Interviewer: What are the benefits of magnolia bark?
Dr. Stern: Magnolia bark is used specifically to lower cortisol levels. Magnolia bark is amazing at reducing cortisol and what really has been shown to impair sleep is the stress that we're under, as it affects our adrenal glands and when our adrenal glands are affected they become really imbalanced. Instead of producing cortisol levels higher in the morning and lower at night, our cortisol levels flip and increase at night.
Now, even if you think you have no stress and exercise at night, your cortisol levels are going to be higher at night. If you're on a cell phone at nighttime, your cortisol levels are going to be higher at night. So a lot of people, even if they're sleeping eight hours, are not getting the depth of sleep that they need to be healthy.
So I put magnolia bark in there specifically to decrease those nighttime cortisol levels so that your body can get a healthy night's sleep.