When stress and anxiety levels rise, we struggle to concentrate, muscles tense up, we get annoyed easily, and feel mentally and physically drained. 

A destructive cycle starts when these conditions make sleep elusive at night, contributing to stress and frayed nerves the next day. Meanwhile, we do ourselves no favours consuming easy processed food with little or no nutritional value. 

However, it is crucial on many levels to increase vital minerals and vitamins during times of mental/physical stress – ideally through a nutritious diet.  

While under stress, nutrients are depleted from our bodies – especially magnesium, vitamin C and B vitamins. A lack of these further impairs our ability to adapt to stress, maintain energy levels, and ward off nervous tension. Depleted magnesium, in particular, means stress responses can be triggered faster, contributing to irritability and over-reacting.  
Stress then significantly impairs our immune system, so we are more likely to succumb to viral and bacterial infections. 

Many health professionals already prescribe the mineral magnesium –most of us are magnesium-deficient anyway – and it is necessary for more than 300 hundred different metabolic reactions in the human body. It is essential for normal muscle and nerve function, to steady our heart rate, strengthen the immune system, regulate blood pressure and sugar levels, and improve metabolism. As magnesium is stored in the muscles, deficiency often results in muscular tightness in people who are stressed, but especially among athletes and over-exercisers.

It is also used as a natural sedative due to its profound effect on neural excitability, and as a muscle relaxant. Both are considered essential for treating normal sleep patterns affected by stress.