CBD helps you relax. This plant molecule may be calming, but it’s not weak. It goes to battle against the anxious and ruminating thoughts that stand between you and self-care. After CBD opens the door for tranquility, it provides an array of self-soothing benefits, from pain relief to stress reduction. Let’s explore how to utilize it to maximize your potential.
Self-care is treating yourself the way you would treat other people. It means listening to yourself and taking care of your needs. It is what you do to prioritize you—mind, body, and spirit.
In today’s hectic society, steeped in social media and a 24/7 news cycle, there is pressure to go, go, go. However, if you don’t take a break and integrate self-care into your life—whether once a day, once a week, or more often—you risk health problems and burnout. Treating yourself well isn’t frivolous; it’s crucial to surviving in this tough world. Your body needs enough sleep, water, and exercise. Your mind needs stimulation. And your spirit needs love. Self-care honors life by striving to make yours as happy and healthy as possible.
The way that you practice self-care is up to you. A luxurious bath may be perfect for one person; someone else may need a day spent working hard in the garden. But whatever you need, you’ll find what you’re looking for in this book. Self-care is self-love, so let’s take a look at the different types of self-care and how CBD can help you connect with and nurture the whole you.
Your body is the vessel that carries you through this life. With the aid of CBD, physical self-care can alleviate pain and help you feel more comfortable. Then you can focus on what your body both wants and needs, such as exercise, massage, or more sleep. When your body is happy and running smoothly, the rest of life falls more easily into place.
In a world filled with constant news and social media posts, it’s easy to feel stressed out. Fortunately, by practicing mental self-care you can curate the content of your mind, creating a paradise where stress is only welcome when useful.
Mental self-care will help you take care of tasks and chores and enjoy yourself while you do so. And if it’s hard to turn off your mind and focus inward, you’ll find meditations, breath work, and more throughout these pages that will teach you to quiet your mind and sink into total relaxation. Using CBD to enhance your mental self-care will help you relax, have fun, and focus on what makes you happy.
Your spirit is you in your true form. It’s the joy you feel from baking brownies for a loved one, playing with your pet, or going on an adventure all by yourself. CBD helps lower your stress levels and empty your mind of the negative thoughts that hold you back so you can be mindful, joyous, and free in the present moment.
Cannabidiol, or CBD, is a phytocannabinoid, a chemical plant compound that occurs naturally in plants in the cannabis family. Both the marijuana plant, which contains the psychoactive chemical compound tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), and the hemp plant, which most CBD is currently derived from, are part of this family. Hemp contains 0.3 percent or less of THC, which isn’t enough to produce a psychoactive effect.
While a lot more research still needs to be done on CBD, what researchers know so far is that when CBD enters the body, it binds with receptors in the endocannabinoid system (ECS). Your ECS is an internal biological system that is believed to play a crucial role in maintaining homeostasis, your body’s ability to maintain a state of internal balance and well-being regardless of changes and outside factors. Within the ECS, there are two primary cannabinoid receptors: CB1 and CB2. CB1 receptors are the most abundant in the brain and are the ones that THC interacts with to produce a high. CB2 receptors exist mostly in the immune system. Currently, researchers don’t know exactly how CBD interacts with the ECS, but they do know that it doesn’t bind to CB1 or CB2 receptors in the same way THC does. One popular theory is that CBD works by preventing endocannabinoids from being broken down. This means they can have a greater effect on your body. Other researchers propose that CBD may bind to a receptor that hasn’t yet been discovered.
Again, while THC is psychoactive, CBD won’t get you high. Instead, CBD can do everything from making your skin glow to restoring calm to fighting pain. CBD helps you be your best self without risk of dependence, which makes it perfect for self-care. Let’s take a closer look at how CBD can help you prioritize your mind, body, and spirit.
Right now, most of the research on CBD concerns its anti-inflammatory and anti-anxiety effects, but these two sides of CBD allow for a number of supplementary benefits that you can use to enhance your self-care practice. CBD can soothe pain, care for your skin, and make you feel more comfortable in your body, all important aspects of physical self-care. It can also help you relax, de-stress, practice mindfulness, and push away your worries, all of which are crucial for mental and spiritual self-care.
Let’s take a closer look at the benefits of CBD.
Inflammation helps your body fight off infection, but too much inflammation leads to weight gain and disease. By connecting with certain receptor sites in your body, cannabidiol reduces inflammation, treating everything from headaches, hangovers, and muscle soreness to puffy eyes, chronic pain, and epilepsy, as suggested in a 2018 study published in Surgical Neurology International. By both relieving and preventing common ailments and discomforts, CBD’s anti-inflammatory properties make it easier to settle into the present and focus on self-care.
