Ad copy

My sister booked us a spa weekend in the Cotswolds for her 40th. £640 a night. The kind of place where everything smells like eucalyptus and they whisper when they talk to you. I’d been drinking wine most evenings for about six years by that point. Not a lot. Two glasses, sometimes three. Just the thing I did after the kids were in bed. The thing that turned my brain off. Except it hadn’t been turning my brain off for a while. I’d fall asleep fine and then I’d be wide awake at 3am with my heart going and my jaw clenched so tight my teeth ached. Every single morning I’d wake up feeling like I’d been in a fight. I figured it was just stress. Just being a mum. Just getting older. My sister has the same thing. We’d joke about it. “The 3am club.” Neither of us connected it to the wine. First night at the spa, they brought a little tray to the room before bed. Herbal tea and a small glass of something tart and lemony. The card said it was a magnesium glycinate drink and that all guests received it as part of the evening wellness protocol. I drank it without thinking much about it. It was nice. Tart. A bit like a fancy cordial. I slept through the night. I actually didn’t realise until the next morning. I just woke up and it was light outside and I couldn’t remember waking up at all. My jaw wasn’t sore. That buzzy dread thing I normally get wasn’t there. I figured it was the spa. The quiet. The million-thread-count sheets. But then at breakfast my sister said something that stopped me. She said, “I slept through the night. The whole night. That hasn’t happened in four years.” We both had the same tray. The same little drink. By day three we were both sleeping through. Both calmer than made sense for two days away. Both noticed the jaw thing had stopped. I asked at reception what was in the evening drink. The woman smiled and said their wellness director had introduced it two years ago. She said it was the single most commented-on thing in their guest reviews, ahead of the actual spa treatments. Magnesium glycinate. That was it. I’d taken magnesium before. Tablets from Boots. Did nothing. Turns out they were magnesium oxide, which your body barely absorbs. I’d written off the whole mineral based on something that was basically chalk. When I got home I found the brand the spa uses. It’s a tart lemon drink you mix with water. One sachet before bed. No pills, no subscription required. That was two months ago. I still have wine on weekends when we’re out. But the Tuesday-to-Thursday glasses have been replaced by this and I sleep through every single night now. My sister ordered it before we’d even left the car park. I found the article that explains the whole thing — why the form of magnesium matters and why most people think it doesn’t work when they’ve never actually tried the right one. 👇 Here’s the link. It’s what I wish someone had sent me before I spent £640 a night to find out the answer was on a bedside tray.