Magnesium and fatigue: where to find it on your plate and when to think about it

Tired, wound up, sleeping badly? Sooner or later someone will tell you to take magnesium. Your colleague, your mum, the pharmacist, half of Instagram. And often, it's a fairly reasonable reflex. But between a box of tablets bought at random and your plate, there's a whole stretch of ground almost nobody looks at.

I get this question every week, in every form: "which magnesium should I take?", "does chocolate count?", "why do I crave it right before my period?". Here's what I've understood, and what I put on my plate.

Why everyone talks about magnesium

Magnesium is a mineral involved in more than 300 reactions in the body. The three that matter here: it helps produce energy in your cells, it helps muscles relax after contracting, and it calms the nervous system.

The catch is that it's easy to fall a little short without noticing. The European Food Safety Authority sets around 300 mg a day for an adult woman, and a diet heavy in refined flour provides little of it: refining strips a large share of the magnesium out of grains. Stress doesn't help either. It increases magnesium losses in urine, and running low makes you more reactive to stress. It's a loop we know well when the weeks pile up.

Signs that can point to a low intake

These are the ones most often mentioned:

• fatigue that doesn't really lift with rest;
• cramps, especially at night, in the calves;
• an eyelid that twitches;
• nervousness, irritability, feeling on edge;
• light sleep, waking in the middle of the night;
• a tendency to constipation.

Let me warn you straight away: none of these signs is specific. Persistent fatigue can come from low iron, your thyroid, plain lack of sleep or plenty of other things. And a standard blood test reflects your stores poorly, because less than 1% of the body's magnesium circulates in the blood. The rest is in your bones and muscles. If you've been exhausted for weeks, what you need is an appointment with your doctor, not a home diagnosis.

The foods genuinely rich in magnesium

Good news: the best sources are foods you probably already have in your cupboards. In the order I use them:

Pumpkin seeds. They top every food composition table. A handful on a salad, a soup or a yoghurt, and you've done a good part of the work.

Cacao and dark chocolate. Raw cacao powder is very rich. For chocolate, the darker it is, the more it contains: I stick to 70% minimum.

Buckwheat. My favourite carb for this. As crêpes, flakes, or whole grains cooked like a risotto.

Almonds and cashews, by the handful or as nut butter.

Pulses: black beans, chickpeas, lentils.

Dark leafy greens, spinach and chard first. Magnesium sits at the centre of chlorophyll, hence the green.

Whole grains rather than refined ones, and bananas, more modest but handy.

A detail few people know: some mineral waters are rich in magnesium. Check the label on your bottle, the difference between two brands can be huge.

What does a well-stocked day look like, without counting anything? In the morning, buckwheat flakes cooked in plant milk, with chopped almonds and a square of dark chocolate melting on top. At lunch, a lentil salad with spinach and pumpkin seeds. In the afternoon, a banana and a handful of cashews. In the evening, black beans or chickpeas with chard. Nothing exotic, nothing expensive, and no "miracle" food. Just minimally refined ingredients, repeated through the day.

In Solaia, 53 of our 352 recipes are tagged magnesium. And when I looked at them closely, one number made me smile: more than half are snacks or desserts (27 of 53). Cacao, dark chocolate, dates, almonds, buckwheat… Magnesium slips very easily into an afternoon snack. But careful, they're not all equal: some of those snacks have an anti-inflammatory score of 45 out of 100, while the best reach 88. The magnesium in a brownie doesn't cancel out its sugar.

Magnesium, sleep and relaxation: the link

Magnesium acts on GABA receptors, the nervous system's main brake, and it plays a part in regulating melatonin, the sleep hormone. No wonder it's associated with falling asleep.

Sleep studies show fairly modest results, and many were done in older people. So I won't promise you'll sleep like a baby. I see it as a nudge towards a calmer evening, not a sleeping pill.

Rupa Health sums up the consensus on timing well: for sleep and relaxation, evening makes the most sense. It's also the default time the app suggests for this supplement. And Lara Briden talks about it a lot in perimenopause, when sleep becomes fragile.

