yet people seem much more anxious in this day and age. Maybe something else is going on, in many of these cases?

When your car stops running, you should check to see if you’ve run out of gas before you even pop the hood. When you experience something that might be termed a mental problem, you should first look at the physical, in my opinion. This is what I did with my sleep and anxiety issues. I went through everything: getting more sun, avoiding screens, exercising a ton, wearing those goofy orange glasses, meditating more, spending more time in nature and so on. This made a marginal difference, but didn’t solve it. What has made the biggest difference has been something really, really simple: increasing my magnesium intake (to 400 mg or more a day). I’ve taken magnesium for sleeplessness before, but have more than doubled my dosage of magnesium glycinate (combined with a good vitamin B supplement), and I am sleeping better than in months. What is more, I’m more relaxed during the day and this leads to better and more enjoyable work.

A long walk to get to a simple point, because I think this is really important. Of course, you should investigate the pros and cons of this (especially how magnesium supplementation could interact with medication). For now, I might not have cured all of my existential dread, but at least I’m sleeping through the night.

Update: So, I’ve recently had another severe bout of insomnia. I’d changed brands of magnesium a few weeks ago as an experiment, and I think the new pills did not pack the same punch. However, I ran across recommendations to use glycine, and tried a large dose (6 grams) last night. Whilst I did wake up for a while in the early morning, the rest of the night I slept incredibly deeply, and finally woke up very refreshed. There are quite a few videos and articles about glycine out there, so do your research and add it to your stack if you find it useful. Apparently, it’s great for muscle recovery and skin tone, as well.

Update to the update: I discovered that my new magnesium brand does indeed not pack the punch I thought, and doubled the dose. I now also take 3 grams of glycine before bed and have 3 grams more ready by my bedside in case I wake up in the early morning. Honestly, I can’t remember when last I slept this well.