CBD's Effect on Social Anxiety and Cognitive Impairment
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that more and more people are reporting feeling anxious and depressed. Psychiatric NEWS speculates it’s due to the rise in time spent on social media platforms, but whatever the reason, the phenomenon is widespread and affecting individuals in every class and age group. I noticed that so many posts in my Facebook groups would be calls for help for dealing with feelings of anxiety and depression, either for the person writing the post, or their significant other or child. It literally showed up on my feed every day. I also receive no less than 5-10 messages a day on my Instagram from people asking me for help in managing their stress and anxiety.
Naturally, as an IIN Health Coach, I wanted to help. I shared my techniques for meditation, yoga, running, journaling, etc, but often people would say, “I’m doing all that, and it’s not working to remove the pit from my stomach.” I soon realized that when someone is too anxious to leave the house, no amount of journaling or meditation is going to get them out the door. That’s when I started to learn more about CBD (cannabidiol), and it’s effects on the mind and body in helping quell those negative feelings preventing so many from living a happy and full life. Study after study show its powerful medicinal uses on a myriad of issues, but especially on anxiety and depression.
One such study entitled "Cannabidiol reduces the anxiety induced by simulated public speaking in treatment-naïve social phobia patients" was published in the Neuropsychopharmacology journal by a team of researchers in the Department of Neuroscience and Behavior, School of Medicine of Ribeirão Preto, University of São Paulo, SP, Brazil. In the study, researchers administered a single dose of either CBD (600mg) or a placebo to 24 patients, then asked them to simulate a public speaking test.
When analyzing the behavioral outcome and physiological measures, researchers concluded that "pretreatment with CBD significantly reduced anxiety, cognitive impairment and discomfort in their speech performance, and significantly decreased alert in their anticipatory speech. The placebo group presented higher anxiety, cognitive impairment, discomfort, and alert levels when compared with the control group."
In addition to healthy practices like meditation, exercise, eating right and having good relationships, there is something else that is proven to help a person feel balanced and good! I am glad I have another tool in my toolkit to ensure that I am living my best life. Anxiety and depression are energy suckers, it’s nice to know there is a natural and safe solution to help the body perform at its highest level.