11 - Sleep, Restless Legs and the Magnesium Sleep Study - Margaret De-Petro's Story

In this episode, we’re joined by psychologist and metaphysical therapist Margaret De-Petro, who took part in our 11-month observational case study exploring the effects of Harrogate Organics’ award-winning Zechstein Magnesium Spray on insomnia and restless leg syndrome.

Margaret has lived with lifelong sleep difficulties, often managing only two to three hours a night and battling intense restless legs that felt like electricity running through her legs. After decades of medical tests, sleep clinics and supplement trials brought little relief, she joined our study with cautious hope.

What followed was remarkable.

Over the course of the study, Margaret experienced:

• A shift from 2–3 hours of sleep to 5–6 hours a night
• Complete elimination of restless leg symptoms
• Better sleep stability and ease of waking
• Improvements across cognitive and qEEG markers linked to sleep regulation

We also talk about how magnesium deficiency affects the brain, why topical Zechstein magnesium may absorb differently from other forms, and how consistency played a key role in Margaret’s results. Margaret also shares her experience of neurofeedback training, and how her brain learned to recognise Delta brainwaves - something that had previously eluded her during sleep.

This conversation blends personal insight, practical takeaways, and neuroscience in a way that will resonate with anyone struggling with sleep, chronic restlessness, or overwhelm.

🎧 Listen now to hear Margaret’s full journey - and what the study revealed about magnesium, sleep and the brain.

Find out more information at our website

Edited with finesse by Mike at Making Digital Real

Transcript

Welcome to the Brain Collective's podcast. I'm Maria and I'm Melanie. 

We're the founders of the Brain Collective in Harrogate. We've dedicated over 15 years to helping people re-regulate their own brains through neurofeedback driven by our passion to help our families when traditional medical approaches fell short. We've trained with world-renowned experts and remain committed to staying at the forefront of this field.

Hi everybody, welcome to episode 11 of the Brain Collective's podcast. We are very pleased to be welcoming a super guest today in Margaret DePetro who is a psychologist and metaphysical therapist. Welcome. 

Hi Margaret. Thank you for inviting me and yes lovely to be here. Super. 

So I'm Olivia Parker and I'm one of the team at the Brain Collective. We are a brain training clinic in Harrogate and our podcast is all about talking about everyday problems that we see within clinic and talking around those subjects in more depth. And essentially we've got Margaret here today because she very kindly took part in a observational case study that we ran in partnership with Harrogate Organics, the well-being brand also based in the area last year. 

And for those of you who haven't been following the story we see a lot of insomnia and restless leg syndrome in our clinic and there is a huge correlation between the two and as you can imagine it ends up being like a vicious circle and you know you get restless leg syndrome, you struggle to sleep and so on. And so we decided to work alongside Harrogate Organics because they have an award-winning product called the Magnesium Spray which is the best quality zeckstein magnesium chloride and it's an incredible formula and you know it's got a huge amount of reviews saying it's you know it's game-changing abilities. So we decided to see if there was any correlation between taking that specific type of magnesium and seeing if the symptoms like restless legs and insomnia would reduce. 

And Margaret you very kindly came along on the journey with us. I did indeed yes. So tell me a little bit about where you were at a year ago because you started didn't you, you did the 7th of June till the 15th of May this year so you you did a good a good 11 months. 

I did indeed yeah yeah totally. Oh well just to give you a bit about my background I've had well sleep issues more or less all my life and I've been to hospitals to the sleep clinics and you know had all of the the different you know sort of experimental things that they were trying out nothing worked at all. So I used to sleep, say used to now, I used to sleep two to three hours a night which I got very used to you know it didn't seem to to bother me but what was really bad was I had restless legs as well so that you know didn't allow me to you know sort of lie still or whatever for more than a few minutes and that was like electricity just going down my legs just that sort of like a dull toothache feeling probably from my hips right the way down to my feet. 

