A Nurse Practitioner and Fitness Instructor Shares the Products She Swears By for Everyday Health

Of course, the best way to have a good morning is to have had a good night's sleep beforehand. To help with that, Jennifer takes 500mg magnesium glycinate capsules each night. "I like taking the magnesium about an hour before I want to actually be asleep," she says. Maybe it's all in my head, but I find that 20-30 minutes in, I'm ready for sleep. Nights that I don't take it, I've definitely found it harder to sleep."

Jennifer didn't start taking the supplements exclusively for sleep, though. Part of what started her interest in taking them was that "There have been some studies that have also shown it to have cognitive benefits, particularly as we get older, to help with aging and maybe even help prevent dementia."

Beyond that, though, it's been a major help when it comes to sleep, and while there are always potentially side effects to supplements, these are "generally pretty safe" for the average person, according to Jennifer. Her main warnings are for patients undergoing major medical treatments, to check with their doctors before taking magnesium. And of course, "magnesium can act as a laxative, so be careful with that!" 

Beyond that, though, Jennifer notes that she's such a fan of the supplements that "I even have my daughter, who's a teenager, taking magnesium to help with sleep."

Once Jennifer is awake and workout-ready, it's finally time to get moving—or rather, vibrating. Once she's in her workout gear, she starts her early-morning routine using a Lifepro vibration plate. She actually learned about this product through her love of an entirely different fitness item: her Peloton. "I'm a big fan of Peloton, and I've met this amazing group of women [through that]. We have an amazing group chat where we talk all day long and recommend things to each other, and a few of the girls in that [group chat] were talking about the vibration plate, so that's how I found it, in our little community."

Now, she uses it every pre-workout to "kind of loosen everything up," and get her muscles ready for exercise. Beyond that, she's also been using it to cool down. "I've found, because I've started to run again, that has really helped with my joints, and for me, preventing any joint pain, particularly in my knees. I like to use the vibration plate pre-workout, and then again after I run, and I've found I've started to recover faster."