It’s happened to all of us. You’re out jogging, and you feel a twinge in your ankle. Or maybe you’re helping a friend move house, and your back starts to complain. Or maybe you’re doing something completely normal, like climbing out of a car, and feel a random spasm. (That especially happens as we get older, alas.)
If you’re in severe pain, of course, you should see a doctor. But there are plenty of smaller incidents that don’t warrant that level of care, but leave us with lingering discomfort – which often feels like it could turn into something worse if we’re not careful. So you want to know how to deal with these minor inconveniences at home, before they get any worse.
As a CBD company, we’ve got a variety of CBD topicals on offer. So does CBD cream work for discomfort? Many people find that it does, especially when the CBD is blended with other ingredients to help fight soreness and inflammation. We’ll get into those in more detail below.
But how does CBD help discomfort? When applied topically, CBD can work through your skin, thanks to the neural receptors that connect to your endocannabinoid system that helps keep your body in balance – including your immune response, which is what causes inflammation.
But internal CBD can also help indirectly. The key in how to use CBD oil for discomfort, whether topically or orally, is to work it into a larger routine to help manage soreness at home. Let’s walk through some of the most popular methods and how CBD can help.
R.I.C.E.
R.I.C.E. is an acronym for “rest, ice, compression, and elevation.” It’s the go-to home remedy for strained muscles and joints, and is easy to do on your own at home.
- Rest: This one is simple enough – if doing something is hurting you, stop doing it. Try not to completely immobilize yourself though, because doing that for too long can create other complications.
- Ice: Applying a cold pack as soon as the discomfort starts can help prevent pain and swelling. If you don’t have one handy you can improvise with a bag of frozen veggies or by wrapping ice cubes in a hand towel. Do it a few times per day for 15 or 20 minutes at a stretch.
- Compression: This also helps to prevent swelling. Depending on where the sore spot is, you can wrap the affected area in bandages or deploy different kinds of braces.
- Elevation: If your problem area is in a limb, it can help to keep it above the level of your heart as much as possible. This also helps prevent swelling by keeping fluid from building up.
You can supplement a R.I.C.E. regimen with an over-the-counter pain reliever. The types of strains that benefit most from R.I.C.E. are well suited to CBD Freeze, our CBD topical pain relief gel. Its menthol provides a cooling sensation that can calm inflammation in between icings, on top of the CBD benefits.
A Hot Bath
While a sudden sprain or tear needs cold rather than heat, overall achiness and stiffness often responds well to a nice long soak in hot water. It’s especially helpful for chronically sore backs.
The heat relaxes you and increases circulation, which can help heal up small tears in muscles and tendons. There’s also evidence that soaking in a bath with Epsom salt can be especially helpful for arthritis.
Our CBD bath bombs include Epsom salt and essential oils along with 100 mg of CBD for maximum benefits. We recommend giving yourself at least 30 minutes in the tub per day.
Sleep
Getting enough sleep, and good sleep, is vital for your health in just about every way. When you’re in the deepest stage of sleep, in fact, your body is hard at work repairing tissues, so some quality shuteye helps you heal faster.
But of course, it can be difficult to sleep well when you’re sore. You can help yourself along by taking an oral or topical pain medicine before bed, and also a sleep aid. CBD PM is a sleep aid combining CBD with melatonin, a hormone that your body naturally releases to signal that it’s bedtime, and a special cocktail of soothing herbs such as chamomile and valerian root.
Massage
Massage is an age-old method of relieving soreness and stiffness, because it also helps increase circulation and relax tight muscles. The best massages come from professionals, but you can also call on a friend or family member, or (depending on location) work on the soreness yourself.
CBD massage has lately become popular as a variant to add the benefits of CBD cream to the restorative power of a massage. If you’re targeting a sore spot, using CBD Recover as your massage oil also brings the added benefits of histamine dihydrochloride to ease pain and increase blood flow. Or if that’s too strong, you can use our CBD Revive light moisturizer all over.
Meditation
While soreness and discomfort may arise from your body, your mind can inadvertently make things worse by stressing out about it, making you tense and worsening your pain.
Meditation is one of the oldest and most effective ways to keep your mind from causing you undue stress. Even if you aren’t a champion at “mind over matter,” it can help you handle your discomfort without piling on more stress.
Check out our post on meditating with CBD for details on the different types of meditation and how taking CBD oil can complement their calming effect.
Find What Works For You
How well any or all of these techniques work depends on a lot of factors, including the source of your discomfort and your own unique physiology. If you’re just starting to take CBD, ask your doctor about it beforehand – he or she will probably have a good idea of how to fit it into your life, and whether it might interact with other medications you’re taking.
But apart from that, feel free to experiment. And if you’ve found CBD helps with discomfort, let us know, whether on our product review pages or through social media. We’re always interested in finding out how CBD works for you!
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