What is CBD?
CBD is short for cannabinoid, which is only one of more than 100 identified chemicals found in the cannabis plant (marijuana). And even though it comes from marijuana plants, CBD will not give you the feeling of being high, that is because CBD is the non-psychoactive portion of the plant. The state of being high is created by another cannabinoid, which is called Hemp. CBD accounts for approximately 40% of the extract of cannabis and it’s the second most common active ingredient of the cannabis plant, with THC being the other one.
How Does CBD work?
Although medical research still has a long way to go, early studies have shown that CBD might be a useful treatment for several conditions. CBD influences our brain by encouraging it to produce a greater quantity of cannabinoids, which has natural anti-inflammatory elements and is produced naturally by our brain. By producing more cannabinoids our brain can access and get to inflammation and pain much faster and more effectively.
What CBD Does?
CBD oil is used to give extra support to keep a healthy and normal feeling of wellbeing in our mind and body. Today, it is used all over the world as a food supplements, inhalation products, oils, creams and so many other products that make our receptors produce more cannabinoids which will help our brain to reach pain much faster. But that isn’t just what CBD does only, CBD can also help with so many other health conditions.
CBD And Mental Health
CBD oil can also impact your mental health and help you to manage and control anxiety. Most mental illnesses develop due to the imbalance of chemicals in our brain, CBD can be a factor when it comes to inducing your brain to release more chemicals that will influence to a feeling of wellbeing and reduce the effects of mental illnesses such as depression.
There has been some research on this subject that prove that CBD may alternate the way your brain’s receptors respond to a chemical named serotonin. Through your entire body, you have receptors which basically are tiny proteins, those receptors will help deliver messages to your cells which will help your cells respond to a specific stimulus. Receptors can induce chemical responses in your body, those responses can lead to cell growth, division or even the death of cells. Serotonin is a chemical that your brain produces and is directly linked to mental health. Serotonin is a naturally occurring substance and its main job is to work as a neurotransmitter to carry signals between our nerve cells.
Although Serotonin is more commonly linked to your digestive tract, and that might be one of the reasons why you feel that sick feeling when you are nervous, Serotonin is also found in the brain and in your brain the main duties of serotonin is to support your memories and moods. Serotonin actually works like the wellbeing cheerleader in your body, it supports you to feel your best and achieve that wellbeing sensation. Although those might be the two main things that Serotonin is identified as, Serotonin also impacts the health of your bones, sexual behaviour and even your sleep patterns.
If you suffer from anxiety or depression, then imagine how much easier it would be to have the support of CBD in your brain to help you deal with those emotions. Life wouldn’t feel as frightening any longer, right? Although the road of research on CBD and mental health is perhaps still long, some studies have already found that CBD can perhaps be a very good alternative to fight the feeling of depression and to reduce social anxiety.
As well as reducing anxiety, which other issues can CBD perhaps help with?
- CBD can reduce the effect of post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSD)
- Reducing stress
- Reducing the physiological effects of anxiety, such as an improved heart rate
- Help you to sleep (especially if you suffer from insomnia)
- Reducing the effects of autism
- Reducing the feeling of loneliness
CBD and Pain Management
Why do we feel pain? Injuries are an accident, an action that wasn’t caused by us, but when the pain happens
completely out of the blue, it’s a cruel way of our body to reprehends us for doing too much of something?
Our body natural response when facing some kind of injury whether from banging our foot in the table or
banging our head in the bathroom door is to stimulate pain receptors that will travel from our spinal cord
directly to our brain and our brain reacts by making us feel the pain.
The effects that CBD oil affects your brain’s receptors can also support you to reduce and manage pain in a
more effective way. And how? Thanks to our Endocannabinoid System! Our Endocannabinoid System
(ECS) is a group of neuromodulator lipids and receptors. ECS is responsible to regulate a lot of our
cardiovascular function (heart), nervous system and of course our immune system. Most of the ECS
receptors are localised massively in our brain and fatty tissues. Receptors are tiny proteins connected to your
cells. They acquire signals, usually chemical ones, from the distinct stimulus and assist your cells’ response.
CBD interacts directly with the main components of ECS, which will impact how ECS interacts with pain. It
should reduce pain, and/or help with pain management as well. This response creates anti-inflammatory and
pain-relieving effects that assist with how we respond to pain and with our pain management.
