With the holidays fast approaching, many of us are rushing to put in those extra hours at work so that we can make the most of our time off with family. Oftentimes that means aiming for extra paid time off or a year-end bonus to help with the Christmas gifts. Or maybe school activities have picked up, and you have to make extra time in your schedule to pick up the kids.
Unfortunately, getting everything done often entails sacrificing an hour or two of your precious sleep every night. And while it may not seem like a big deal, in the beginning, those lost hours of sleep can quickly add up, until the next thing you know you’re upgrading from three to four cups of coffee a day and looking for anything that will help you get to sleep at night, like CBD sleep aids.
In order to best understand if or when you should take CBD for sleep, it’s important to first be aware of why you need sleep, and whether or not you’re getting enough of it.
What You Should Know About Sleep
If humans could stay awake 24/7 without any repercussions, we probably would. But unfortunately, the cold, hard truth is that we need sleep. Because without it, you won’t be able to optimize your memory retention, heal or repair your body, or even regulate your mood and emotions.
Sleep is essential to our well-being and is divided into four stages, consisting of both non-rapid eye movement sleep (NREM) and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep:
- Your transition from wakefulness into sleep (NREM)
- Your heart rate slows and your body temperature drops (NREM)
- Your muscles relax and your breathing slows, entering the deepest sleep (NREM)
- The dream state where your body relaxes while your brain becomes more active (REM)
Once asleep, you should cycle through the second, third, and fourth stages four or five times throughout the night. Every stage is just as important as the last, and all are essential in order to achieve a restful night’s sleep.
Why You Need Sleep
Sleep is responsible for a number of important functions within your body, including your ability to concentrate, heal properly, stabilize your weight, and so much more. It is the time in which your mind shuts down so your body can recover from the day. But sleep is also when your body relaxes so that your mind can drift, taking in and organizing the events of the previous day.
Needless to say, sleep is a crucial part of survival, and despite the fact that you are unaware of what happens during the night, your mind and body are often quite busy. Do you remember the all-nighters you used to pull in college? Or more specifically, how giggly, grumpy, and downright tired you were the next day? Let alone how difficult you found it to concentrate on even the simplest tasks?
Now that you have a better grasp on why sleep is so downright important, let’s focus on the quality and quantity of that sleep, and the effects of not getting enough.
How Much Sleep Should You Be Getting?
The average adult needs between seven and nine hours of sleep, while the average toddler needs between 11 and 14 hours of sleep each night. However, the true amount of sleep needed varies from person to person. With such a large range depending on age, it’s easy to see how the sleep habits you form as a child can impact your sleep cycle as an adult.
Checking the clock before and after you go to sleep is the easiest way to determine how much sleep you’re getting, but there are a few issues with that method. Just because the clock says you’ve been asleep for eight hours, that doesn’t mean you weren’t awake in the middle of the night, restlessly tossing and turning. This is why many have turned toward technology in order to determine how many hours they’re really spending asleep.
On the other hand, even if you average seven to nine hours of sleep each night, that doesn’t necessarily mean that’s enough sleep for you. This is why you should take the time to answer a few key questions when you wake up:
- How do you feel in the morning? Still tired, or refreshed and energized?
- Do you feel like you could have benefited from a few more hours of sleep?
- Did you wake up a while before your alarm? Or did you hit the snooze a few times?
Next, see how you feel throughout the day and as the night goes on.
- Can you think clearly?
- Are you making it through the day without feeling tired?
- Do you find yourself getting grouchy or experiencing a fluctuating mood?
Depending on your answers to the above questions, you may actually need more (or possibly even less) than the average amount of sleep. Another often ignored factor when it comes to determining your regular energy levels and whether you should take CBD for sleep is your daily caffeine consumption.
Why Caffeine Levels Matter
Believe it or not, caffeine and CBD oil have quite a few similarities. Caffeine is used in so many products, including both food and drink, that many forget it is still considered a natural psychoactive substance. And like CBD oil, caffeine typically reaches maximum effectiveness within 30 to 60 minutes.
But when it comes to sleep, caffeine and CBD are on opposite sides. Caffeine effectively raises your energy levels and keeps you from feeling tired by blocking the adenosine receptors, or sleep-promoting chemical receptors, in your brain. Unfortunately, consuming regular amounts of caffeine also disrupts your natural circadian rhythm, making it harder for you to maintain a regular sleep schedule.
