How CBD can help you with your anxiety

How CBD can help you with your anxiety

It really doesn’t matter how you frame it – you could be running late for work, you could have just realized you forgot that important thing back on the desk at home or you could just be sitting around doing nothing: anxiety is a creeping, insidious disorder that invades your thoughts like a virus, forcing you to worry at the most minute provocation. If you’ve ever had to live with chronic anxiety, it can be both incredibly frustrating and depressing.

Fortunately we live in an age where anxiety, stress and despondency can be remedied with the health benefits of CBD. CBD, or cannabidiol, is a chemical compound found in one of the two main plants of the cannabis family (for more information about CBD in general, click here). While it is probably best known for pain alleviation, CBD has been known for millennia to combat anxious feelings. Recently, a study was completed by the University of Pittsburgh on the neurological benefits of CBD which confirmed some things that we human beings have known since before the pyramids were built.

While the study itself is filled with scientific jargon that can take a while to translate into understandable English, what is important is that the anxiety study pins down exactly how CBD helps your brain stop itself from worrying about that comeback that you didn’t say to the bully back in eighth grade. Like many prescription antidepressants, CBD triggers something that scientists call ‘neuroprotective properties’ – things that help the brain regenerate faster and maintain plasticity – think of it like building an immune system for your brain to protect itself against bad chemistry. In doing so, CBD can help avoid detrimental and scary-sounding things like amyloid plagues, microglia activation and pro-inflammatory mediators, all contributing physical factors that can manifest themselves as anxiety.

Not only blocking some of the physical aspects that contribute to depression, CBD can also help stimulate chemical reactions that actively combat depression. Ever heard of serotonin or dopamine? Serotonin is the ‘happy chemical’ in the brain that blossoms when you are feeling joyful or content and dopamine is the chemical of pleasure, which gets released when your brain perceives receiving a reward. CBD can help activate serotonin and dopamine receptors which can positively affect your mood and works to fight against anxiety and depression.

Unlike what your brain might be telling you, anxiety is just a simple misalignment of perfectly normal chemicals that are in your brain for a reason – there just might be a little imbalance. CBD is a compound that promotes bodily homeostasis. People are always asking what CBD feels like but it doesn’t really feel like anything (no high to be had here!). In fact, CBD’s presence is most felt by what the person taking it doesn’t feel – anxiety, stress and depression.  These plagues are usually their ebb away into nothingness. Is it what normal is meant to feel like? Probably, if you suffer from something as pervasive as anxiety.

CBD is a cheaper, healthier and more environmentally friendly anxiety treatment compared to many traditional anti-anxiety medicines or antidepressants. While CBD certainly affects everybody differently, CBD also has different benefits for everyone. A daily small dose of CBD over a long period of time can be incredibly influential in restoring your brain to its healthiest and help rid you of those intrusive (and frankly, rude) thoughts that can paralyze you and ruin your day.

A healthy body starts with a healthy brain – and using CBD to help improve your mood and evaporate those feelings of anxiety can lead to a more productive and happier life and it won’t stop you from doing the things you enjoy in like such as driving your car, Go on a horse riding trail or do a bunjy jump.