Magnesium is our calming mineral and helps to improve stress, sleep, muscle soreness, pain, and inflammation. Magnesium allows us to relax and unwind from life’s everyday stressors. The most powerful form of magnesium will come from foods versus supplements. It’s important to understand that the human body does not eat nutrients, it eats food–and it’s food that will be the most powerful and most affordable.

Choose magnesium-rich foods closest to the source or in their most natural state. The coolest part about consuming these nutrient rich foods is that they will naturally be the most flavorful. After all, flavor comes from nutrients.

Keep Calm & Eat Dates

Did you know that you can actually eat your stress away? Probably not in the way you may think with chocolate cake or salty foods, but with healthy magnesium rich sources.

Medjool dates are one of the most delicious and highest sources of calming magnesium which can stimulate a calming affect on the body. Although, stress is not the problem and we need stress to keep us aroused and help us perform, it’s the lack of recovery from stress that can beat us up physically and mentally.  Take time to sneak in a little R & R by eating your stress away with magnesium- rich dates. Dates are also loaded with fiber, needed for healthy digestion and which can also have a calming affect on the digestive system–a place where we tend to hold a lot of stress and tension.

Magnesium + Fiber = Calm

Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) for Magnesium: 420 mg for men and 320 mg for women

2 Dates = 60 mg of Magnesium

Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) for Fiber: 38 grams for men and 25 grams for women

2 Dates = 3 grams of fiber

Medjool dates are nature’s perfect food—beautifully ”wrapped,” sweet, and oh-so satisfying.

Check out even more magnesium rich foods below along with some fun and delicious ways to incorporate them into your life. Who knew healthy could taste so good?

Magnesium Rich Smoothie

A Date with Tea

Try swapping out processed sugar or other sweeteners for naturally sweet dates. Simply drop a date into your tea like you would a cube of sugar or steep using a tea bag or clamp.

Magnesium & Calcium Absorption

Calcium contracts muscles while magnesium relaxes muscle. Calcium’s companion mineral for bone health is magnesium and it’s magnesium that must be present in order for the body to properly absorb calcium. Magnesium stimulates the hormone, calcitonin, and calcitonin is responsible for increasing calcium absorption in the bones and keeping it from being absorbed into the soft tissues. Many forms of arthritis are characterized by low calcium levels in the skeletal system but excess calcium (plaque like build up) in the soft tissues. If magnesium is not present, it can compromise calcium absorption. Rather than take a calcium supplement that can build up in the soft tissues, start to include magnesium- rich foods to help absorb calcium from calcium- rich food sources such as leafy greens, broccoli, cabbage, almonds, nuts, seeds, and ancient grains.

Best Sources of Calcium

Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) for Calcium: 1,000 mg