How long does it take for CBD to work?

New research has illuminated that endocannabinoids are highly influential neuromodulators which regulate diverse physiological processes including pain perception, motor activity, cognitive processes, neuroprotection, immune responses, inflammatory responses, cardiovascular responses, neurodevelopment, decreasing the spread of malignant cells, and more! This is all critical in maintaining the homeostasis of the body—that is the ultimate mission of cannabinoids. But when will you feel these results in your body? It depends! Based on what you are hoping to gain through CBD it can take 10 minutes or 10 months! Let’s go through different goals individuals have in relation to CBD.

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Injury?

If you are looking to heal an injury with CBD, the best thing to do is apply the CBD to the injury as soon as possible, before the injury manifests further. I do a lot of yoga, and sometimes I will go into an advanced pose without warming up and I pull something or land on my wrist in a funny (or not so funny) way, which I would feel the next day. Or, if I am walking my dog and he pulls this can be something I will feel the next day. To prevent these “next day” pains I apply topical CBD immediately so that the injury + pain are stopped in their tracks. By supplying cannabinoids to calm the inflammation before the injury has fully developed, the area is being healed before I even feel it. The next day there still might be slight pain, but nothing that is going to prevent me from doing whatever activity I feel like tomorrow.

What if it’s a bit more serious than a twinked wrist? About a year ago my back had gotten really screwed up somehow and I couldn’t bend over for 3 days. I needed to call in the big boys: CBD Bath Salts. I dumped half of the Moon Mother Ritual Bath in the hot water, soaked for 25 mins, and never felt the pain again. My back was back to normal! The bath salts are able to soak into the bloodstream through the open pores, making the salts extremely bioavailable and healing. I especially like Moon Mother’s salts because they are formulated with arnica 😀 Additionally, one of our founders hit an opening car door on her bike and flipped onto the pavement. After going to the hospital and getting her eye stitched up, she took a CBD bath with our Inesscents Bath Salts. Besides the eye, she never felt any physical pain from the accident. She is a teeny tiny 55 year old woman! That blew my mind!

What if you don’t have a bath? That same founder could barely move her knee the other day, but she needed to continue driving because she’s in the middle of a move. She used Pure Ratios Transdermal Patches and her knee went back to normal functioning.

There are a lot of options for injuries! You just need to find what works for you and apply as soon as you can, optimally before the injury gets worse. You can always call us here at Botanicam and we are happy to talk you through what’s going on and make recommendations based on your individual situation! 1866.22TRUST (1866-228-7878)

Joint/Muscle/Physical Pain?

Good news – you can target this pain through topical CBD application and feel relief within 10 – 15 minutes. Even better news, the more you apply (we recommend every 4 hours for pain prevention) the less inflammation and pain you will be feeling in that area. Just as taking CBD orally builds up cannabinoids in the systems of the body, applying CBD transdermally builds up cannabinoids in the skin and underlying muscle tissues. Therefore building up cannabinoids where you want them most!

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De-Stressing? Mood Regulation?

Research suggests that a dysregulated endocannabinoid system may manifest in stress-related disorders, such as depression. Researchers gave endocannabinoid uptake inhibitors to rats with precursors to depression and depression-related behaviors (they activated the rats’ cannabinoid receptors). This activation decreased immobility/depression-related behaviors in the rats at the same rates of antidepressant drugs.

What is quite distinct about endocannabinoids is that they are synthesized and released in direct response to physiological and pathological stimuli. Endocannabinoids are one of the most important retrograde messengers of the brain. This means they are one of the most important chemical messengers of the brain regarding stress-management in the event of aversive stimuli.

Research has speculated that this retrograde signaling is the mechanism by which endocannabinoids play such a central role in synaptic transmission and plasticity, i.e. emotional responses and ability to change those responses.

The downside, mental health can be hard to target through oral dosing. As is explained below, the body has more cannabinoid receptors than any other type of receptors! Therefore, it has its own intuition as to where cannabinoids are needed. While you might want help with mental stress, the body might think the physical stress in your gut needs the cannabinoids more. We can get around this by utilizing CBD Pre-Rolls. By smoking CBD, the cannabinoids go straight to the brain, therefore targeting mood regulation. NO: THIS WILL NOT GET YOU HIGH! But, you will feel very, very relaxed. This can help in the moment of anxiety. But, to really feel good in the mind, patience and consistency are key. Cannabinoids control our major stress pathways such as the HPA axis pathway and the central nervous system, these are what are responsible for “fight or flight” responses. Without proper cannabinoids to calm down these pathways in times of stress, the body just becomes more stressed and depleted. Sadly, a pre-roll will not be able to supply cannabinoids to this pathway – so the pre-roll is really for in the moment relief. With time, we want to resupply the whole body through something like a tincture/oil, which will resupply our stress pathways and help us combat adverse and stressful situations and stimuli. For how long this will take, read below.

If you are looking to synchronize the systems of the body?
Resupply the endocannabinoid system?
Prevent disease?
Regulate sleep?
Feel good overall?

The endocannabinoid system regulates and synchronizes literally every system of the body. There are more cannabinoid receptors in the body than any other type of receptors. So resupplying our most encompassing system? That is going to take a bit! Some think that if they just intake a lot of cannabinoids they can resupply the systems, but that’s not going to work either! You see this is the system of balance. Especially if we are talking about the cannabinoid 2 receptors (CB2 Receptors), these are the receptors that control the immune function, and they are what CBD specifically works with. We don’t want the immune function to be too active or too underactive. An overly active immune system can be just as detrimental as an underactive one. To resupply this system we have a saying in the Medical CBD Community “Start Low and Go Slow”. Slowly bringing this system into balance is the only way to do it. By starting with 10 – 15 mgs 2x a day and waiting for 3-4 weeks to up that dose and so on, this is how we bring a system of balance back into balance!

How long will this take? It really depends on what state your body and endocanabinoid system is in.. As a general rule people begin feeling better in 2 weeks – 2 months. This means they have noticeably better sleep, gut function, pain levels, and mood. One of the first improvements people notice is better sleep. This is great because you know what is also healing? Sleep!

The whole system begins feeling truly healthy after about 10 months of consistent dosing. Then after resupplying the system, one actually doesn’t need to take as much CBD because the system has been equipped with proper cannabinoid levels!

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