We all experience stress during our daily lives. That’s even more true today with the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
While some stress is beneficial, continuous stress can worsen your health in many ways and is one of the leading health problems worldwide.
There are many ways to manage stress, including exercise, reducing caffeine and alcohol intake, and following a healthy diet. However, sometimes you may need extra help from natural remedies such as CBD.
Read on to learn more about stress and how CBD can help.
What is Stress?
Stress is our body’s normal response to physical and mental challenges.
Common examples (stressors) include sleep deprivation, physical fatigue, and mental pressure resulting from managing relationships, dealing with a demanding job, paying the bills, and other everyday issues.
Despite popular belief, some stress is actually good for us. For example, if you’re stressed about an important presentation at work, that can encourage you to prepare and do a better job.
However, when stress becomes ongoing, it can have a detrimental effect. Chronic stress can leave you physically and mentally exhausted, increasing your risk of many different disorders and harming virtually every aspect of your health.
Symptoms of Stress
Because stress is such a fundamental physiological process, it can manifest in many different symptoms, including:
- Depression and anxiety
- Physical and mental fatigue
- Difficulties with memory and concentration
- Racing heart and high blood pressure
- Difficulty sleeping
- Digestive problems
- Muscle tension
- Weakened immune system
Stress can also lead people to cope in unhealthy ways, such as binge eating, drinking, smoking, gambling, using drugs, and compulsory shopping. These negative habits tend to make your stress even worse, creating a vicious cycle.
Managing Stress
There are many ways to keep stress at a healthy level. To list a few, you can eat healthier, get more exercise, and reduce common sources of stress, such as drinking too much alcohol, not getting enough sleep, or having a bad work-life balance.
However, that’s not always possible or enough, which is why many people turn to prescription medications.
While these drugs might work in the short term, they usually come with significant side effects. That’s where natural alternatives like CBD can help.
How CBD Can Help With Stress
Cannabidiol (CBD) is the major non-intoxicating component of cannabis. Studies have shown that CBD can help with stress and many of its symptoms.
For example, a 1993 study in healthy adults found that CBD can reduce cortisol, the body’s main stress hormone.
Similarly, multiple human studies have shown that CBD can relieve social anxiety disorder (SAD), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and other issues related to anxiety and stress.
More importantly, a 2020 review of multiple studies and papers concluded that CBD could be a promising treatment for stress, anxiety, depression, and related issues.
There’s also some evidence that CBD may have muscle-relaxing, hypotensive (blood pressure-lowering), and sleep-promoting effects, all of which are beneficial for stress.
Having said that, the research is ongoing and more high-quality studies are needed.
CBD Safety
CBD is considered safe, with a 2018 World Health Organisation report concluding that it’s “generally well tolerated with a good safety profile.”
While CBD can cause side effects, they’re usually minor. The most common ones include fatigue, sleepiness, dry mouth, nausea, low blood pressure, and changes in appetite or weight.
CBD can also potentially interact with some prescription drugs. However, most people are unlikely to experience these side effects as they were found in studies using high doses of pure CBD.
Full-Spectrum CBD Oil for Stress
CBD comes in many forms but the best option for stress is CBD oil. It has long-lasting effects, absorbs better than capsules and gummies, and makes it easy to control your dosage.
In particular, we recommend using full-spectrum CBD oil. Full-spectrum means the product contains whole-plant hemp extract carrying not only CBD but dozens of other cannabinoids, terpenes, and other beneficial compounds.
All of these natural substances work in synergy, producing what scientists call the cannabis “entourage effect.” Thanks to this effect, full-spectrum products are far more effective than isolated CBD.
As for the dosage, it’s best to start with a small amount of CBD(10-15 mg) and wait two hours to see the effects. If needed, slowly raise the dosage over time until you start to experience stress relief.
