Magnesium is giving me a tight chest and difficulty breathing?

If magnesium is intented to reduce the effects of anxiety and stressfulness why would it make me hyperventilate?

The answer lies in the fundamental way that magnesium effects our body. Firstly our skeletal muscles relax when resting and contract when being used. This is due to messages from the nervous system instruction the muscles to contract when needed. The process can be outlined in 3 simple steps. 

1. Messages travels from our nervous system to our muscles. This triggers a chemical reaction in the body.
2. That chemical reaction instructs the muscle fibres to rearrange themselves in a shape that shortens the muscle- which as we’ve seen in diagrams or experienced personally will contract the muscle and corresponding limb or joint.
3. Lastly, when the task is complete and we no longer need to contract the muscle the nervous system stops the chemical reaction, it allows the muscle fibers to rearange back to their original form and the muscle relaxes.

Part of the reason magnesium can have such a calming effect on the body is because it interacts with our nervous system. By blocking certain chemicals that cause excitement in our neurons magnesium can initiate a calming effect on our nervous sytem. Thanks to this function magnesium has been known to reduce muscle pain, muscle spasms and the dreaded eye twitch. These relaxing effects go as far as reducing our stress, symptoms of anxiety and are linked to improvements in sleep quality.

So far all of these qualites of magnesium are desirable, but true to the namesake of this website, what happens when our minerals aren’t balanced? This is where problems can occur. See magnesium has an intricate relationship with several key minerals in our body, namely calcium, potassium and sodium. These four essential minerals are commonly referred to as our electrolytes because of their ability to conduct electricity when dissolved in a fluid. If these four electrolytes are out of whack, strange things can happen to our body that are unsurprisingly similar to electric shocks! (think cramp, twitches, eye ticks, or if you’re unlucky enough involuntary hand spasms).

The most commonly effected mineral relationship effected by magnesium is calcium. Normally this is great because in the western world we often have too much calcium and not enough magnesium which hinders correct calcium absorption creating something called a calcium shell. But that’s a topic for another post. Whilst most of us suffer from too little magnesium we’re enthusiastic to adminster huge volumes of magnesium supplements to rectify these issues. Up to a point this is normally without issue, however if we saturate the body with magnesium or do not correctly balance other minerals whilst supplementing, this is where we run into problems.

When there is an incorrect ratio of calcium to magnesium we can begin to experience symptoms that are due to incorrect muscle relaxation and contraction. Again, this is seen as twitches, cramps, jerks and spasms of various body-parts. (not fun!) Whilst magnesium is technically a calcium-channel blocker it directly counteracts the effects of calcium. One of calciums roles in the body besides contributing to bone health is assisting muscles to contract. However if we begin to supplement too much magnesium it begins to block too much calcium.

In the early stages of this mineral inbalance the symptoms are rarely noticed. Often felt as general fatique, listlessness, or drowsyness. This is because our muscles aren’t able to contract as fully or as quickly as we want which generally translates to slower and more laboured body movements. However if left untreated too much magnesium, also known as hypamagnesemia, can result in some pretty serious side effects. If this decrease in muscle contraction effects our arms or legs for example we could feel very heavy or slow. But what happens when this lack of contraction effects the muscles surrounding our diaphragm?