Friends, many of you already know how much better plunking yourself into a hot epsom salt bath can make your muscles feel, but I’m here today to talk to you about another reason to sit in warm salt water. How many of you lovelies experience emotional stress? Let’s take a moment to consider what scenarios might bring it about:

  • You feel an intense desire to scissor-shank a colleague after reading a snarky email he’s signed with an intentionally-punctuated “Thanks.”
  • An ache in your jaw makes you realize you’ve been clenching your teeth in a blood-rage death-bite because an entitled douche nozzle blew past 30 turn-waiting citizens in the merge lane and screamed in front of you right as you dutifully zippered onto the crawling 405
  • You feel a particularly delightful surge of white hot joy when, at the end of your 5th week of diligent practice of an exciting new skill, your first attempt and your 96th attempt are precisely identical

Believe it or not, each one of these scenarios may cause emotional stress! Assume that you have just experienced one of the above stressors: choose your favorite! Now, let’s see what happens in the body as a result. I wonder how the adrenals are doing!

stress1

Maybe not so good…stress2

stress3

Is emotional stress not so bad?

stress4

stress5

stress6

stress7

Christ on a cracker, it’s a pea soup river of catecholamines and corticosteroids!!!

stress8

The corticosteroids are dispatched to address the situation quickly and calmly.

stress9

stress10

stress11

stress12

Oh god, there are fatty acids EVERYWHERE

stress13

NMDA receptors is sluts for magnesium.

stress14

stress15

Fatty acids be HUNGRY!
stress16

stress17

Cold, NMDA. Real cold.
stress18

SLUTS
stress19

stress20They’re not cold, they’re just real dumb.

stress21

…which is unfortunate, because if they let TOO much calcium in without enough magnesium around to cock block, the neuronal mitochondria stop functioning and it makes the neuron super die.

Don’t worry friends, it doesn’t have to be this way. Enter a delightfully relaxing, super magnesiummy, and totally legit excuse for extended bathroom me-time: epsom salts!

Magiiiiic!Magiiiiiiic!!!

Btw, if you’re wondering how much you should add to the bathwater and/or how much your body will absorb, here’s some things about that from some dudes who studied pee. If you don’t feel like reading their report, the main take away is that a 1% solution works fairly well: in a standard sized bathtub that’s about 2 1/2 cups of epsom salts. Buy them in a giant bag or box in the grocery store aisle with rubbing alcohol and hydrogen peroxide; don’t spend $10 for a little jar of scented ones!

Also, here’s a bunch of other stuff I read that goes into way more detail than my snarky cartoons:

Magnesium in the Central Nervous System

Consequences of Magnesium Deficiency on the Enhancement of Stress Reactions; Preventative and Therapeutic Implications

Handbook of Neuroscience for the Behavioral Sciences

Rapid Recovery from Depression Using Magnesium Treatment

Nitric Oxide Induces Oxidative Stress and Apoptosis in Neuronal Cells

 

 

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