Nutrients for Stress Resilience and Brain Health with Michael T. Murray, N.D.

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:00]The reason why we see so many magnesium responsive disorders is that most people only get uh about half the magnesium each day that their body needs. We should be getting 350 to 500 milligrams of magnesium a day from our diet. Most people only get about half that amount.

[00:00:21]So, we have to make up that difference with supplementation. And magnesium supplementation has shown to be very effective in helping people with insomnia and anxiety. This was uh illustrated by uh a metaanalysis of 15 double blind uh studies. The conclusion I'll read, you can see it there for yourself as well. Supplemental magnesium is likely useful in the treatment of mild anxiety and insomnia, particularly in those with low magnesium status, which is virtually uh everyone that is not supplementing their diet with with magnesium. So, I think magnesium is one of the uh the key supplements as part of your your uh supplement program for stress. Uh here's more uh studies showing that uh the conclusion here was magnesium is a safe and effective treatment to mild to moderate depression and anxiety. I mean uh it it doesn't get any clearer than that. This was 248 milligrams of magnesium per day. It was a safe and effective treatment in mild to moderate depression and anxiety. You know, you don't you don't get you don't get depressed because your your your brain is deficient in Prozac, willbutrin, zolaf, or any other anti-depressant drug. But you can develop depression, anxiety, and insomnia if you're low in magnesium, omega-3 fatty acids, B vitamins, and many other nutrients. So, um, we got to get people off these drugs. They're they're they're a dead end and they they're causing more harm than they they are good. Uh there's a study that showed that magnesium improves sleep. Uh just just what we're talking about. So it works uh for for any age. You got you need magnesium to to feel relaxed and uh uh initiate sleep.

[00:02:25]So magnesium is one of my fundamental foundational supplement recommendations for stress. I like 250 to 500 milligrams at night. I like the effervescent forms like citrate or bis glycinate.

[00:02:42]These are easily uh absorbed forms. Um and they they have good data showing that they can be helpful in in helping with stress, anxiety and insomnia.

[00:02:53]We also need to take a high potency multiple. I got uh here use the methyl forms of B12 and folate. I'm going to quickly go over that. We know that these are very important. We need extra vitamin D3. We need some sort of plant-based antioxidant. Generally for me, what I recommend to people is grape seed extract. It's you get a good bang for your buck. Uh 150 to 300 milligrams a day. So, these are my fundamental uh recommendations. The last one, EPA and DHA, these omega-3 fatty acids. Look at the level of EPA and DHA, and you want to get between 1,000 and 2,000 milligrams per day from a fish oil.

[00:03:41]Vitamin B12 is uh very effective in uh improving sleep wake cycle uh disorders if we use that methylcobalamine form. Uh again that's 3 milligrams upon arising. Let me explain what is the difference between the methyl form versus the regular B12 form. So this slide is showing you methylation reactions and um where we need uh this uh form of vitamin B12.

[00:04:22]uh if we have uh we we need the uh we need the active form of folic acid and B12 in making acidenosyl methionine uh and also in in making glutathione and you've probably heard how important these compounds are to your health. uh sam is very important for uh methylation of uh uh compounds in our in our brain neurotransmitters.

[00:04:57]Glutathione is very important in detoxification reactions and in the function of our mitochondria energy producing compartments in our cells. So we need these active forms of u folic acid and B12 that uh about 50% of people are compromised. It depends upon your genetics and and uh so uh it's it's really important uh for some people to to know what their uh uh mthfr polymorphism is. Uh, I would it's really important in in people that have poor detoxification, multiple chemical sensitivities, people with autism. Uh, yeah. And you can, if you don't want to spend the money on a genetic test, uh, you can just simply use the methyl form.

[00:05:56]folic acid for example or uh and some of these other forms uh of B12 they're just not available in in nature. Uh so this is showing you the cyanocobalamine which is the most common form of of B12 compared to the methyl form. So uh the methyl form is the is the active form.

[00:06:21]It's the one that's going to produce the the greatest benefits. So that's the one you want to use with folic acid. Uh again we want to use this form methyl tetrahydroofolate.

[00:06:34]This is the active form of folic acid.

[00:06:39]If you take regular folic acid which again doesn't exist in nature. It has to be metabolized and there's some concern that some of these metabolites uh can can produce some negative effects. So um I I I think that uh all of us should be uh switching to this methyl tetrahydroofolate or methylolate form.

