For my entire life, sleeping has been difficult. Falling asleep especially. I dreaded lying in bed unable to sleep. It's due to a touch of anxiety. It keeps my brain crunching. Not every night, but perhaps once a week. It's enough though that one night / week of staying up through the night gives me anxiety about sleeping. So instead, I'd get into the habit of staying awake so late until my eyes were literally closing.

The problem with this, is that's when willpower is the weakest, and temptations are the strongest (at least for me). I just listened to a Podcast with Andrew Huberman on it, and they talked about these supplements he takes for sleep. My sister had told me about magnesium helping her to get better sleep, and one of the ones he recommended was magnesium l-threonate (he also recommends magnesium glycinate now instead I think).

I've tried magnesium l-threonate for the past 4 nights. It's a literal night and day difference. I've never had supplements have so obvious an impact. I take the ~145mg dose 30 mins to an hour before bed, then I have to go and get into bed. I really don't notice a difference when laying down to go to bed. It seems normal. But I've fallen asleep 4/4 nights in a row without issue, during a stressful work time for me. That's not saying much though--I could still have my random night of anxiety keep me up. The real game changer though, is I'm waking up 6 hours later feeling like I got the best sleep I've had in years (perhaps decades). I wake up feeling way better than I ever have. And that's 4 nights in a row, hitting almost exactly 6 hours of sleep.

I'm a little concerned 6 hours isn't ideal, but I think what may be happening is my body is so used to crappy sleep that now what it gets in 6 good hours is far better than what I used to get in 8+ hours. I've been taking 30 minute naps each day when I can to help. My goal is to see if I can give it time and get it up to 7 hours.

Anyways, I'm on the "endure to the end" phase of my recovery--just meaning I haven't had any major or minor relapses in many many years. There's still the random temptation, but I've gotten good at remembering what's important and redirecting my thoughts. But I can't help but think if I'd tried this stuff years ago not only would I have improved much faster, but I'd have had a happier life too.

There are a lot of different magnesium products out there that can help with sleep. The one my sister took is different from the one I took. Users on reddit report different ones work better and worse than others. I've only tried the one, but if anyone is struggling to sleep and has a touch of anxiety, consider trying it or asking your dr about it.

Here's an article from a health site about it: https://www.verywellhealth.com/magnesium-for-sleep-7501514