You’ve made the plunge and finally purchased your first bottle of CBD oil. But when is the right time to take CBD oil?
You’ve likely gone to your internet browser and typed in something along the lines of “What’s the best time to take CBD oil?” and voilà! You’ve landed on this article.
Let’s briefly explain how CBD works before we get into the nitty-gritty of dosing. Our body innately has an endocannabinoid system composed of receptors and chemicals that help regulate our body’s processes such as inflammation and pain, among other things.
CBD products contain cannabinoids or chemicals that can interact with our innate endocannabinoid system enhancing and promoting the reduction of inflammation, pain, and other beneficial properties.
OK, that may have been stressful, but you’ve finally found the right place for your dosing questions, so sit back, relax, and let this information sink in! This article is going to break down the best time to take CBD oil for your particular health concerns and the rationale behind the time of dosing.
When Should I Take CBD Oil—Morning or Night?
The optimal timing for dosing CBD oil depends mainly on the health concern you want to address with this product. Both dosing in the morning and at night has pros and cons, but matching the kind of particular health concern you’re looking to address with the correct time of dosing will ensure you have optimal outcomes.
Some individuals report experiencing distressing levels of pain upon waking, in which case dosing CBD oil immediately upon waking is likely to produce the best results. Others only experience pain after vigorous movement or at the end of the day. For these individuals, it may make more sense to self-administer CBD in the evening or nighttime.
The major takeaway is that the optimal dosing time is contingent upon the timing of the onset of your particular symptoms. And it’s important to remember that CBD oil takes time to reach peak levels in the blood and that this delay in response should be accounted for when possible to ensure that there are not periods when you are needlessly suffering.
What Is the Best Time of Day to Take CBD Oil for Anxiety?
The best time to dose CBD oil for an anxiety concern depends on the specific type of anxiety experienced by the individual. For example, individuals who experience a generalized anxiety disorder in which they experience anxiety for large amounts of time throughout the day, and often many days per week, it may be wise to start dosing CBD oil immediately upon waking.
Since the anxiety is persistent over time, people who experience this would want to ensure they keep a steady CBD dose in their bloodstream throughout the day, which will likely require administrations of the product periodically while awake.
Conversely, those experiencing anxiety associated with a known predictable trigger such as public speaking may want to take their CBD oil about 40 minutes before giving their presentation or performance. This timing will ensure that the CBD oil has time to get into the bloodstream in adequate amounts to help with the anxiety before getting up on stage.
Keep in mind that you don’t want to wait until you’re having extreme anxiety if you can help it, before reaching for the CBD oil. It’s always better to get ahead of the situation if you are starting to feel anxious or know something stressful is coming up.
You’ll also want to make sure that you hold the CBD oil under your tongue for at least 60 seconds before swallowing to allow sublingual absorption of the CBD into the bloodstream. This will ensure that the CBD starts to work for your health concern quickly.
Should I Take CBD at Night?
Taking CBD oil in the evening or at night may be particularly beneficial if you’re looking to relax and promote a restful night’s sleep. If you’re using it for sleep, you’ll want to take the oil anywhere between 40 minutes to an hour before you plan to climb in bed and go to sleep. This will give the cannabinoids enough time to reach the bloodstream and promote relaxation throughout the body.
Another dosing strategy you may want to experiment with is dosing CBD right before bed (or if you wake during the night to use the bathroom) for health concerns that are experienced immediately upon waking, such as pain. This kind of dosing schedule would ensure that more steady levels of cannabinoids remain in the blood that may have been significantly metabolized throughout the night if you didn’t perform this kind of dosing.
The Keys to Optimally Dosing CBD Oil
The keys to dosing CBD oil are to think about when the health concern occurs throughout the day, whether or not there are predictable triggers that will exacerbate your health concerns, and to ensure you account for the time it takes for the CBD to accumulate to therapeutic levels in the body after administering the oil.
You may have to experiment a little to find the perfect dosing schedule to experience the optimal results, but these guidelines will give you a good template for the minor adjustments you may need to make to the dosages to get optimal symptom relief.
