How to Get the Most Out of Your CBD
It’s 2021, and the attitude of many lawmakers towards cannabis has been changing steadily for the better over the past few years. Many people would say it’s about time! CBD (cannabidiol) is extremely beneficial for various common ailments such as stress, pain, inflammation, and anxiety.
If you’ve already been using CBD, chances are you’re well aware of many of its benefits. However, as with any topic, there’s always more to learn. In this post, we’ll walk you through some of the benefits of CBD, the different ways to use it, and some powerful lifestyle and diet changes that can enhance its effects.
The Benefits of CBD
If you run a quick search for CBD benefits online, you might come across all kinds of wild claims. Some might seem reasonable, while some seem ridiculous. To help you out, we’ve compiled the list below of the most consistently reported benefits of CBD.
Reducing Chronic Pain
Reducing chronic pain may be the best-supported use for CBD. A study in the Journal of Health Affairs found that of the people who use medical marijuana or CBD, 62% do it to help with chronic pain. Another study by the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine found significant evidence of CBD’s effectiveness in treating chronic pain.
Easing Anxiety and Depression
Clinically diagnosed depression affects roughly 350 million people worldwide. The actual number is likely even higher, as many people do not seek treatment due to stigma and lack of access to mental healthcare. Unfortunately, during the spread of COVID-19, depression numbers spiked even further.
Depression and anxiety have very high comorbidity, meaning they are often diagnosed together. Both depression and anxiety can be debilitating on their own, and dealing with the two together is extremely difficult.
Fortunately, several studies have recorded promising results regarding CBD’s effect on these diseases. Researchers at Washington State University published a study in the Journal of Affective Disorders stating that among those studied, smoking cannabis lessened feelings of anxiety in the short term.
Additionally, University of Buffalo researchers have found that long-term stress can reduce the brain’s production of chemicals called endocannabinoids. Lower levels of these chemicals are associated with feelings of depression. These scientists found that using CBD can potentially raise endocannabinoid levels and reduce symptoms of depression.
Relieving Insomnia
A poor night’s sleep can negatively affect everything from your mood to your level of hunger the next day. Chronic lack of sleep can wreak havoc on nearly every aspect of your life. According to the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, you might have more options than just reaching for more caffeine. They published a study that found that CBD, when used short-term, can have positive effects in alleviating sleep disturbances.
Additionally, some doctors who prescribe medical marijuana have found that CBD can help restore patients’ natural sleep cycles. For the 50 to 70 million U.S. adults dealing with some form of sleep disorder, CBD is worth a shot!
Different Ways to Use CBD
While there are many different ways to incorporate CBD into your life, smoking cannabis might be one of the main ones that come to mind. However, not everyone is comfortable smoking cannabis or smoking at all. If that describes you, don’t worry; there’s plenty of options.
Sublingual CBD
One convenient way to use CBD is sublingually. If this sounds like a good method for you, you can try CBD tinctures. To use CBD sublingually, you use a dropper to apply a few drops of the tincture beneath your tongue, hold it there for 30 seconds, and then swallow.
Many people find that taking CBD sublingually is discreet and like that it is easy to control their dose.
Topical CBD
If you usually use CBD to alleviate soreness, headaches, or skin conditions, a topical application might be right for you. This just means using CBD ointments, creams, or balms, rather than ingesting CBD. This method of using CBD is one of the easiest and does not require any special equipment. Try out SUPA Naturals CBD Cooling Gel.
Edible CBD
Who doesn’t love to eat? At SUPA Naturals, we’re big proponents of incorporating CBD into your diet (more on this in a bit). There are many different ways you can do this, including SUPA Naturals CBD Gummies, lollipops, or simply adding CBD oil to your food.
Edible CBD gives you nearly unlimited options, though you do need to keep track of how much you’re eating.
How to Enhance the Effects of Your CBD
As promised above, here we’ll discuss all of the different ways you can incorporate CBD into your diet and lifestyle. There’s so much to learn, so read on!
Adding CBD to Your Diet
While many people have heard of consuming CBD through lollipops or gummies, not everyone has thought about adding it directly to their food. It can be a great, convenient way to get your daily CBD, and certain foods can naturally enhance CBD’s effects.
Fatty Foods
If your goal is to enhance the effects of your CBD, fatty foods are your friend. In fact, at least one study has shown that eating a high-fat meal with your CBD can increase the level of CBD in your blood by a factor of 14. To enhance your CBD while maintaining the integrity of your diet, you’ll want to focus on foods full of healthy fats, such as:
- Chia seeds
- Olive oil
- MCT oil
- Eggs
- Walnuts and other nuts
- Hemp seeds
- Sesame oil
- Mayonnaise
- Avocado
- Coconut oil
- Sardines
- Flax seeds
- Fatty fishes like mackerel, trout, salmon, tuna, and herring.
The best kinds of fats to enhance your CBD are omega-3 and omega-6, as well as other omega fatty acids. These types of fats increase the bioavailability of CBD, thus improving its effects on your body and brain. Additionally, fats can enter your bloodstream through your mouth, which can speed up your CDB absorption.