It’s also important to know that caffeine has a half-life of four to six hours. What this means, is that within six hours, your body would have only metabolized half of the caffeine you consumed. This is exactly why many studies recommend that you refrain from consuming caffeine past two in the afternoon. However, that’s often easier said than done – especially when it comes to that mid-afternoon work slump. Followed by the all but inevitable caffeine crash.
So if you just can’t manage to kick your afternoon coffee to the curb, then you might want to try taking CBD for sleep at the end of the night.
When to Take CBD Oil for Sleep
The people who are most drawn to using CBD oil or CBD gummies for sleep are often those who have trouble falling or staying asleep. Whether this is due to external or internal factors, the causes change from person to person. Designed to help you maintain a regular sleep schedule, our CBD PM tinctures and sleep aid gummies can help you get your circadian rhythm back on track.
You can think of your circadian rhythm as an internal clock that tells you when to go to sleep and when to wake up, but in actuality, it does so much more than that. And when you introduce light at times when it wouldn’t normally be present, you throw off a lot of your bodily repair and regulation functions. Unfortunately, in today’s day and age, it’s virtually impossible to avoid light after sundown, which is where we come in.
By making CBD oil for sleep a part of your regular nightly routine, you can combat both the environmental factors and internal factors (such as caffeine consumption) that would otherwise keep you from achieving quality sleep. And before you know it, you may even find yourself experiencing all the benefits of waking up early, thanks to CBD!
However, using CBD for sleep, specifically CBD PM and our brand new sleep aid gummies, doesn’t just help you get a better night’s rest. Using CBD as a sleep aid can actually set you up for success throughout the next day by improving your mood and promoting a sense of calm and relaxation.
One thing you might want to be careful of, though, is how much CBD oil for sleep you take at a time. If you’re new to using a sleep aid, you may want to start with less than the recommended serving size. And since CBD gummies and softgels aren’t as easy to manipulate, that means you may want to start off with CBD oil tinctures in order to determine how much CBD for sleep you need.
CBD PM: Tinctures and Softgels
Aside from CBD gummies, our CBD PM softgels are probably the easiest and most efficient way to add CBD to your nightly routine. That being said, CBD oil tinctures offer a kind of variability that the other two sleep aids do not.
What we mean by this is that when taking a CBD oil for sleep, you can incrementally increase or decrease how much you take depending on your needs. So if you’re new to the world of CBD PM or worried about how tired you might be in the morning after taking a sleep aid, we recommend taking half of the suggested serving size, or even less than that.
Thanks to all the amazing sleep-promoting ingredients in our CBD PM tinctures and softgels, they can be a very powerful sleep aid when you need them most. You should just make sure that as with everything else, you use only as much as you need. It may also be a good idea to talk to your doctor before starting any sleep aid regimen.
CBD Sleep Aid Gummies
Our brand new CBD gummies for sleep contain 12.5 mg of CBD and all the same great benefits as our CBD PM tinctures and softgels in every delicious, raspberry-flavored bite. With 60 gummies in every bottle, and a recommended serving size of two gummies a night, that makes 25 mg of CBD and other sleep-promoting ingredients such as melatonin, a blend of natural botanicals, and 100 mg of ashwagandha.
While the benefits of melatonin are likely more well known, it’s ashwagandha that steals the show here. Ashwagandha has been used in India for centuries for its relaxing and calming properties, which makes it the perfect addition to your bedtime routine. That being said, it should be noted that studies into ashwagandha are only just beginning, and further research is needed.
CBD Nighttime Bath Salts
Last but not least is our CBD bath salts. Crafted with the same Superior Broad Spectrum CBD formula as our other sleep aid products, our bath salts make the perfect complement to a stressful day. With 100 mg of CBD in every serving, you can rest assured that our bath salts will help support a sense of calm and manage your daily stress. All you need is a good, warm, 30-minute soak to wash your troubles away before bed.
For more information on how or when you should take CBD for sleep and how to find out more about our current and future products, keep an eye on our frequently updated blog. Interested in staying up to date on the latest CBD news and cbdMD’s upcoming special offers? Connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, or chat with someone live today!