For about six weeks, my left eyelid had been twitching nonstop. Not occasionally — constantly, all day, every day. It was driving me insane. I was in a brutally stressful period at work (18-hour days, high-stakes deadline, living on coffee and takeout) and assumed the twitching was just a stress response that would resolve when the project ended.
A friend who is a nurse practitioner told me that persistent eye twitching is one of the most common early signs of magnesium deficiency, especially in people who are stressed (cortisol burns through magnesium), drinking lots of coffee (caffeine increases magnesium excretion), and eating poorly (processed food is low in magnesium). I checked all three boxes.
Started 200mg elemental magnesium glycinate daily. The eye twitching stopped within four days. Four days. After six weeks of constant twitching. I actually tested this by stopping supplementation two weeks later — the twitching returned within three days. Resumed, and it stopped again within two days. That experiment convinced me this was not placebo.
Beyond the eye twitching, over the following weeks I noticed several other improvements that I attribute to correcting what was probably a significant magnesium deficit:
My mood stabilized. The irritability and short fuse I had developed during the stressful period softened. I was less snappy with colleagues and more patient in meetings. My baseline emotional state shifted from "barely holding it together" to "managing reasonably well."
The tension headaches I was getting 2-3 times per week stopped. I had been taking ibuprofen almost daily, which I knew was not sustainable. Have not needed it once in the past two months.
Sleep improved modestly — nothing dramatic, but I am falling asleep faster and waking up less during the night.
Total cost of this improvement: roughly 15 cents per day. Three months in and I have no intention of stopping. This is now a permanent part of my stack.