[00:07:04]It bypasses it's active from the very get-go and it's a safer, more useful form. I'm going to quickly go through the benefits of omega-3 fatty acids. Uh most people know that these are very helpful for uh over 60 different health conditions including depression, but it's also very helpful to boost your omega-3 fatty levels for uh insomnia and uh stress. They're critical brain components. So your brain is literally a vat of fat. So when people call you a fathead, they're they're telling the truth. You you've got to just come to the realization that your brain is full of fat. And the type of fat that you consume in your diet determines the type of fat that you have in your brain.

[00:07:53]Better fat in the brain, better brain function. Better fat in the brain, better able to deal with stress. So, we know that omega-3 fatty acids exert an adaptogenic effect on stress. They reduce our uh uh our cortisol levels.

[00:08:08]They reduce signs uh of stress. Uh they uh have been shown to not only ex exert typical antistress effects but also the effects of biological stress. And the bottom line is like all adaptogens these omega-3 fatty acids increase our resilience to stress and it leads to the pro production of protective compounds.

[00:08:37]So uh some a lot of the benefits of taking fish oils may be related to this ability to reduce stress uh and also exert anti-inflammatory activity. Uh I I've given it a dosage recommendation.

[00:08:54]Generally it's uh 1 1,00 to500 milligrams for general health. If you have u an inflammatory condition, you may need higher dosage for stress, depression, and brain effects. The dosage is based upon EPA content. I know that's different than what you've been heard. You've heard how important DHA is for your brain, but all almost all almost all of the DHA that's that's in your brain is made in your brain. uh so taking DHA is not going to raise DHA levels as effectively as taking EPA.

[00:09:36]This has been shown in the results that we see in depression uh with uh EPA versus DHA. So you and think about it, you know, all these all these uh formulas uh for kids, you know, uh for infants and in in pregnant moms is focused on DHA because uh because it's so important in in neural development, but the DHA in the brain is made from EPA. So um EPA has shown uh uh better results. There's a lot of marketing claims out there for uh different sources of omega-3 fatty acids. The bottom line is that it's the amount of EPA and DHA combined that determines the clinical effectiveness. Uh so um uh you you've got to keep that in mind. Uh and one of the tools that we have to look at uh the benefits of different forms of fish oil is looking at the impact that they have on what's called the omega-3 index. So our goal is to get that omega-3 index above 8%. So that means that 8% of the uh fat in your red blood cells and presumably throughout your body is uh these longchain omega-3 fatty acids. To do that with with a with with fish oil, you're going to need a dose of 1,200 mgrams EPA and DHA combined in most cases. Now, krill oil is uh is is about 50% better absorbed than uh than fish oils uh in terms of the EPA, DHA content. So that means that you would need to take 800 mg of krill oil supplied EPA and DHA. So if the krill oil has 20% EPA and DHA, that means you need to take four grams of krill oil, which is which is going to be very expensive. Um, so uh the key again is is taking enough of EPA and DHA to get you above 8%. You can measure it. uh if you have a lot of uh omega-3 longchain omega-3s in your diet because you're eating sardines, salmon, mackerel, and herring, uh you may need not need to take as high a dose of of a fish oil supplement. So, I think, you know, measuring your omega-3 fatty acid may be the most important blood test that you can do for for longevity.

[00:12:28]I want to move on and talk about adaptogens. This will be the the final subject. Um, adaptogens are botanical compounds that typically, but I just told you fish oil is an adaptogen. Uh, by definition, uh, an adaptogen prevents the negative effects of stress and increases our ability to deal with stress and also produces a broad range of beneficial effects without causing any major side effects and has an ability to balance uh, body chemistry and function regardless of the direction of disturbance. For example, typically these adrenal adaptogens like gensing, rodeiola, ashwagandha, if your cortisol levels are low, it'll raise them. If your cortisol levels are high, it'll lower them. So, it has this equilibrating alterative or apt adaptogenic influence on substances regardless of whether they're high or low. that's going to help bring them into balance. Which is, you know, this baffles modern uh uh pharmarmacology because in modern pharmarmacology when you give a substance that lowers cortisol levels, it's always going to lower cortisol levels.

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