On the plate, my "good night" dinner often looks like this: a Buckwheat Risotto with Mushrooms (score 80) or a Buckwheat & Root Vegetable Bowl (score 90, buckwheat, roasted carrots, beetroot, pumpkin seeds), then, later on, a 'Good Night' Cacao Reishi Latte (score 80), raw cacao, almond milk, cinnamon.

Magnesium and the luteal phase

This is where my advice gets more precise. Magnesium is useful all year round, but there's one stretch when I really pay attention: the second half of the cycle.

Solaia's map of symptoms by cycle phase shows why. In the luteal phase, fatigue shows up from day 7, irritability too, and insomnia from day 8, all the way to your period. Exactly the signs linked to magnesium. Several studies have looked at its value for premenstrual symptoms, alone or with vitamin B6, with encouraging results.

And the chocolate craving before your period? You often hear it's your body asking for magnesium. It's an appealing hypothesis, but nobody has really proven it. The sugar cravings at the end of the cycle are just as well explained by blood sugar and mood. I'm not taking sides. I just notice that a square of dark chocolate with almonds answers both theories at once.

In the app, the tips follow this rhythm. On day 3 of the luteal phase: "Magnesium: bananas or almonds to calm the first nervous tension." On day 3 of your period: dark chocolate, for magnesium and spasms. And of the 53 magnesium-rich recipes, 25 are tagged luteal phase and 16 menstrual phase. That's no accident: the recipe base offers the most when you need it most.

In practice, as soon as I enter my luteal phase, the pumpkin seeds come out of the cupboard, buckwheat goes back into my lunches, and my afternoon snack becomes almonds and dark chocolate.

Supplements: what to know before you consider them

I always start with the plate. If you eat seeds, pulses, buckwheat and leafy greens several times a week, you're already covering a lot.

A supplement can be worth discussing if you have specific needs, a lot of stress, or if your doctor thinks it's useful. In Solaia, magnesium and omega-3 are the only two supplements suggested in every programme profile. The magnesium fact sheet goes with bisglycinate, a form often easier on digestion (oxide, on the other hand, has a reputation for being less well absorbed and more laxative). It lists sleep, stress, cramps and PMS as possible benefits.

It also lists precautions, and I think they matter: avoid it with severe kidney failure or heart rhythm disorders, and it can interact with some antibiotics and with levothyroxine, the thyroid medication, which is why the doses need spacing out.

I won't give you a dose here. If you take medication, if you're pregnant, or if you have any doubt, talk to your doctor or pharmacist before starting. A supplement is a supplement, not a miracle drug.

My favourite magnesium-rich recipes

The ones I make most, with their anti-inflammatory score in the app:

• Buckwheat Crêpes with Spinach & Egg (score 92): magnesium and iron in one crêpe, perfect during your period.
• Black Quinoa Magnesium Bowl (score 90): warm quinoa, avocado, lime and lots of pumpkin seeds. Fifteen minutes.
• Buckwheat & Root Vegetable Bowl (score 90), my autumn lunch.
• Tamari-Roasted Pumpkin Seeds (score 88): the savoury snack that replaces crisps. I make a jar on Sundays.
• Turkey Wok with Green Beans & Almonds (score 88), for a quick dinner.
• 'Black Forest' Cherry & Cacao Smoothie Bowl (score 88), breakfast for the mornings I want chocolate.
• Raw Cacao Chia Pudding (score 85), made the night before.

What I take away

Magnesium helps produce energy, relax muscles and calm the nerves. It's easy to run low with a refined diet and stress, but its signs overlap with plenty of other things, so no self-diagnosis. Pumpkin seeds, cacao, buckwheat, almonds, pulses, leafy greens: that's where it is. And the luteal phase is when I make the most room for it.

If you track your cycle in Solaia, you see your luteal phase coming, and the recipes are tagged by phase. The day it starts is the right time to get the pumpkin seeds back out.