So I was absolutely utterly delighted when I heard that there was this you know this trial that was going on and to be accepted on it which which I was incredibly grateful for and I started using the spray and I was told to apply it to my on my arms you know just in the crease of my arms and also crease of my knees back of my legs and I did that completely every day and for the whole year and I literally then just filled in a little questionnaire about how I felt how many hours did it have an effect blah blah blah and over time I was just shocked because it had the most well I sleep now up to five hours maybe six hours which for me is phenomenal because normally it's two to three hours and that but the restless legs are zero. So I'm having totally and that was really very odd because I'd sort of wake up and think there's something wrong and I couldn't work out why do I feel that there's a bit odd I feel a bit strange and then I realised it was because I didn't have that electric sort of dull toothachey feeling down both of my legs and into my feet and I'm thinking oh my god it's gone which was amazing totally amazing. Yeah and I think this is it isn't it I think in the clinic we definitely are aware of a deficiency in magnesium you know I think it's very much given on which part of the world you live apparently in New York the people in New York are very deficient because a lot of the grown foods just don't have the magnesium in the ground so it's something that we all need and it's something that helps us in so many different areas of our lives whether it's sleep or mood or you know it's it's such an incredible mineral and electrolyte and I think your I mean your results were just incredible and I think again just to give a bit more context to the listeners and there were six candidates in in total six participants and everybody had symptom markers where they had to say there was difficulty waking there was number of hours sleep there was dysregulated sleep difficulty maintaining sleep difficulty falling asleep restless legs and then there were a few variants weren't there along the line as well.

Yes you could add comments as well of anything else at the bottom of it yeah. Yes that's right and and essentially what everybody had to do during their period of time and and you were one of the ones who did it for the longest period Margaret which is amazing um is they had to kind of score where they sat the night before within those sort of different criterion so out of 10 you know 10 you know from 0 to 10 where did you score what we also did before we started the observational case study was we did we ran a QEEG which I feel like is more part of common parlance than it once was but for anybody who hasn't heard of a QEEG it is a snapshot of the brain waves activity at any given moment so it's a live snapshot of what's going on in the brain so you can see the different you know gamma and and and beta so it's an incredibly useful it's it's an incredibly useful tool that we use in clinic just to ascertain where that individual is and we did we ran a QEEG at the very start of the study and right at the end of the study we also did a cognitive performance test which again for any of you who have not heard of that that is attention memory processing speeds decision making abilities and it was just really interesting from our perspective having run those tests to see you know the upshot once you'd finished your kind of course of magnesium just just the improvement across the board just how amazingly well you know those symptoms dissipated you know having taken magnesium on a regular basis and I think that is the key isn't it Margaret you know with these sorts of things it's it's so hard isn't it because we're told to take so many supplements these days but it really is important to keep that consistency. Absolutely I mean I had tried magnesium in the past but I also think it's a product as well because whatever it was in the product that that you know that Harrogate Organics have it absorbs so you know readily it must have absorbed through osmosis or something into my skin into my blood circulation whereas the others hadn't and I'd had other you know sort of side effects with with other magnesiums because obviously they have fillers in and all sorts of different things so this for me was amazing totally amazing because nothing had worked up to them. 

Yeah and I can't remember Margaret if it was you or another participant but I think somebody ran out of the spray and tried another spray and all the symptoms came right back. No I didn't but at one stage I ran out of it and you know didn't I was putting on sort of half of the the amount that I was asked to do and then when I got it back again it just seemed to escalate and I just wondered whether it was almost like my body had paused and sort of understood that it wasn't there and then when I got it back in the proper dosage and applied it again the results were well awesome. I have to say that because I had a you know a lifetime even as a baby I didn't sleep you know so it was always and as you get older obviously you need more sleep as well so you know I was worried about that I was worried about brain health of course because if you don't sleep you know as you as you get older then that's going to be a thing and so yes again it was for me it was just extraordinary. 

