Welcome to CBD With Bre, a blog series where I, as a self-proclaimed CBD noob, recount my experiences getting into the world of CBD. While I have a fair amount of knowledge about the research and science side of things, as I’m learning, it’s quite different when applied off the page.

Continuing from previous instalments, I wanted to expand on one of the experiments I have been conducting. Specifically, I’ve been trying to assess how CBD impacts my sleep schedule, as this has been a struggle for most of my life. I go through instances of bad insomnia, and over the past few years, this has only grown worse and more frequent. After seeing a bunch of research that suggests CBD might help regulate sleep, I wanted to give it a shot.

Of course, just as a quick disclaimer, this post is for informational purposes only and not meant to endorse any brand or product. It’s just here to reflect and discuss my personal experiences in hopes that they provide others with some insight into the world of CBD.

Context and Background

I’ve had sleep issues for most of my life. In my experience, insomnia tends to be cyclical, meaning that I’ll sleep well for a few weeks, and then, for whatever reason, I really struggle with it. I’ve tried all sorts of methods over the years, between journaling, trying melatonin, limiting electronic usage, reading, maintaining strong night-time routines, and more. However, nothing seems to make a large, lasting impact, and any sleep supplements I’ve tried haven’t helped. At this point, I’ve just kind of accepted that sleep troubles are just a part of my day-to-day life.

However, things have only gotten worse since beginning university and moving out by myself. Perhaps it’s linked to heightened anxiety, but I also struggle with something called ‘restless leg syndrome.’ This makes it harder to both fall and stay asleep.

The Experiment

Over the past two-ish months, I’ve been comparing and contrasting my sleep quality between nights I’ve taken CBD before bed and nights I haven’t. I’ve been on the lookout for things like how long it takes me to fall asleep, how regularly I wake up in the night, how easily I fall back to sleep after waking up, how bad my restless leg syndrome gets, and how much energy I have the following day.

On an experiment note, it’s important to point out that there are lots of other variables that go into my inability to get a good night’s rest. These include big workloads, assignment deadlines, life shenanigans, and just the overall cyclical nature of sleep in the first place. While I have noticed a huge difference with CBD usage, every night is still different – some have more success than others.

For the purposes of this, I’ve been taking Full Spectrum CBD oil almost every night. Originally, I was taking Distillate. I did notice some differences between the two, but that’ll come up in a future post.

My Observations

As per usual, I’m going to be summarizing my main observations in the bullet points below:

• It took me a while to figure out a dosage and schedule that works well for me. I think I took too much when I started out and ended up feeling really drowsy the following day. Either that, or I needed to give my body more time to adjust. Personally, I find that I need to take CBD a few hours before bed (usually around 9pm if I’m hoping to be in bed by midnight), and somewhere around 20mg.
• For the most part, I’ve found that I’m able to fall asleep a lot faster when I take CBD versus when I don’t. While I still wake up in the night multiple times, I’m able to fall back asleep much quicker.
• Although CBD use hasn’t completely eradicated all symptoms of my restless leg syndrome, it’s dramatically reduced them.
• I’m still feeling some drowsiness and exhaustion throughout the next day, but after more consistent CBD usage, I’m finding that my lowest energy points in the afternoon aren’t as bad as they used to be. I’m generally able to get through a day without multiple naps, which is awesome.
• Initially, I was feeling pretty groggy the next morning, but this seems to have evened out and isn’t much of a problem anymore, especially since I’ve figured out a better dosage and routine for myself. Again, there are a lot of factors to consider.
• I’m not great at keeping a consistent schedule at all. However, I’ve found CBD helps improve my quality of sleep so much that I’ve gotten into a near daily habit of it. If I didn’t take a bunch before bed, or if I took it too immediately before trying to sleep, I can definitely tell.
• CBD hasn’t completely fixed the problem and it’s certainly not a cure all. There are still nights I still can’t sleep, though those are a lot rarer than they used to be.
• I don’t necessarily feel anything when taking CBD, but rather, it’s more like an absence of symptoms that I generally experience. The same could be said if I were talking about other things, like anxiety, concentration and focus.
• I feel like my body needed time to adjust to near daily usage. Expecting CBD to fix everything right off the bat is probably setting yourself up for failure. Instead, assess how you’re doing over a period of time.

TL;DR

Over the last few months, I’ve come to realize just how helpful CBD is for my personal quality of sleep. It went from being something I was trying for work to a necessary staple in my night-time routine. It hasn’t solved everything, but it’s minimized a lot of problems that I face on a near-daily basis. Hopefully, by listening to my experiences, you’ll have a better idea about what to expect for yourself and how to navigate CBD usage for sleep.