CBD for Sleep: The Sleep Benefits Of CBD Oil

CBD oil plays a very interesting role in sleep… and it’s NOT what you might think. There are a lot of “bloggers” out there right now touting that CBD and hemp extract are great for helping you sleep well. However, that is not the total truth.

CBD is indirectly responsible for better sleep mostly because CBD stops inflammation on the cellular level. As a potent antioxidant, it keeps free radical stress in check. This can definitely improve the quality and restfulness of your sleep.

However, the CBD molecule itself has actually been found in the medical research to induce wakefulness… quite the opposite of sleep.

I will show you these studies today.

A basic understanding of the role that CBD plays in the sleep-wake cycle will help you to make the right decision about what time of day to take your CBD supplement.

What Is CBD?

If you’re new here to TheUniversalPlant.com then, maybe you just landed here from a Google search for example, and maybe you don’t quite know exactly what CBD is, then I highly recommend you start off by reading this article so you understand the basics.

CBD is a cannabinoid, known as cannabidiol, that is found in both hemp and marijuana.

It has many amazing therapeutic benefits for human health, many of which I’ve written about in detail on this blog. If you’re interested in learning the healing secrets locked inside the hemp plant, check out our pillar article on how to use hemp as medicine.

CBD Oil and Sleep: The Research

Let’s take a look at what the science has to say about how CBD may help improve your sleep.

To summarize, before we dive into the details, the following appears to be true:

• CBD may help reduce anxiety,¹ which is a major cause of insomnia
• CBD induces alertness,² but also appears to help increase overall sleep time at night³
• CBD helps with sleep onset in pain patients⁴
• CBD correlates with less dream recall⁵
• CBD may help reduce insomnia⁵
• CBD’s alertness promoting property is powerful enough to counteract the sedative properties of the same dose of THC⁶
• CBD may help improve REM Sleep Disorder⁷

CBD and Anxiety

Anxiety is an interesting beast. Most of us suffer from differing levels of anxiety at one time or another in life, but some individuals cannot seem to shake it, developing deep anxiety issues that negatively affect their life, and can even lead to insomnia where they are tossing and turning all night long, unable to fall asleep or stay asleep.

CBD has show some promise in the research for helping to reduce symptoms of anxiety.¹ The endocannabinoid system may play a very important role in regulating emotion and emotional memory processing, and is quickly becoming an exciting area of research for behavioral neuroscientists.

CBD as an Alertness Promoting Agent

Across the board, it would appear as though CBD is a natural wakefulness promoting compound. Because of this, it seems smart to recommend to take your CBD supplement or full spectrum hemp extract supplement in the morning, so as to keep you alert all day and not interfere with falling asleep.

Interestingly enough, when subjects do this, it appears that not only do they stay alert and awake throughout the day, but they also fall asleep at night more quickly (without any additional sleep aids) and stay asleep longer (see the research referenced above).

This would appear to be because CBD is known to modulate the microglia activation of the inflammatory cycle, keeping your body in a less-inflamed state and lowering your stress.

CBD May Improve Sleep Onset

In this review of studies done on chronic pain patients, which I definitely recommend reading in its entirety if you’re interested in the subject of pain and cbd or pain and hemp extract, the reviewer found adequate evidence to correlate CBD oil consumption with improving multiple sleep biomarkers including sleep onset, which is basically how quickly someone falls asleep.

CBD Correlates with Less Dream Recall, Reduction In Insomnia

This study⁵ saw a repeating incidence of lower dream recall in CBD subjects, which is very interesting. It’s difficult to point to a mechanism here since very little is known about the nature of dreams still in the field of neuroscience. However, this does point to the idea that dream recall may be regulated by the endocannabinoid system to some degree.

That same study also saw a decrease in insomnia symptoms amongst subjects.

Conclusion on CBD Oil and Sleep Parameters

To sum things up nicely with regards to the subject, it appears as though CBD, cannabidiol, is positively correlated with improving sleep parameters, but funny enough… NOT by actually making you sleepy, as it is a wakefulness promoting agent and not a sedative like THC.

In fact, it appears to promote sleep improvements due to the fact that it can lower stress levels as a powerful antioxidant, where it’s benefits with controlling free radical induced inflammation are well-documented. This is great news, as you can consume your CBD supplements in the morning to keep you stress-free and relaxed, but focused, throughout the day, then you may fall asleep more quickly and stay asleep longer throughout the night.

For help sleeping, we recommend a product with melatonin in it. CBDistillery offers a nighttime gummie that’s perfect for sleep issues.

If you want to learn about more recommended retailers, check out our page on Where To Buy CBD.