Hi Boox Popular Magazine 2024
Whether you are one of millions of adults who have a chronic sleep disorder, or just someone who is having trouble feeling rested now and then, CBD is a health supplement that can help. It works by interacting with the endocannabinoid system (ECS) in your nervous system, which manages several neurotransmitters that regulate important bodily functions.
One of those bodily functions is your natural sleep-wake cycle, also known as your circadian rhythm. Normally, your body will send signals around your usual bedtime so you feel tired, which helps you go to bed and fall asleep eventually. For people with sleep disorders or interrupting factors like jet lag, pain, and stress, this cycle is diminished or disrupted completely.
High quality and organic CBD like those from heavensorganics.com can help mitigate other interrupting factors, as it can reduce pain, anxiety, and stress. CBD has proven effective at helping people sleep, and it is even used to help people with insomnia and PTSD improve their sleep. The result of a review of studies related to how CBD affects anxiety and sleep found that “CBD may block anxiety-induced [rapid eye movement] sleep alteration via its anxiolytic effect on the brain”.
However, it isn’t quite as easy as just taking the CBD at bedtime. If you want to get the best sleep you can, try following these four tips.
1. Take CBD At the Right Time
Depending on how you take the CBD, its effects will kick in after different lengths of time. When you smoke or vape it, it can take as little as 10 minutes. If you ingest it sublingually (under the tongue) it can take around 20 minutes. The area under your tongue is highly absorbent, making it more efficient for getting the CBD into your system. If you eat or drink it, it will take as long as an hour.
The best way is to let the effects begin about 30 minutes before you want to go to bed. That will give it time to kick in and start relaxing you and making you feel more tired. If you smoke or vape it, start doing it around 40 minutes ahead of time. If you take CBD oil sublingually, do it 50 minutes ahead of time. Anything else should be between 60 and 90 minutes.
2. Combine CBD With Hot Water
Herbal tea has long been used for medicinal purposes, and you can get it with CBD included. You can also add hemp leaves or CBD oil to your regular tea that you like to drink in the evening. The combination of the hot tea with other herbs that can help you relax and sleep can really enhance each other. A good combination can be tea with CBD and melatonin, chamomile, ylang ylang, lavender, or lemon balm.
You can also try taking a hot bath using CBD bath salts to absorb the CBD through your skin as you relax all your muscles. Just like with tea, you can get bath salts with other minerals that also help you sleep. Magnesium is the best example of this, but you can also get it with epsom salt or essential oils like eucalyptus, lavender and lemon balm.
An important note is that it can take a long time for CBD to be absorbed through your skin. The best timing is to start taking a bath about an hour before you want to sleep. That gives the CBD and other minerals or oils time to absorb into your system through your skin.
3. Start With a Smaller Dose
When you take CBD for the first time, your system won’t be used to it. Your tolerance can vary, and there are other factors such as your body weight to consider. You can use free online dose calculator tools to help you get started, taking into account your weight, CBD strength, total CBD concentration (in mg), and more.
It is best to start small and work your way up in dose strength. If you get a bottle of CBD oil, get one that lists it at 500 mg of CBD, and start with half of the dropper filled. If you have edibles, just eat one piece or portion. If you are using tea or bath salts, go light on the CBD or the mix. Eventually you will find the right amount that works best for you, so it helps you sleep but you don’t have to take so much of it that you go through a bottle of CBD oil or tea too quickly.
4. Take Advantage of the Entourage Effect
The final tip is to take advantage of the “entourage effect”, which is the name given to a phenomenon of the combined effect of cannabinoids working together. Cannabinoid is a family of chemical compounds found in cannabis plants, and CBD is one of the most well known. There are several others, but the other most well-known is THC, the component in cannabis that makes you feel high.
Each cannabinoid, including CBD, has health benefits on their own. While there are slight differences, each cannabinoid largely has the same kind of benefits. However, when you take multiple cannabinoids together, the individual effects are boosted to be more potent than they are when taken on their own. To improve the sleep related benefits of CBD beyond your dosage, you can do two things. One is to use full spectrum CBD, which includes other cannabinoids in smaller amounts. The other is to use pure, natural oil extracted from cannabis that contains all cannabinoids, with no additional filtering or refinement.
In addition to these tips, you can also use a heated or cooling blanket so you feel at the right temperature to be comfortable when you go to bed. You can exercise during the day and avoid caffeine, alcohol and electronic screens closer to bedtime. Finally, you can use things like noise-cancelling earplugs, eye masks, blackout curtains, and white noise machines to remove light or sound pollution that can interrupt your sleep.