According to with Dr Sarah Brewer,
CBD oil is one of the most helpful supplements to become available in a long time. It is highly antioxidant so has anti-inflammatory effects on joints, to improve pain and stiffness. CBD also has an analgesic effect to reduce pain perception in the brain.
Due to its antioxidant properties, CBD is an alternative for many people that suffer daily with pain, CBD can
help the body responds to pain and to contribute to help relieve its symptoms. How fast or long-lasting those
effects will remain in your body, will, of course, depend on how you decide to consume CBD oil.
It has been heard that CBD can also impact patients going through chemotherapy. CBD oil can help with pain relief and pain management caused by:
- Neuropathic pain (Neuropathic is generally a chronic pain, and it can additionally occur as the result
of injury or infection) - Multiple Sclerosis
- Chronic Pain
- Arthritis
- Back Pain
- Muscle Pain
- Spinal Cord Injuries
CBD and Inflammation
Inflammation is how your body responds to an unsafe stimulus, so you can say that inflammation is a way our bodies save us from something even worse. The body gives you signs like pain, swelling or even redness in an attempt to heal. When your body raises issues like inflammation or infections, you shouldn’t take it as if it was a disease but rather take it as a warning sign that should let you know that something isn’t right. Inflammation is like a natural response of your body when facing something that can become a danger to your health and/or life. When you experience troubling issues such as soreness, fatigue, redness swelling, itchiness or of course pain, you should take immediate action. When you spot something unusual, most of the time it means that your body is already at war with something that represents a threat.
Most of the inflammation that we face throughout our lives are caused mostly by our own actions, but our body is in the majority of the cases already prepared to fight the unknown attacker. We put ourselves at risk all the time, by not eating healthy, exercising daily, being vulnerable to pollution, radiation and of course one of the biggest threats that your body will ever face… stress! Stress completely tears our self-defence down and puts our immune system at risk which is the major system that protects you against the dangers of the outside world. We can avoid those dangers that threaten our health, but most of the time we only see the danger of our actions way too late, and that’s why our body reacts and manifests with inflammation, pain and irritation. Inflammation is a natural response for our body to heal itself, sometimes things can get even more complicated, and the inflammation can develop into a chronic issue instead, which of course will lead to more serious health concerns.
That’s why we should act as quick as we can when we notice that we are facing some kind of inflammation, or if the inflammation is reoccurring frequently. When faced with threats, our body releases white blood cells that surround the affected area, just if it was inside a bubble in an attempt to keep the rest of your body safe from it. But how does CBD help with that? So, as we already know our body produces endocannabinoids naturally, and CBD supports our body by encouraging it to produce more of it which will, of course, impact how our body reacts to pain and inflammations. CBD will assist our body to reduce inflammation much quicker by acting faster.
CBD and Skin Problems
Skin problems can arise for so many reasons, and the solution for those issues are not always so obvious. If
you are looking for an alternate solution that helps you to deal with your skin problems more naturally then
CBD might be the right thing for you. CBD can help you to solve your skin problems quickly and pain-free.
CBD has been linked to the support of helping in the healing of big skin problems such as dermatitis or skin
cancer. But CBD has been successfully proven to work on the healing of dry skin, rashes, eczema, fungal
infections and even acne!
Thanks to the impact that CBD has on the receptors of our immune system it’s
possible for CBD to help minimize the usual infection occurring in our body. CBD oil also offers amazing
advantages for acne management. CBD oil prevents activity in sebaceous glands. The sebaceous glands are
responsible for the production of sebum, a herbal oily substance that hydrates the skin. Too often the
sebaceous glands produce too much oil which can lead to skin problems such as acne. CBD oil can do this
by affecting our ESC receptors. ECS’s main role in our skin’s health is to control every activity in our skin’s
Immune system and inflammatory system. ECS opposes as an anti-inflammatory effect in our skin and CBD
helps by encouraging the ESC receptors to produce more cannabinoids which will help in the healing of
many skin issues.
This system will ensure that our skin is balanced and looking beautiful. Skin creams that contain CBD oil will act fast by acting directly with those receptors, assisting the skin to find its balance much faster and effectively. By acting locally this approach will be much quicker and have a more selfcentred effect on the problem and restore the balance of the skin. Not only that but CBD can also intervene by soothing itchiness faster and reduce redness, two of the main prominent issues of skin problems such as dermatitis.
