You are not alone. The World Health organization suggests that 1 in thirteen people in the world suffer from an anxiety disorder making it the most common mental health issue. It is estimated that 40 million Americans struggle with an anxiety disorder and although there are some big pharma short-term solutions with drugs like Valium or Xanax people are now looking for a more long-term natural alternative to find balance and calm.
What Is CBD?
CBD is short for Cannabidiol, which is a naturally occurring chemical compound that you get from the Cannabis sativa plant. This is also known as Hemp or Marijuana. Due to recent changes in the law, it is now possible to buy CBD in shops and online.
CBD ANXIETY AND STRESS
The chemical CBD is responsible for the feeling of calm and relaxation that people report when using Marijuana, so by using just CBD, you get all of the calm feelings without any of the psychoactive and negative effects of marijuana caused by a different chemical called THC. CBD is also being used in a lot of other ways to help people with their health, and we cover many of them here in this blog.
Firstly, it’s important to differentiate between what a panic attack is and what an anxiety attack is, as they are actually different. A Panic Attack is generally a more intense issue and comes with little or no warning, whereas Anxiety Attacks usually have a trigger like a past stressful memory, situation, or situation.
The symptoms of both Anxiety Attacks and Panic Attacks can mostly be managed with a few different measures, including avoiding the situations that can cause the triggers, meditating, exercising, and people report CBD helping with the symptoms too. The research conducted by scientists certainly seems to help support this, with papers going back a few decades reporting the benefits of CBD in helping anxiety and panic.
We found a 2017 study that reported positive effects on panic symptoms when used on human patients. Another study, published on PMC in December 2018, analyzed a group of rats and observed that CBD was able to successfully reduce anxiety in the test subjects. We also found a recent paper from 2015 that showed the positive effects of CBD to treat anxiety disorders.
How Does CBD Combat Anxiety?
Cannabidiol(CBD) has more many target areas in the body, which makes it hard to pinpoint the sources of its many different therapeutic properties. Studies currently suggest that CBD counters anxiety by helping with your neurotransmitters and also helping to repair neurons in your body.
You may have heard of the ‘happiness hormone’ known as Serotonin which has at least 14 different receptors. We know from research that CBD binds to one of the main serotonin receptors known as ‘5-HT.1A’. This receptor site has strong associations with anxiety disorders and a drug known as buspirone also binds to this site and is known to treat anxiety
What Is Stress?
Stress is the body’s reaction to any change that requires an adjustment or response. The body reacts to these changes with physical, mental, and emotional responses. Stress is a normal part of life. You can experience stress from your environment, your body, and your thoughts.
Your Body Naturally Makes Cannabinoids
Under Stress your natural balance of cannabinoids made by your body becomes unbalanced. research shows that CBD can help work on a brain receptor called CB1 and restore balance and thus treat anxiety by giving your body a kick start to make more cannabinoids.
CBD Can Help Repair Damage Caused By Stress
The British Journal of Pharmacology looked at CBD in 2015 and found that CBD encourages regeneration of existing neurons and also described a study with mice that showed CBD actually helped grow new neurons too.
Is CBD Addictive?
CBD is not addictive and not habit-forming. In fact, it’s basically the opposite because it has been used to help people get off addictions to other drugs, alcohol, and smoking. A large and wide-ranging scientific review from 2015 actually showed that CBD is being used in a wide range of clinical cases to help beat addiction.
”Pharmacological targeting of the cannabinoid system as a regulator of neurogenesis may prove a fruitful strategy in the prevention or treatment of mood or memory disorders.”
British Journal of Pharmacology 2015