Importance of sleep & the role of CBD

Several studies demonstrate that the average adult does not get adequate sleep, with about 7–19 percent of adults reported not getting enough rest or sleep every day.

According to a study from the Centre of Cognitive Neuroscience, Singapore, adolescents require approximately 9 hours of sleep per night for optimal neurobehavioral function. Multiple successive nights of restricted sleep can impair many cognitive functions, including mood, memory encoding and vigilance.

Studies suggest sleep and circadian rhythm (the body’s 24hr clock) modulate physiological patterns, including normal metabolic health. Sleep deficiencies and the disruption of our body clock can lead to a metabolic dysregulation, which in turn may contribute to weight gain, obesity and type 2 diabetes due to the altering of food timing and potential food intake. 

The importance of sleep and recovery has been noticed more in recent years due to the rise of sleep-tracking technologies and products, such as FitBit and WHOOP, currently one of the leading brands when it comes to tracking recovery, sleep, and daily ‘strain’, with strain measuring the total cardiovascular load experience over a specified period.

CBD interacts with the body via its endocannabinoid system, which modulates several processes in the body, including pain regulation, sleep cycle, inflammation, appetite, and immune system response, among others.

Sleep is one of the many ways we can improve both mental and physical day-to-day activities, including reducing stress and anxiety, as well as to improve recovery after strenuous exercise. As daily CBD intake can lead to improvements in both sleep quality, consistency and duration, it is one of the most popular uses for CBD.

Sleep is critical to set yourself up for the day, however in more cases than not, adults do not obtain adequate sleep, both quality and duration. Tiredness is typically offset with caffeine overloads in order to get through the day, which contributes to over-anxiousness, as well as disrupting the body’s natural body clock and sleep quality.

Alternatively, nap-taking has become popular due to remote working possibilities from the pandemic – this also can negatively affect our circadian rhythm. This rhythm affects every cell, tissue, and organ in your body and how they work. Therefore, using CBD as a natural stimulator and regulator of the body’s internal state (through the endocannabinoid system), CBD can contribute to improved sleep quality and duration, thereby maximising the body’s mental and physical output, whether you’re in work or during exercise.

One study focused on the use of CBD in 72 adults that demonstrated difficulties with either anxiety or sleep (47 with anxiety, with the remaining 25 with sleep problems). Of the 47 participants that struggled with anxiety, within the first month of using CBD anxiety scores decreased and remained at lower levels for the duration of the study. In addition, 67% of individuals demonstrated improved sleep scores in the first month.

Studies suggest an improvement in anxiety alone could significantly improve a person’s sleep cycle, an important factor that is typically overlooked when trying to solve the “sleep puzzle”. Stress and anxiety are generally the cause of inadequate rest in adults.

Studies suggest CBD can improve our sleep, however, to really maximise your sleep a regular sleep pattern is required, which includes going to sleep at the same time each evening, as well as avoiding activities close to bedtime that stimulate your brain. Add CBD to your sleep ritual for 30 days to hit your adequate 9 hours sleep.

If we look at a young athlete who must train around their day-to-day schedule, extremely early or extremely late training sessions or competitions are capable of interfering with our circadian and homeostatic rhythms. Training late can have a high impact on your sleep patterns especially if you are waking early to try train again, your recovery and sleep are taking a massive hit which will in the end hamper your training. Studies have shown that by adjusting our training schedule we can positively impact several aspects of an athlete’s performance.

Sleep helps muscles release protein-building amino acids into the bloodstream at an increased rate which helps them grow stronger. Sleep also helps release growth hormones during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, which helps with muscle repair.

Whether you’re at work or training, sleep is absolutely vital to optimize our body’s output and reach peak performance, both mental and physical. By introducing CBD to a consistent sleep schedule, we can maximise sleep quality & duration and wake up less stressed and feeling refreshed and revitalized.

[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31072563/

[2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24816752/

[3] https://www.vita-botanica.com/blogs/news/cbd-recovery-and-training

[4] https://www.whoop.com/thelocker/sleep-better-naturally/

[5] https://www.vita-botanica.com/blogs/news/what-is-cbd

[6] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30624194/

[7] https://www.vita-botanica.com/blogs/news/what-are-the-benefits-of-cbd

[8] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28287684/

https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health-topics/sleep-deprivation-and-deficiency