CBD can improve both the quality and quantity of sleep by ensuring that the body progresses through the normal stages of sleep and REM sleep without undue interruptions, which would help people with circadian rhythm disorders, says Dr. CBD is biphasic, meaning that low and high doses can cause opposite effects. These effects also vary from person to person. While melatonin puts you in a calm state before bed, CBD can make you feel alert when taken in low or moderate doses.
At higher doses, studies have associated the use of CBD with increased sleep. However, in a 3-month study in which participants with anxiety took 25 mg to 50 mg of CBD, researchers found that improvements in sleep decreased month after month. However, reaping the benefits of CBD is a difficult path, as much of its long-term safety or efficacy is still unknown. A study showed that taking less than 160 mg of CBD oil can promote wakefulness.
While higher doses may promote sleep, the FDA has approved only one CBD product, a prescription drug to treat two severe and rare forms of epilepsy. Because other CBD products aren't regulated, you might not know what you're actually consuming. Unfortunately, the CBD content indicated on a product label is not necessarily the amount that the product actually contains, which can lead people to take more or less CBD than intended. Other negative effects experienced with CBD may be due to an interaction between CBD and other medications the patient is taking.
A preliminary study showed that CBD in doses ranging from 75 to 300 mg helps these patients and, in an initial case study, high doses of CBD helped a pediatric patient with PTSD. If a person's anxiety is the cause of their sleep problem, a CBD product may benefit them, Conroy says. But was CBD directly responsible for this result? And, since a fairly large group of people with insomnia also have depression and anxiety, what exactly does CBD work on? This is where the waters get even murkier. Sulak said that CBD may offer benefits to people with sleep disorders, and believes that it is important to move forward with pragmatically designed clinical trials, that is, a trial that does not provide all patients with the exact same treatment.
Some research shows that the entourage effect, or the harmonized interaction between cannabis compounds such as CBD and THC, seems to carry over to sleep. Sulak explained that CBD could be reducing symptoms such as anxiety, allowing a person to relax so that their natural sleep mechanism can prevail. During the first 30 days of using CBD, anxiety decreased in nearly 80% of patients and sleep scores improved by nearly 70%. In REM sleep behavior disorder, patients verbalize and perform aggressive movements during the rapid eye movement (REM) stage of sleep.
Sulak also stated that Americans desperately need education to understand sleep hygiene and the critical importance of sleep for health and happiness. While CBD appears to be safe on its own, consider consulting a medical professional before adding CBD or other cannabis products to your regimen. However, many of these studies suggest that using CBD as a sleep aid could have some benefit, and it's worth investigating. Given the potential positive results of treating anxiety with CBD, it is speculated that CBD could also help reduce anxiety associated with insomnia.
Up to 70% of Americans report that they don't sleep the recommended hours, and nearly a third of American workers sleep less than six hours a night. .
