Maybe Its the Water

A week or two ago I was waking up in the middle of the night with anxiety and tight muscles. I would try to stretch my muscles and breath deep but it didn't help me much and I couldn't get much air in or out of my lungs. I would resort to taking a over the counter muscle relaxer and after an hour or two I would finally fall back to sleep.

I got to thinking about my sister Cate telling me about her daughter who was waking up with restless legs and how she read that magnesium really helps with that. In the past I have taken magnesium on and off, but when I moved to Hawaii I just had to toss what I had because there was no space. I went to the drug store that night and got some with 125% daily value. I haven't had the problem since.

I have been doing a bit of online research and I see that I have a lot of the symptoms of a magnesium and potassium deficiency. This article has been particularly interesting to me. It all totally makes sense in my accountant mind. We used to get a lot more calcium, magnesium and potassium in our water and foods and now it has been pulled out all over the place and we wonder why American's struggle with anxiety and heart disease. Blows my mind that I never knew this stuff before.

Potassium is an interesting one. It is so important to the bodies function but when you go to the store and get a supplement, the pills you get will only give you 3% daily value. Come on, what is that really going to do for you? You going to take 30 pills in a day to get what you need? I am trying to figure that out. The only thing I can see at this point is that it has a pH of 12 and if you take a lot of it all at once it can throw off the acid in your stomach. I ordered some potassium gluconate powder and now I just have to experiment with it.

I am sure I am at a higher risk for these deficiencies because I think tap water generally tastes nasty and I do not like fact that it has chlorine in it.  I have been using a zero water pitcher which takes out every mineral and contaminate you can think of. Now I just have to learn to supplement in the right ratios to get what I need because even if I could stomach tap water it is already too depleted to give me the nutrients I need. I can now see why my body craved so many of the foods it did like avocados, leafy greens, potatoes, whole grains and squash.

Just a whole list of things I wish my doctors could have told me many years ago.  Let the experiments begin!