By now, you’ve surely heard of CBD. It’s fast becoming a popular natural treatment for everything from anxiety and nausea to muscle pain and even seizures.
Derived from the cannabis plant but lacking THC’s psychoactive qualities (in other words, CBD won’t get you high).
Its versatility, safety, and legality have attracted all manner of patients who might never have considered hemp-related products before.
For first-timers, though, buying CBD can be a bit confusing. There are so many different delivery systems: ointments, tinctures, dabs, etc.
How much of this stuff are you supposed to take anyway?
For newbies, it’s recommended that you buy CBD at a physical location if possible, as salespeople are often more than happy to provide advice.
For those who choose to shop for CBD online (which is most people), consider this guide as a rough primer to get you started.
Identify your goals
Before you can figure out how much CBD you should be taking, it’s important to ask yourself why you’re taking it.
Even more important, you should talk to your doctor about whether CBD is right for you.
The side effects of CBD are generally mild (drowsiness, dry mouth, changes in appetite), but if you’re pregnant or breastfeeding, or taking certain kinds of medications, CBD is not recommended.
The most common things CBD is used to treat include depression, anxiety, insomnia, nausea, PTSD, pain, and inflammation.
For such conditions, a prescription isn’t necessary. And since it’s almost impossible to “overdose” on CBD, don’t be afraid to determine your ideal dosage through trial and error.
What works for someone else may not work for you, and vice versa.
Pick a delivery method
There are a lot of different CBD delivery methods, some of which seem awfully similar.
The key to picking the right one goes back to identifying what you need it for.
For instance, if you’re hoping to fight nausea or muscle pain, you’ll probably want something fast-acting.
If you’re dealing with anxiety or depression, meanwhile, you might want something that will last throughout the day.
The fastest way of getting CBD into your bloodstream is to vaporize it and breathe it in. Dabs are highly concentrated clumps of CBD designed for that very purpose.
For bodily aches and pains, you might want to relax with a CBD bath bomb, while more localized soreness is best treated with ointments and transdermal patches.
For long-lasting relief, sublingual CBD strips can be placed under the tongue, where they will slowly dissolve throughout the day.
Oils and tinctures can also be applied under the tongue, while edibles and capsules are ingested orally.
Start with small doses
Whatever method you choose, don’t feel like you need to take a lot of CBD right at the start.
Like many things in life, CBD can have diminishing returns if you overdo it, so starting out with larger doses could cause your body to adapt to the CBD too quickly, meaning you’d have to take even more to achieve the same effect next time.
Instead, start with a small dose and see how you feel. If you get positive results, take the same dose the next day.
Need more? Take more. Need less? Take less. There are no official CBD dosage guidelines, but it’s common wisdom that a small dose equates to about 10-20 mg of pure CBD per 100 lbs of body weight.
But since not all CBD delivery methods are “pure” (such as edibles), more math work can be necessary.
Also, keep in mind you don’t have to take your daily dose all at once.
You may prefer to break it down into smaller microdoses taken throughout the day.
Once again, everyone is different, so find what works for you.