Insomnia is an increasingly common problem among adults across the world. The stress of modern life coupled with our ever-increasing screen time interferes greatly with sleeping patterns.
There are many ways of treating insomnia. However, not all are effective and many have severe side effects.
So, many of those who are currently suffering from insomnia are turning to CBD to help them sleep. It’s all-natural, highly effective, and doesn’t cause any unwanted side effects.
Read on to learn about the five ways CBD can help people struggling with insomnia.
1. It Reduces Anxiety
Mental health issues are increasing and anxiety is one of the common mental health issues. There is a strong link with anxiety and insomnia; if you suffer from anxiety, there’s a good chance it will interfere with your sleep.
CBD was difficult to research until quite recently due to the legal restrictions on cannabis. Researchers are therefore unsure why it is effective in the treatment of anxiety. However, they believe it may be related to CBD’s activity on serotonin receptors in the brain.
There are a number of ways to take CBD for anxiety. If you’re not a fan of smoking, you’ll be glad to learn that you can add CBD oil to many different kinds of food or buy ready-made, infused products.
Plus, if you have a sweet tooth, consider our favorite CBD edibles.
2. It Treats Physical Pain
Many people find themselves unable to sleep due to physical pain. This might be from an injury, an inflammatory condition like arthritis, or some other type of pain.
Luckily, CBD is highly effective in treating physical pain. There are a few different ways of how it can do this.
Two overarching types of pain are relevant to this discussion. They are nociceptive pain (also known as inflammatory pain) and neuropathic pain. CBD has positive effects on both.
Nociceptive pain results from inflammation in the body. While such inflammation is a natural bodily response to an intrusion, it can cause severe pain in some cases.
CBD can lessen inflammation through its interaction with the endocannabinoid system. While THC has a more direct relationship with the CB2 receptor, which has an important role in inflammation reduction, CBD can also lessen inflammation by reducing the prevalence of inflammatory cells in the body.
CBD is also very effective for neuropathic pain. This is pain that comes from nerve damage rather than a physical injury. Neuropathic pain may cause a variety of conditions, including multiple sclerosis and cancer.
While researchers are not yet clear on how exactly CBD relieves neuropathic pain, they believe it relates to the calming effects that it has on our central nervous system.
Image by Jesper Aggergaard
3. It Offers the Calming Effects of Cannabis Without Getting You High
Cannabis is a renowned sleep aid. Even people without insomnia will tell you that the right number of bong hits will make it impossible to keep your eyes open.
However, consuming cannabis in its natural form is not an option for a lot of people. If you prefer to stay sober, this isn’t something you can do to treat your insomnia.
CBD provides an effective alternative. It holds many of the sleep-inducing effects of cannabis without the high that comes with THC.
4. It Can Treat REM Sleep Behavior Disorder
REM sleep behavior disorder (RBD) is a specific condition, which leads people to behave erratically during periods of light (REM) sleep. This is the kind of sleep you are in just after you lose consciousness and just before you wake up.
If you have RBD, your symptoms usually relate to your dreams. People with this condition commonly act out their dreams, making noise or physical movements in response to what’s happening in the dream.
Severe cases of RBD can be dangerous for both the affected person and the person they are sleeping beside. If left untreated, episodes of RBD tend to get worse over time.
REM sleep behavior disorder is classified as a parasomnia. While insomnia is the inability to sleep properly, parasomnia refers to unwanted symptoms that manifest themselves while you’re asleep.
Fortunately, CBD can do a lot for these kinds of conditions. More research in this area is needed, however, as the authors of note, there is mounting evidence to suggest that it is an effective treatment for sleep disorders like RBD.
5. It Can Get You off Other Types of Medication
One of the major benefits of using cannabis for medicinal purposes is its capacity to treat conditions that only strong pharmaceutical drugs have been used for in the past. This allows many patients to give up these drugs, some of which have life-altering side-effects.
Take ADHD sufferers, for example. Traditional ADHD treatments are stimulant medications, designed to sharpen a patients’ focus by increasing their alertness. This is an effective strategy for many people with ADHD, but it can leave them with side effects like insomnia.
This study looks at the relationship between ADHD medication and sleep in children. It found that sleep quality was significantly worse in children who had taken medication than those who had taken a placebo.
By using CBD to improve concentration, you could avoid this problem.
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An Insomnia Treatment That Works in 2020
If you’ve tried every insomnia treatment and it wasn’t effective, CBD might be the answer you’ve been looking for. It is considered as one of the best natural sleep aids. Since it’s natural and doesn’t cause side effects, it’s always worth a try.
Whether you’re smoking a CBD joint or adding CBD oil to your food, you should start to notice a positive change quickly enough.
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