Does CBD Help With Insomnia, The research is sparse, experts say, but there are some hints about how it could soothe you to sleep.
If you’re like many adults around the world who have found themselves tossing and turning during the pandemic, you may have been tempted to try a sleep aid, like CBD, to get a better night’s rest. Unlike the cannabis plant’s other famous and psychoactive compound THC,Does CBD Help With Insomnia, CBD does not get users high and is touted for relieving a range of conditions, including pain, anxiety and, yes, sleep problems. While it’s not entirely clear how CBD works in the body, it’s thought to reduce inflammation, which may help alleviate pain, and it can calm the central nervous system, which may ease anxiety, said Mitch Earleywine, a professor of psychology at the University at Albany in New York, and an advisory board member of the nonprofit National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. When it comes to CBD helping with sleep, though, the research is sparse. “To this day, there’s no study that has used CBD on its own in any trial of insomnia,” said Anastasia Suraev, a doctoral candidate and research fellow at the Lambert Initiative for Cannabinoid Therapeutics at the University of Sydney. There are studies that have found that CBD used in combination with THC holds promise as a treatment for sleep disorders like insomnia, sleep apnea, restless legs syndrome and nightmares related to post-traumatic stress disorder. But there are no large placebo-controlled clinical trials (the gold standard for scientific research) that have investigated how CBD alone might help with sleep problems.
Ms. Suraev, along with the other experts we spoke to, noted that CBD itself does not have sedating effects. While some studies on CBD for seizures found that a side effect of the treatment was drowsiness, that may have been because of “CBD interacting with other medications” like anti-epileptic drugs, Ms. Suraev said. Still, CBD may indirectly help you sleep by alleviating other conditions, said Ryan Vandrey, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and principal investigator at the university’s Cannabis Science Laboratory. For example, he said, if pain is keeping you awake at night and CBD helps lessen your discomfort, you may be able to sleep better. Similarly, if you can’t sleep because you’re anxious, he added, “CBD may reduce anxiety,” which in turn may promote sleep. Does CBD Help With Insomnia, In one case series, researchers looked back at the medical charts of 72 people with anxiety or sleep problems who were treated in the same clinic with 25 to 175 milligrams of CBD per day for three months. Based on the patients’ self-reports at follow-up appointments, the researchers found that CBD was most helpful for anxiety, not sleep. But “ultimately, even if they weren’t sleeping better, they were less anxious about it and felt maybe more rested,” said Dr. Scott Shannon, a psychiatrist in Fort Collins, Colo., who led the study. Dr. Vandrey cautioned that the available studies, like this one, are limited and there isn’t enough data to determine what dose to take, what form to choose or what brands to purchase for anxiety or any other condition. Epidiolex is the only CBD product regulated by the F.D.A., so there is a lot of variety (including a range in formulations, purity and labeling practices) in products like oils, gummies, creams, patches and vape pens. “There’s state-level regulation, but it’s different from one state to the next,” Dr. Vandrey said. “And none of those states have the right infrastructure, resources or level of enforcement that the F.D.A. does.”
Source: This news is originally published by nytimes