Hey {{ first_name | Reader }},
I receive many messages from parents, families, and high-functioning people. But the one thing people write to me about, besides a family rupture, has nothing to do with the family itself.
It's about 2 am. And the inability to sleep.
The days are survivable:
You get through the birthday you weren't invited to.
You get through the group chat you're not in.
Then you lie down, the house goes silent, and your body picks that exact moment to replay every conversation you should have handled differently.
I used to think that sleep issues were all in the head. You know, mind-over-matter stuff.
Then I read the sleep literature.
Datta et al. (2025) analyzed data from a 2022 survey of 272,472 US adults. Adults who rarely or never received emotional support were 1.60 times more likely to sleep under seven hours a night. People who felt socially isolated most of the time were 1.38 times more likely. Those figures held after the researchers adjusted for income, education, and age.
Your sleep is social. When the family piece breaks, sleep usually goes with it. You can see this play out in real populations. Do you know which group has the fewest micro-awakenings per night? It’s the group that has arguably the closest family connections in the world…The Amish.
And there’s science behind it. Pickering et al. (2020) describe what they call the vicious circle between stress and magnesium. Stress hormones push magnesium out of your cells, mainly through urine. Lower magnesium leaves your nervous system more reactive to stress because magnesium sits in the middle of GABA and glutamate signaling. Stress drains it. Being drained makes you worse at handling stress.
The NIH Office of Dietary Supplements (2026) reports that 48% of Americans take in less magnesium from food and drink than their estimated average requirement. So most of us are already set up to fail this one. This is further compounded by modern farming practices, which have depleted our soil of magnesium. So we are eating much less of this vital nutrient than our grandparents were.
Which is why I personally take magnesium supplements daily. I have for years.
Before I go any further, here’s the caveat beyond the marketing.
Magnesium does not treat grief, anxiety, or depression. Please keep that in mind before proceeding.
The form makes more of a difference than most people realize when it comes to magnesium. Magnesium carbonate, chloride, gluconate and oxide top the NIH's list of the forms that send you to the bathroom (NIH Office of Dietary Supplements, 2026). Bisglycinate binds magnesium to glycine, which tends to sit better in the stomach and makes it far easier to stay consistent.
Consistency is the whole game here. A gentle supplement you take 300 nights a year beats a harsh one you abandon in week two.
I take Momentous. They put their magnesium through NSF Certified for Sport testing, where an independent lab checks what is in the bottle against what the label claims. Supplements in the US face no pre-market approval, so third-party testing is the only thing standing between you and a label that lies.
Momentous launched their Bisglycinate this month and asked me to share it. I said yes because I already take their magnesium and I stand behind it.
The link and code below get you a 5% discount (and pay me a small commission), so read this as the ad it partly is.
If you are in the middle of a family rupture right now, magnesium will not fix it. Sleep, food, movement, and breath are the floor you stand on while you work out what to do next. This one just happens to be the easiest of the four to sort out tonight.
Talk soon,
Richard
Affiliate disclosure: I earn a commission on purchases made through the link and code above. This email is for general information and is not medical advice. Speak to your doctor before starting a supplement, particularly if you have kidney problems or take prescription medication
Use code BLAKE for 5% off
References
Boyle, N.B., Lawton, C. and Dye, L. (2017) 'The effects of magnesium supplementation on subjective anxiety and stress: a systematic review', Nutrients, 9(5), 429. Available at: https://doi.org/10.3390/nu9050429
Datta, B.K., Jaremski, J.E., Chang, A. and Sengupta, S. (2025) 'Psychosocial wellbeing and short sleep duration among U.S. adults', Sleep and Breathing, 29, 135. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11325-025-03303-5
Mah, J. and Pitre, T. (2021) 'Oral magnesium supplementation for insomnia in older adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis', BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies, 21, 125. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12906-021-03297-z
National Institutes of Health Office of Dietary Supplements (2026) Magnesium: fact sheet for health professionals. Updated 6 January 2026. Available at: https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Magnesium-HealthProfessional/ (Accessed: 1 September 2026).
Pickering, G., Mazur, A., Trousselard, M., Bienkowski, P., Yaltsewa, N., Amessou, M., Noah, L. and Pouteau, E. (2020) 'Magnesium status and stress: the vicious circle concept revisited', Nutrients, 12(12), 3672. Available at: https://doi.org/10.3390/nu12123672
Schuster, J., Cycelskij, I., Lopresti, A. and Hahn, A. (2025) 'Magnesium bisglycinate supplementation in healthy adults reporting poor sleep: a randomized, placebo-controlled trial', Nature and Science of Sleep, 17, pp. 2027–2040. Available at: https://doi.org/10.2147/NSS.S524348