One of the biggest advantages Cannabidiol, CBD, can have for runners and athletes alike, is its ability to help reduce inflammation and improve sleep quality. When we sleep well, not only does our performance benefit, but our recovery time can lessen too.

What is poor sleep quality?

To put it bluntly, poor sleep quality means you’re regularly waking up more than once a night, sleeping less than 7-8 hours most nights and finding it difficult to fall asleep.

A study carried out by Martin et al. (1981) found that just by missing one night of sleep seriously decreased performance, cardiovascular endurance and perception of effort. A few weeks, or even months, of 5-6 hours of sleep (on average we only achieve 6.7 hours) can often lead to hormonal imbalances, fatigue, illness and injury.

What is CBD oil?

CBD is a chemical compound that comes from the famous hemp plant. It’s one of 100 cannabinoids found in the plant that interact with the body’s endocannabinoid system to help achieve optimum physical and mental health and performance.

How does CBD work?

CBD works with endocannabinoids which our bodies naturally produce to keep the receptors working at optimal capacity and to achieve homeostasis. There are over 100 cannabinoids in the cannabis plant, but don’t worry, CBD isn’t cannabis itself – rather only a very small element of the cannabis plant.

Will CBD make you ‘high’?

As long as CBD contains little to zero THC, then your safe. THC is the cannabinoid that is psychoactive and that gives you that ‘high’ feeling, not CBD!

Just because CBD doesn’t get you high, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t have many other benefits. CBD has now been linked to many, many health benefits and is gaining more and more popularity each day. Many people are now seeking alternatives to pharmaceutical medication that can often come with negative side effects and are instead opting for a more natural medicine like CBD.

Can CBD help improve sleep quality for runners?

CBD is known for tackling the root causes of poor sleep quality such as anxiety, joint pain, low mood and depression.

In 2019 a research study looked at whether CBD could improve sleep and/or reduce anxiety (the main cause for lack of sleep). The study itself involved 72 subjects, with 47 experiencing anxiety and 25 experiencing poor sleep. The subjects were each given 25 milligrams of CBD in capsule form each day. In the first month, it was reported that 79.2% of the patients reported lower anxiety levels and 66.7% reported better sleep.

CBD has also been known to help aid pain such as joint pain, inflammation and arthritis. A 2018 review in Frontier in Pharmacology noted that there is a fair amount of evidence to back up the claims that CBD can help soothe and subside pain. By reducing pain, CBD can help improve sleep quality.

How does CBD affect the way we sleep? Well, CBD has been known to improve sleep quality by interacting with serotonin and gaba receptors. These receptors are directly involved with regulating the sleep-wake cycle which hugely affects our sleep quality.

While studies conclude the positive effects CBD has on sleep, it’s still tricky to identify exactly why. However, many researchers highlight the fact that CBD improves sleep simply because it tackles the root causes of insomnia such as the causes mentioned above.

How to use CBD for sleep

When it comes to using CBD with sleep in mind, we don’t recommend that you take it any differently than as instructed on the bottle. To understand how to choose the right CBD and strength, take a look at this article here.

Both of our CBD brands at Primal Living are 100% natural, sourced from low-level THC hemp (<0.02%) and are lab tested to ensure the quality we guarantee. Each and every ingredient derives from organic hemp whilst being natural, GMO-free and vegan-friendly. You can take a look at the Primal Living CBD collection here.

All in all, CBD yields many positive health benefits when it comes to tackling the root causes of poor sleep quality such as anxiety, pain, inflammation, depression & low mood.

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