CBD is known for its restoration powers, and that’s because cannabidiol provides extraordinary antioxidant
and anti-inflammatory properties. Which of course not only helps to support other health issues but also can
be really useful in treating skin problems such as inflammation. When looking for the best CBD skin
products look for products that mention “cannabidiol” or “hemp extract” on the label. You should also
remember that hemp seed oil or cannabis Sativa seed oil isn’t the same thing as CBD oil. Because CBD oil is
directly extracted from the leaves and flowers of the cannabis plant.
CBD oil can help with skin problem’s such as:
- Acne
- Itchy and Dry Skin such as eczema
- Redness and Skin Bumps
- Scaly and Itchy Skin
- Cold Sores
- Dermatitis
- Acne
CBD Oil and Cancer
Cancer is still a fast killing disease and although we have treatments that extend the living time of cancer patients, there is still not an exact cure for it. The traditional treatments are very harsh and take a huge toll on your body, especially on your Immune system, after all, that should be the thing that keeps us from getting sick. So, if CBD oil can influence our immune system by helping it to react to pain and inflammation faster, would it make sense that CBD could also be a huge help on the fight against cancer. There have been some claims that CBD can help skin cancer, what about the other types of cancer? Could it have the same effect?
There are a few types of research that have investigated the impact of CBD in the fight against the cancer cell growth, but, unfortunately, the researches in this subject are still in the very early stages. The National Cancer Institute Trusted Source (NCI) says that CBD might perhaps help to alleviate cancer signs and the harsh effects of cancer therapy. But unfortunately, the NCI does not claim that CBD oil is in any form of cancer treatment. The biggest claim that CBD has promised for most cancers therapy patients is its potential to alleviate the high risk for infection.
Although the researches are yet to find a clear conclusion the truth is that CBD oil has a high possibility of lowering the chance of some types of tumour cells to reproduce further. And even though CBD is not directly linked with cancer. Cancer patients use CBD oil to reduce pain, the feeling of nausea is one of the side effects of chemotherapy and many more side effects than the current treatment inflict on cancer patients. The answer if CBD oil can help the reduction of cancer cells growth is not very clear among researches, but there are claims that THC oil, in fact, helps to stop the growth of most cancers.
So, some studies do believe that the use of CBD together with THC oil might help cancer patients recovery to become faster. There are no researches that confirm this, but while searching the internet in the look for cancer patients who used CBD oil as a support on their fight against the disease, some will claim that CBD does work and even claim that this powerful oil can beat cancer. When researches do not support the accuracy of those claims, it really ends up being a debate on how powerful CBD can be against cancer.
CBD Oil and women’s health
If you are a woman or happen to know one, you might be aware of the challenges that a women’s body go
through. From their reproduction system to hormones, anxiety and so many more isn’t very surprising that
CBD oil has been linked to improve and impact the wellbeing of women’s health. CBD can improve the
overall health of women and support by alleviating some of the struggles that are very unique to a woman’s
body. Anything from premenstrual syndrome (PMS), cramps and hormonal imbalance, being a woman can
be tiring on your body, so how can CBD oil help?
While on their menstrual cycle, a woman can suffer from cramps, and bloating which are very uncomfortable, CBD actually alleviates those issues by interacting with our receptors and increase the production of chemicals that will reach inflammation much faster and making you feel better in no time. When it comes to those crazy mood swings, CBD oil will intervene by interacting with the receptor of the Limbic System which is responsible for our emotions, CBD will help to balance any irregularities and of course improving your mental health. CBD will also control the release of cortisol which is responsible for anxiety.
So, CBD oil has been hugely linked to improving women’s health, which includes:
- Bloating & Cramps
- Digestive Issues
- Mood Swings
- Anxiety and Stress
- Hormonal Imbalance
- Low Blood Pressure
- Dizziness
- Changes in Appetite
- Diarrhoea
- Dry Mouth
- Nausea
Is CBD Oil Worth Taking?
A more extensive human research is needed to fully comprehend the possibility of side effects that CBD oil may cause. Unfortunately, studies about CBD oil are not very common. This is mostly because unfortunately despite its qualities CBD is still classified as a Schedule 1. With hope soon, legalization of marijuana products and more research will be possible. When that happens then a lot more answers about CBD will certainly come to light.
Conclusion
CBD oil’s journey in our everyday life has just begun, some will claim that CBD will not impact your wellbeing or health in any way, shape or form. But how can we deny the amazing results and explain how such a powerful chemical reaction from our bodies? Are the side effects a factor to not allow yourself to try such a complex and life-changing supplement? Could CBD oil change your life?
