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If you are anything like me, and have suffered from countless nights of being unable to fall asleep, I bet that you would agree that insomnia can be one of the most frustrating ailments. It has the potential to destroy your daily routine and level of productivity in just a matter of a couple of days.

For me, insomnia wasn’t even a term I could fully understand until I began to suffer from it. It’s difficult to comprehend why someone who is so tired would be unable to fall asleep. It’s also hard to sympathize with those who suffer from insomnia if you haven’t ever dealt with the very real struggle of being unable to fall asleep. When I was younger, I could easily sleep for 12 hours at a time, if uninterrupted, and I always had the underlying impression that those who suffer from insomnia will simply fall asleep if and when their body is tired enough to do so. It wasn’t until right around my 30th birthday that I started having trouble falling asleep, and I very quickly understood, firsthand, the struggle that I had previously dismissed as a figment of the imagination.

It’s been a little over 2 years now since I first experienced insomnia, and I have found that it comes and it goes. Some weeks are better than others, but it only takes one or two nights of little to no sleep before your whole life gets flipped upside down. After two days without sleep, it can be become near impossible to be productive in your daily life. It starts to take a toll on your work, your social life, and your mind. I even started having auditory hallucinations and it was at about this point that I finally decided to speak to my doctor about my condition.

Here’s What the Doctor Recommended

While the doctor didn’t prescribe me any sleep medications (which wouldn’t have enthused me anyway), he did provide me a list of “best practices” to help me get better sleep. Things like avoiding caffeine, exercising more often, avoiding screens late at night, getting in the habit of only using my bed for sleep and sex, and avoiding foods late at night were just some of the things he recommended. Personally, I found some of these things extremely difficult, if not impossible, to do. How in the world was I supposed to avoid caffeine when I hadn’t slept in days and needed to get things done? How was I supposed to bring myself to exercise when I could barely even function? As much as I tried to follow these best practices, I found myself stuck in a vicious cycle of insomnia that needed to be broken before it could be fixed.

Seeking My Own Prescription For Insomnia

I finally decided to take things into my own hands and take alternative actions. I had smoked enough marijuana in the past to know that Indica strains can be very helpful for sleep. I experimented with smoking a variety of Indica strains before bed, but I learned very quickly that I no longer had any tolerance for cannabis and smoking only served to keep my brain running on fumes even longer than it would have without it. It wasn’t until I was having a discussion with some friends about my struggles, and how marijuana was keeping me up even longer, that one of them asked me if I had used CBD oil for insomnia. It wasn’t something I had tried, and I honestly wasn’t very eager to try it either considering the results I had experienced from smoking cannabis. With the combination of being desperate and willing to try anything, and assurance from my friends that I wouldn’t get “high” like I did from smoking weed, I decided to give it a shot.

For those of you who don’t know, CBD (Cannabidiol) is one of the many cannabinoids found in Cannabis, like THC. Unlike THC though, CBD does not have any intoxicating effects (it does not get you high), but instead, it does relieve anxiety and have an antipsychotic effect, which can be helpful for sleep.

Does CBD Help With Insomnia?

I finally decided to investigate whether or not CBD would help me sleep. I decided to try CBD capsules. They are made specifically to help with pain, relaxation, and insomnia. Each capsule contains 30 mg of CBD, lemon balm extract, 5-HTP, melatonin, valerian root, passion flower extract, and GABA. Since this was my first time taking any sort of CBD product I started on the lighter side and only took one capsule about an hour before I went to bed. I couldn’t say that I really felt any noticeable effects. I wasn’t any more tired, and I certainly wasn’t buzzed from taking the CBD. But what I did discover was that, when I finally laid down to go to bed, my mind didn’t feel like it was stuck in the eternal hamster wheel of despair that I often attribute with being the root cause of my insomnia. I didn’t have those never-ending thoughts that simply race through my mind for hours on end, and it wasn’t even another 30 minutes before I had fallen fast asleep. 

That night I slept for 10 hours and I awoke in the morning feeling refreshed, without any sense of grogginess or noticeable after-effects of the CBD. I asked myself, “Was CBD really the miracle cure that I had been looking for, or did I simply experience a placebo effect?” Either way, it didn’t really matter because I had finally slept great the night before and that was really all I cared about at the time.

Provided the positive results from my first test, I decided to experiment a little bit more. The following night, I used CBD as a sleep aid once again. I was a little nervous that using CBD for insomnia may not work this time around and that I’d end up being disappointed and right back to square one in the morning. But, as luck would have it, I slept like a baby once again, and woke up refreshed and ready to take on the day the next morning. At this point, I was sure that these CBD pills for sleep were working and nobody was going to convince me otherwise.

It’s been about two months now since I started using CBD for insomnia and I have found that it is the most effective solution for me, especially since I’m hesitant to take prescription sleep medications on a regular basis. Now that I have a more regular sleep schedule, I have been able to work more actively on those best practices my doctor recommended for me, and have been able to work towards building natural habits that are more conducive for a healthy and regular sleep cycle. I still use CBD pills to help me sleep, but only when I need them. I have found that using CBD helped me get out of that vicious cycle and allowed me to make more proactive steps towards not relying on them for sleep on a daily basis.

I now find myself taking CBD for insomnia about once or twice a week, when I can’t get my mind to shut down on it’s own. As soon as I find myself lying in bed experiencing those never-ending thoughts that keep me awake at night, I simply take one CBD pill and typically fall asleep within an hour. I haven’t ever needed more than one 30 mg pill of CBD to help me fall asleep, but I also attribute that with the steps I have taken to avoid relying on them every single night.

Everyone’s experience will be different. But if you are anything like me and you struggle with insomnia, it is absolutely worth trying CBD as a sleep aid, as there is nothing more satisfying than finding a natural, non-addictive and non-habit-forming solution that actually works. If you think CBD is something you would like to try, shop CBD products with us here at Diem Cannabis. We have a wide variety of products to choose from online at each of our locations: (Lynn MA, Worcester MA, Portland OR, and Salem OR).

 

Disclaimer:

*Statements made on hellodiem.com have not been evaluated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. Information provided by this website or this company is not a substitute for individual medical advice.