Yeah and I think again like you say it's such an integral part to well-being isn't it sleep I mean it's that natural processing of you know the brain processing the day's events and getting that kind of restorative state is so important you know for everything I mean I know what I'm like if I haven't had you know I need seven hours I have less than seven hours I feel almost emotional actually when I'm so so tired it's so hard isn't it to almost function. Exactly I mean I hadn't because it's always been like that it was only because you know the doctors in you know obviously my 30s or whatever when they were aware that I wasn't sleeping and wondered why I hadn't responded or reacted to that they did tests and as I say I went to the sleep clinic and they tested me there but what they said was I was functioning you know sort of well just on the two to three hours and it was just what my body was used to but like I said as you get older you you do need sleep because your your biological clock is ticking and obviously everything is changing you know within your body and so that was that was a big thing that was always on the back of my mind because I have a brain set where even if I'm sitting down watching say a film or something I have to be doing something else so you know I've got to be because otherwise my mind is is elsewhere and that was another amazing amazing part of the the neurofeedback part of of Brain Collective because Maria was aware of that as well and she was saying that my brain didn't recognise delta which of course is is the sleep side is the unconscious brain wave so she very amazingly offered you know to to retrain not retrain to to put through a different frequency to see whether my brain enjoyed it or recognised it because it didn't initially and then it started to and that had most the strangest of feelings when I was there having that of because I'm also do like you said right at the very beginning I do metaphysical therapies and part of that is trance work and and when I go into trance it's it's very easy for me to get into delta strangely not in sleep but but in trance I can and when she was she was introducing the delta wave to me I was saying to her this is crazy because I'm feeling I'm going into trance so again that made me feel fantastic because I thought I actually have that ability but somehow it needed nudging and of course Maria was able to do that so gently and so incredibly absolutely introducing it and and just seeing whether my brain responded reacted liked it mimicked it or whatever and to be awake and to you know be able to have that rapport with Maria and to explain how I felt what was happening what was occurring my arms were feeling heavy than my hands and then I'm thinking oh this is just so amazing and that was my brain recognising and being introduced gently to to delta so yeah a lot of the time when people get to us like you Margaret they kind of they can be at their wits end depending what they're facing whether it's a TBI or restless nights or you know ADHD and I think really you know the brain is such a fascinating organ because essentially it wants to get better absolutely we're simply the facilitators you know using our cutting-edge technologies to try and you know get you to that point so I think yeah in terms of the magnesium then I'm interested did you were you aware of magnesium before the study did you take oh yes I mean absolutely over the decades I've tried different forms of magnesium magnesium didn't suit me it it actually constipated me and you know it it made me it made me feel a little dull let's put it that way and I suppose in that way so no matter which ones I tried and of course I can't take magnesium steroids in anything there's there's obviously many different forms of magnesium but but it was a combination of the spray specifically and the way it's applied that I feel is is completely different to anything else because like I said yes I did I I I took and bought and even bought magnesium oils from other people and applied them absolutely with no with no effects or side effects that were not pleasant I think you're right I think it you know they've they've really crafted an incredible product in the fact that you've got that kind of ease of topical application yes and absorption and then just the highest grade of zextine magnesium chloride I think yeah it is it is a winning product I I've used it I get sciatic pains and and within minutes they've dissipated it's a remarkable product and I think you know magnesium is so important you know especially this day and age when it's difficult to kind of get what we need from a health perspective and it's so important isn't it to have that awareness and to listen to our bodies I think we we live in such a busy world Margaret but it's so important you know our bodies are trying to tell us things and we have to stay tuned into them to to be of the best you know the best well-being yes completely and I've I've you know been in a great position that I've been able to you know speak of of the magnesium spray to a you know and they have had you know good effects as well from it one lady who'd had a back problems and she'd had operations on her back and and I said you know just try this it's so easy you just literally spray it and that's it you know and and she's had the most fantastic response to that as well and of course now of course she she orders it and it's very easy to get hold of obviously doesn't matter where you are in the country a lot of my clients are you know are all over the place so yeah you can have it delivered so it's very easy to get yeah and I think that's the thing isn't it I think it's yeah we're very lucky to be where we are in Harrogate we've got you know some super super places around us for our for our well-being including yourself your your Reiki therapies and everything yes um so yeah we're very lucky to be on the journey with you as well Margaret and helping you with the sleep um side of things I mean just sort of just briefly looking over some of the areas difficulty falling asleep you had 77 improvement on that um difficulty waking number of hours of sleep and restless legs a hundred percent improvement um and the chronic constipation a hundred percent improvement so I mean I think yours are some of the best figures actually of the entire study so yeah we just wanted to thank you very much as well for being on the journey with us um and thank you for being our guest on today's podcast well thank you and thank you for inviting me on to the trial and yes you've got a very happy person here sitting so thank you very much Olivia I do appreciate it thanks Margaret bye hi it's Olivia here from the Brain Collective in Harrogate we just wanted to take a quick moment to say thank you for listening and to let you know a little bit about what we do at the Brain Collective we work with children adults and families who are navigating everything from burnout and sleep challenges to brain injuries and sensory overload we work with the brain gently helping it settle regulate and find its own rhythm again we also work closely with case management teams across the UK to support clients as part of a wider rehabilitation journey if you're a parent carer or professional looking for something different something calming respectful and brain-based we'd love to hear from you you can find us at thebraincollective.co.uk or just drop us a message on LinkedIn