CBD is rapidly becoming popular for its role in beauty and skin care. A 2013 study published in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology suggests that CBD can increase blood flow, which explains its beauty benefits. Blood flow helps by balancing sebum (oil) production, keeping pores clean. This encourages hair growth and collagen production while also reducing acne and signs of aging. The phytocannabinoid anti-inflammatory properties can also nourish the scalp, treat acne, combat dryness, and leave you feeling strong and looking fresh and renewed. Researchers also found that CBD can prevent acne from forming in the first place by preventing cells from producing excess oil. Additionally, a 2019 study found that the cannabinoid helps the skin by regulating its homeostasis. CBD’s magic is its ability to make you both look and feel good through the same mechanisms.
A 2019 study showed how CBD acts on the brain’s receptors for serotonin, which regulates your mood and can help decrease anxiety, stress, and depression. Additional research shows that CBD can also lower your fear response. When you’re able to decrease the potency of these uncomfortable emotions (fear, stress, etc.), you are able to be more fully present in your own life. You’re able to take care of yourself and feel more comfortable and confident in your body.
By lowering anxiety and your stress response, CBD can also help you sink into relaxation—whether you’re coming down with a cold or just in need of some rest. The cannabinoid can also help you let your guard down and open up emotionally, aiding in intimacy with friends, family, and partners.
It’s difficult to get anything done with anxious and ruminating thoughts. While more research still needs to be done on CBD’s direct ability to increase focus, CBD enthusiasts across the country report using the compound to brainstorm, stay in the moment, and get motivated. This is likely due to CBD’s anxiety-relieving properties. When you brush away those distractions, you can focus on the task at hand much more easily and brush away creative blocks. Additionally, feeling productive can help boost your self-esteem, and canceling out any stress-induced thoughts allows you to fully immerse yourself in soothing and joyful activities, like the self-care activities found throughout this book.
A 2011 study published in the British Journal of Pharmacology found that CBD can relieve nausea and vomiting, and researchers also believe the compound can stimulate appetite. Busy schedules and everyday stress can lead to uncomfortable GI issues or may cause you to skip meals. CBD can help you remember to take care of these basic needs so you can operate at full capacity—and enjoy some delicious and healthy foods! Additionally, early research suggests that CBD can boost metabolism by interacting with lymphoid tissue and the brain, helping to regulate a healthy appetite.
CBD can help alleviate insomnia and help you get a good night’s sleep. As we’ve discussed, CBD can be fantastic for lowering stress, anxiety, worries, and pain—all of which are most likely the things that keep you up at night. One 2019 study found that 79 percent of the patients treated with CBD reported lower anxiety levels and 67 percent slept better.
Sleep deprivation can lead to irritability, anxiety, mood swings, and reduction in your productivity at home and at work. It’s also harder to enjoy everyday life and your friends and family when you’re exhausted. CBD is a natural sleep aid that can help you avoid these things. Most clinical trials on CBD and sleep gave subjects 25–1,500 milligrams of CBD, so start with small doses and speak with your doctor to determine what works best for you.
Because it comes from a plant, CBD can work as a nutritional supplement. Early research suggests that CBD has antibiotic properties. While you shouldn’t skip traditional antibiotics the next time you need them, CBD’s antibiotic properties add extra incentive to incorporate it into your regimen. You can add CBD and hemp oil, seeds, and even leaves to everything from savory dishes to smoothies.
Now that you know how CBD can help enhance your self-care, you need to know what to buy. When browsing CBD products, you will notice the terms full spectrum, broad spectrum, and isolate. These three different products refer to the method by which the CBD is extracted from the plant and the plant’s cannabinoid profile.
Let’s take a look at each type.
Full-spectrum CBD, also referred to as “whole plant” CBD, extracts the cannabinoid CBD and everything else with it, including the plant’s terpenes (additional compounds responsible for taste, smell, and even calming benefits). Since CBD is made from a plant with less than 0.3 percent of THC, you don’t need to worry about psychoactive effects. Some people prefer full spectrum because it’s said to contain more nutrients. The “entourage effect” refers to the belief that CBD works best when you keep all its friends (other plant compounds) with it.
Broad-spectrum CBD contains most, but not all, of the other plant compounds that come with CBD. Some people prefer to avoid any THC, even nonpsychoactive levels. Broad spectrum uses a refinement process that removes all the THC (and as a result, some of the other plant compounds), while leaving in all the CBD and most of the other good stuff.
CBD isolate is just that: isolated CBD. It’s gone through more rigorous extraction processes to ensure that your product is pure CBD and nothing but CBD. Compared to the natural brown or yellow of full-spectrum and broad-spectrum products, CBD isolate is usually pure white.
How should you consume your CBD? There are a few options with various onset times, benefits, and uses. Try one or all of these CBD intake methods. Remember, CBD is safe and nonpsychoactive, so it’s okay to explore to find the right dose for you.
CBD dosing depends on a few things, such as body weight, pain level, your unique body chemistry, and the method of intake. A good rule of thumb is to take 1–6 milligrams of CBD for every 10 pounds of body weight with respect to your pain needs. Following that formula, 20 milligrams is a safe starting dose for everyone. So start with 20 milligrams, add as needed, and keep a journal of your experience.