There hasn’t been a lot of study on the effects of CBD for mental health, but there’s been enough to point to it having a generally positive effect on people’s mental wellness. Mental health is affected by a lot of different things, from stress in our lives to brain chemistry to physical illness.
CBD is not a cure for any mental illness. However, it can be a useful tool in your mental health toolbox. By reducing the symptoms of your stress, you can make your life easier to deal with little by little. Here are some of the ways you can use it to help make yourself a little happier and healthier.
What is CBD and How Does It Work?
CBD, or cannabidiol, is a cannabinoid that is derived from hemp. It offers a lot of the positive effects that you’d expect from marijuana without the high. It’s legal in all 50 states and throughout most of the world, making it potentially useful for you and other sufferers of mental illness.
It is sometimes confused with THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol, which is the other major cannabinoid on the market. This is illegal in many places because it produces a high. It can also be helpful in treating mental illness, but it can be difficult to acquire legally unless recreational marijuana is legal in your state.
For our purposes, we’ll be discussing CBD and its effects on the human body and psyche.
How Can You Use CBD for Mental Health?
Reduce Symptoms of Anxiety
Anxiety often comes with things like a racing pulse and high blood pressure, which makes it difficult to actually calm down and deal with whatever is causing the anxiety – if there’s even an actionable cause for it. We all know there isn’t always a reason for the anxiety we feel.
By acting as a mild sedative in large doses, it can reduce these symptoms so that you can get on with your day. It can also be used as a maintenance medicine to reduce the occurrence of these symptoms in your day-to-day life.
Assist in Sleep
CBD can help to trigger your brain to start producing melatonin, which makes you feel sleepy. The more melatonin you produce naturally, the easier time you will have falling asleep. It also helps many people to sleep for longer periods of time, which leads to them getting a lot more, higher quality sleep over the course of the night. This will lead to improved mental health overall because you will be more able to handle stressors in your life overall.
Reduce the Impact of Stress
When you’re well rested, you are less likely to be impacted as strongly by stressors during your day, no matter how small. This will help you to feel better throughout your day and make it easier to deal with the root causes of your stress and your mental illness.
Reduce Seizures
CBD can work as a maintenance medicine and as an as-needed medicine if you are prone to seizures, which can be a symptom of some mental illnesses and disorders. It can minimize the number of seizures you have overall and it can also help you deal with the aftershocks of the seizures you do experience. It can also help you to cut down on the severity of your seizures by working alongside your other medications, not as a replacement for them.
Reduces Pain and Inflammation
CBD is well known for helping to reduce pain and inflammation, which can make it easier for you to move around, even if you are struggling.
How Can You Take CBD?
There are a lot of different ways to take CBD. How you take it depends on what is easiest for you, what textures and tastes you like, and what dosage you want.
Most people take CBD through drops of oil under their tongues or through vape pens. Others try things like foods, drinks, or gummies that have been infused with CBD. The oil offers the most customization and control over your dosage, which is why it is the most popular.
Most people take a dosage of between 10 milligrams and 50 milligrams, depending on their weight and the severity of the symptoms they are treating to treat. Getting the right dose for you can require some trial and error, especially if you are on medications for your mental illnesses. Some people prefer to take theirs in one dose while others prefer to micro-dose, keeping themselves on an even keel all day.
A Word of Warning
Cannabinoids like CBD are metabolized in the kidneys and liver, which can cause problems if those organs are already having trouble. If you vape your CBD, you also increase your risk of issues with your lungs and throat. Anyone who wants to try CBD should talk to their doctor first to make sure that it will not exacerbate any existing physical illnesses or interact badly with their other medications.
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