From your office buddy to your neighbor’s mom, it seems like everyone is taking CBD nowadays. The stigma that was once associated with the chemical compound has slowly but surely begun to evaporate. First things first: when should we take CBD?
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The question that’s top of mind is no longer “will CBD get me high?” – we’re moving on to the more important fine details! Let’s dive in to another common CBD conversation. What time of day should we even be taking this stuff to see the best results?
When is the best time to take CBD?
This question is everywhere, and we’ll be honest, you might not be a fan of the real truth behind it. And yet, that’s our style. We’d rather be transparent and give it to you straight instead of like most of the big players out there making big claims and promises that can’t be kept.
So let’s cut to the chase – there is no universal “best” or “most effective” time of day to take your CBD. There is simply just a “best” and “most effective” time of day for your own unique body. It may take a bit of experimenting to discover if morning, afternoon or evening is optimal for achieving whatever needs you’re striving to meet.
Don’t be discouraged by this news, as it is a beautiful aspect of cannabidiol and plant-based medicine in general. We’re human beings, it’s in our nature to crave specific answers to pressing questions. Ultimately, the necessity to experiment with CBD alludes to how we can beautifully tailor it to our ever-changing needs across all seasons of life.
We’re going to walk you through XXXX steps you can take to help establish what time of day you should take CBD to help support your health and lifestyle goals.
Step One: Determine Your Goals
We hinted at this one, right? You’ll never know what’s the most effective if you don’t really know what you’re looking to track and measure. So get clear on your intention behind using CBD in the first place. Take inventory of your overall health and general well-being, then see where you need to fill in the gaps. Feeling more insomnia than usual? Did you recently sprain or break a bone? Struggle with anxiety?
What’s missing when you think of your physical and mental health?
Step Two: Find A Pure Product
We recommend you first try out pure products to understand your baseline. Many CBD products on the market are combined with a cocktail of other vitamins and supplements to try and help alleviate common concerns. For example, CBD mixed with melatonin is a common product offering that’s meant to help improve sleep. However, if you were to try and establish a CBD baseline for yourself by using a product with melatonin, you’d most certainly have a skewed sense of what it actually makes you feel.
Step Three: Establish Your Average Response
As we mentioned, CBD shouldn’t be associated with a standard, universal, one-dose-fits-all approach. The reality is that cannabidiol can influence one person’s mood and behavior very differently than another. And the “usual” response you feel is always up for change as well. Everything from the quality of a product to your lifestyle choices on any given week can dramatically change how your endocannabinoid system interacts with CBD, and in turn, how it makes your body and mind feel.
Some people take CBD and report a calming effect, while others feel greater levels of focus and energy. The main point here is this: find out how you typically respond to CBD, on average. Similar to how you might track water and caloric intake for a weight loss program, jot down some notes as to how many milligrams of CBD you take and a few adjectives to describe how you feel within an hour, four hours, eight hours, etc.
Step Four: Experiment With Different Times
We’ve created a clear goal, found a product to test out and established how we typically respond. Now it’s time to put the plant to work! Like our recommendation for establishing your average response, we’re going to suggest you also track your CBD dose’s intake time over the course of several weeks.
If getting better quality sleep is your goal right now, try taking CBD every night at 5pm for two weeks. Then push to three hours later for an additional two weeks. Repeat with as many different time stamps as needed. If you stay committed to tracking yourself, you should start to notice some trends between the time that you took your CBD and how you slept that night.
Step Five: Stay Curious
One of the most rewarding parts about having a steady CBD schedule has nothing to do with CBD itself. Yes, you read that right. We think it’s a little deeper than that. The more you observe how you feel daily, the greater self-awareness you develop. And that’s not something you get all the time.
As you start to settle into your CBD ritual, recognize you can (and should!) continuously fine-tune it. We encourage to stay curious as you connect to your body’s physical needs as well as your mind’s emotional ones. CBD can potentially have a positive impact on your overall well-being, so do your research, be open and see for yourself how CBD might uniquely benefit you.