All of the foods listed above are great for your health. Healthy fats like omega-3 and omega-6 have long been shown to support mental health, help people lose weight and inches around their waist, decrease liver fat, fight inflammation, and improve heart health. Combining all these benefits with those of CBD is sure to boost your health.
In addition to the foods listed above, cocoa powder can activate your cannabinoid receptors and contains three different types of N-acylethanolamines, fatty acids that mimic a natural endocannabinoid produced by the body. Chocolate lovers, rejoice!
Herbs and Spices
While CBD has plenty of benefits on its own, consuming it alone means you miss out on the ‘entourage effect,’ the result of ingesting whole cannabis. Cannabis contains a wide variety of terpenes and cannabinoids in addition to CBD, and they all work better together.
With this in mind, adding more herbs and spices to your diet can boost your CBD benefits, not just the flavors in your food. This is because terpenes, a cannabis component, occur naturally in many other plants as well.
One terpene to try is caryophyllene. This terpene can be found in many common plants and spices, such as cloves, basil, oregano, black pepper, hops, and black caraway. It has been shown to act independently on the CB2 receptor, a protein that helps fight off inflammation and may enhance the effects of CBD.
Finally, if you’re looking to try more terpenes, using a full-spectrum CBD oil can help. These oils contain terpenes that are found in cannabis and can enhance the effects of your CBD.
Drinks
In addition to adding CBD to your food, you can add it to your drinks as well. As CBD oils and tinctures are already liquids, adding them to your drinks is a natural choice. You can easily add CBD to any drink with SUPA Naturals Water Soluble CBD!
Coffee is the morning caffeine of choice for many, but it is not without its disadvantages. For many people, too much coffee can cause stomach aches, jitters, and nervousness. CBD can help calm these unfortunate side effects.
If tea is more your speed, don’t worry; CBD works just as well in tea as it does in coffee. Adding some CBD oil to your tea can let you reap the combined benefits of tea’s powerful antioxidants and CBD’s calming effects.
Coffee and tea aren’t the only popular morning drinks that can be improved by some added CBD. You can try it in your smoothies, too! Many smoothie recipes are packed full of superfoods, making them powerful in supporting your health, and adding CBD will only make them better.
CBD for Sexual Health
As discussed above, CBD can help lessen anxiety and depression, improve insomnia, and reduce chronic pain. But did you know it can also improve your sex life?
It might seem surprising, or embarrassing to talk about, but it’s true — CBD is your friend in the bedroom. Many people find that stress, poor self-image, low self-esteem, and performance anxiety can cause problems in their relationships and sex lives. They might feel too nervous to truly enjoy sex, or they might not have much desire for sex at all.
CBD can help these insecure feelings. Consuming CBD has been shown, in some people, to increase sexual desire, reduce inhibitions, alleviate pain, and escalate pleasure. In fact, surveys have found that people using CBD to improve their sexual health reported less anxiety, better sex, better performance, a better mood, and fewer insecurities overall.
Ingesting CBD can also potentially help your body balance your hormone levels and increase the concentration of the neurotransmitter anandamide. But what does that mean? Balanced hormone levels make for a higher sex drive. Higher levels of anandamide make for more emotionally intimate sex since anandamide is closely related to oxytocin, or “the love hormone.”
You aren’t limited to ingestible CBD to boost your sex life, either. Topical CBD creams, suppositories, and lubricants can be an excellent addition to the bedroom as well.
For some women, sex can bring more pain than pleasure. Almost 40% of women experience dyspareunia (a broad term referring to all disorders that cause painful sex). If you’re experiencing painful sex, you aren’t alone. This is where you can put the anti-inflammatory properties of CBD to work.
CBD-infused lubricants and suppositories lessen pain by relieving tension, increasing blood flow, relaxing smooth muscle tissue, increasing lubrication, increasing sensation, and reducing overall tension. All of this means better sex (and better orgasms!)
Sexual wellness is an integral part of your overall health, and you should never neglect it. If your sex life hasn’t quite been up to par lately, consider adding some CBD into your bedroom routine.
Summing It All Up
CBD has many incredible benefits on its own, such as alleviating anxiety, relieving insomnia, reducing stress, lessening symptoms of depression, restoring healthy sleep patterns, treating chronic pain, and improving your sexual health. If smoking cannabis isn’t your thing, you can use CBD sublingually, topically, and through ingestion.
Additionally, CBD gains an extra kick when properly incorporated into your diet. Fatty foods such as fish, nuts, avocado, nut butters, seeds, and oils can all increase the benefits of CBD while supporting your heart health, lessening liver fat, helping you lose both weight and inches from your waist, fighting inflammation, and supporting your mental health.
You can incorporate CBD into your drinks as well. Adding CBD to your coffee can help you avoid some of the unpleasant side effects of too much caffeine, such as nervousness, jitters, and indigestion. Mixing CBD into your morning smoothie can help you reap the benefits of both superfoods and calming effects, and adding CBD to your tea can further boost your antioxidant levels.
If you’re convinced and ready to give CBD a try, call SUPA Naturals today! We were founded in 2019 by a husband and wife team, Paul and Susan after Susan was diagnosed with Lyme disease. We have experienced the benefits of CBD first-hand, and we’d love to share them with you.
