Magnesium is a vital nutrient, with many health benefits. The benefits of magnesium oil are, in the bigger picture, to help your body get more magnesium, because of its many health benefits.
To name a few benefits of this essential mineral, magnesium can help improve or stabilize the mood, improve cognitive function and overall brain health, maintain bone health, and it’s important for nerve function. Magnesium can help combat the symptoms of depression and anxiety, relieve PMS symptoms, reduce migraines, and it helps maintain healthy blood sugar levels, among many other health benefits.
Many people don’t get enough magnesium in their diet, which is unfortunate, because magnesium deficiency can cause a host of health problems including anxiety, depression, cognitive dysfunction, trouble sleeping, and more.
Magnesium deficiency is certainly not uncommon, which is why many people try to eat more foods rich in magnesium, or take magnesium supplements.
However, magnesium can also be absorbed through the skin (transdermally) in the form of magnesium oil.
In her book The Magnesium Miracle, Dr. Carolyn Dean discusses some of the benefits of magnesium oil and other transdermal magnesium products and says, “Magnesium oil can be sprayed or rubbed on the body and is easily absorbed through the skin. It helps greatly to increase the amount of magnesium in body tissues and overcomes the problems that some people have with loose stools when they try to take enough magnesium to meet their needs. This can be especially important in cases of severe magnesium deficiency that were treatable only with IV magnesium before magnesium oil came along.”
Transdermal or ‘topical’ magnesium refers to the oil-like form of magnesium that typically comes in a spray bottle and is rubbed into the skin after spraying it on.
Transdermal magnesium oil is an easy and effective way to increase your magnesium levels.
What Exactly is Magnesium Oil?
Magnesium oil is often sold in spray bottles so that it can easily be sprayed onto the skin. Magnesium oil is made from a mixture of magnesium chloride flakes and water. Although the liquid has an oily feel, it’s not actually an oil product. It simply has an oily texture from magnesium chloride flakes being mixed with distilled water
Magnesium chloride is easily absorbed by the skin, and regular application of magnesium oil to the skin could help combat a magnesium deficiency.
Transdermal magnesium in the form of magnesium oil is often preferred by people who have noticed negative side effects from taking oral magnesium supplements. Oral magnesium can sometimes cause diarrhea or abdominal cramping.
Transdermal magnesium such as magnesium oil is often recommended by holistic health practitioners such as naturopaths.
How to Use Magnesium Oil
One you purchase your spray bottle of magnesium oil from a natural health store, start by doing a patch test to ensure your skin isn’t sensitive to the product. Most people will not notice any adverse skin reactions, but some people might feel slight itching or stinging.
Once you confirm via a patch test that your skin does not react negatively to magnesium oil, you are safe to use it.
The directions are typically located on the label of the bottle. However, it’s advisable to spray 5 – 7 spritzes of magnesium oil directly on the skin once or twice per day, blending it into the skin.
If you have headaches or migraines, spray magnesium oil on the back of your neck, and around your jawline.
For improved sleep, you’ll want to spray the bottom of your feet with magnesium oil at night, and rub it in before bedtime. (Just be sure to wash your hands after application.)
Many people like to spray magnesium oil on their arms, wrists, legs, stomach, feet, chest, and back of the neck. Rub it in and let the product absorb. Do not wash it off for at least 1 hour. (You don’t need to wash it off at all.)
Do not apply magnesium oil to areas of the skin that have fresh cuts, such as freshly shaved skin with some small cuts, or areas of the skin that are sunburned, as it may sting a bit.
Remember that magnesium oil spray is for topical use only, applied to the skin, and not ingested orally.
Benefits of Magnesium Oil
There are many potential health benefits of applying magnesium oil topically to the skin. These include reduced muscle spasms and body pains, relief from headaches, better sleep, improved energy levels, a better mood, reduced inflammation in the body, and much more.
You might notice some of these benefits of magnesium oil more than others once you start using it, and it’s also possible you won’t notice any benefits. This is because everyone responds differently, and everyone has different needs when it comes to magnesium.
It’s not that easy to get enough magnesium through diet alone, which is why one of the top benefits of magnesium oil is of course to increase your magnesium levels.
Below, we’ll discuss some of the many potential health benefits of magnesium oil:
Pain Relief
People who use magnesium oil often apply it directly to areas of their body that are sore or painful, such as rubbing the oil into sore shoulders.
When it comes to scientific evidence of magnesium oil reducing pain, there isn’t much scientific research quite yet. However, this study revealed some evidence that topical application of magnesium oil to the skin reduced sensations of pain for people with body pains due to fibromyalgia.
And what about migraine pain? In general, studies have found a link between migraines and magnesium deficiency. Low levels of magnesium in the brain can lead to headaches and migraines. Magnesium can help regulate nerve function and therefore potentially reduce the painful headaches and migraines you’ve been getting.
Reduced Symptoms of Anxiety and Depression
Magnesium is commonly known as a natural mood elevator and mood stabilizer. This doesn’t necessarily mean that a person with diagnosed clinical depression or generalized anxiety disorder should ditch their prescriptions and get magnesium oil instead, but rather that one of the potential benefits of magnesium oil is its potential to help naturally combat anxiety and depression. The use of magnesium oil could potentially help reduce anxiety and feelings of depression, which could result in symptoms not worsening to the point where any sort of prescription medication would be needed.
People are always looking for safe, natural remedies for anxiety and depression. While magnesium oil could help some people with anxiety and depression, it might not work for everyone. However, it’s worth a try.
The main reason why people seek out natural remedies for anxiety especially, is because prescription anti-anxiety medication can be addictive, habit-forming, and comes with other negative side effects.
Low levels of magnesium in your blood (a magnesium deficiency) could actually be causing your anxiety or feelings of depression. Magnesium oil spray can increase the level of magnesium in your blood. It can help suppress the release of stress hormones, and help regulate your nervous system.
Reduced Inflammation
Many types of inflammation, from a pimple to inflamed and painful joints, can cause discomfort. Since low levels of magnesium or a magnesium deficiency is linked to increased inflammation in the body, you could notice reduced inflammation by absorbing magnesium oil transdermally.
Various studies report evidence of inflammation in the body being linked to a magnesium deficiency, so there is a chance that magnesium oil could help reduce inflammation.
Magnesium Oil Benefits: The Bottom Line
Many people use magnesium oil as a natural remedy for various health concerns, and as a way to combat magnesium deficiency. However, very few research studies have reported on magnesium oil, and magnesium oil has not been evaluated by the FDA.
Some research studies, however, have found that transdermal magnesium such as magnesium oil can increase intracellular magnesium levels in the body, if used daily.
Although magnesium oil is safe to use regardless of whether or not it works effectively for you, it’s still important to note that magnesium oil should not replace doctor-recommended medications or treatments.
Magnesium oil is not intended to fully treat, cure, or prevent any health conditions. It’s simply a natural health product that could benefit you, and it could be worth a try. As always, consult with your doctor before trying a new product such as magnesium oil, and work with your doctor to find other treatments as well.
To find out if you have genetically higher needs of magnesium, read your genetic nutrition reports from CircleDNA.
References
- Effects of transdermal magnesium chloride on quality of life for patients with fibromyalgia: a feasibility study (Deborah J Engen, Samantha J McAllister, Mary O Whipple, Stephen S Cha, Liza J Dion et. al) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26343101/
- Headaches and Magnesium: Mechanisms, Bioavailability, Therapeutic Efficacy and Potential Advantage of Magnesium Pidolate (Jeanette A. Maier, Gisele Pickering, Elena Giacomoni, Alessandra Cazzaniga & Paolo Pellegrino) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7551876/
- Magnesium deficiency and increased inflammation: current perspectives (Forrest H Nielsen) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5783146/#:~:text=In%20spite%20of%20this%2C%20findings,disease%2C%20hypertension%2C%20and%20diabetes.
- Myth or Reality—Transdermal Magnesium? ( Uwe Gröber, Tanja Verena Werner & Jürgen Vormann) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318758085_Myth_or_Reality-Transdermal_Magnesium
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