People have been using CBD to help with mental disorders for a while now. People dealing with anxiety, PTSD, and even addiction have found CBD very helpful. Since being decriminalized, more people are now doing the same.
Does CBD actually help with mental disorders? Well, preliminary researches seem to suggest that it does. In fact, the more studies carried out, the more the confirmation that CBD is beneficial for a wide range of disorders.
So why is CBD not yet widely prescribed and used by medical practitioners everywhere? The truth is that the scientific community generally likes to wait for more research to be done. This is so that they can be sure it works and in what doses. CBD is, however, prescribed for some childhood disorders.
Taking CBD for your mental health comes with some responsibilities. Some of these include ensuring that you get products of high quality. Many over-the-counter CBD products have questionable concentrations. Most times, the best kind of CBD product is one with pure CBD or a full spectrum with low THC.
But how do you know which is which? What dose of CBD works for which mental health disorder? Are there any side effects of using CBD for a mental health disorder?
Types of Mental Disorders
Your mental health is like the foundation for thinking, communication, learning, emotions, self-esteem, and resilience. A mental illness is a health condition that leads to changes in your emotions, behaviour, or thinking. It can also affect a combination of all three.
A mental illness could affect your mood, feeling, thinking, and behaviour. Most of the time, it affects your ability to relate with others around you. Mental illnesses could be chronic (long-lasting) or occasional.
Mental illnesses could also be known as mental disorders. They are common, and many people suffer from them. Some types of mental disorders include anxiety, depression, PTSD, insomnia, epilepsy, addiction, and psychosis.
There are many types of mental disorders. They are diagnosed using medical history, a physical exam or lab test, and a psychological evaluation. Below are some common mental health disorders and their symptoms.
Epilepsy
Epilepsy occurs when the activities of nerve cells in the brain are disturbed, leading to seizures. Epilepsy can be genetic but can also be caused by a severe brain injury, trauma, or stroke. Some symptoms include anxiety, fear, temporary confusion, seizures, staring spells, and fainting.
Anxiety
Anxiety disorders are a kind of mental illness that makes it difficult to go through your day. These are different from feeling occasional nervous or anxious. With anxiety disorders, you can’t control your response most of the time. Anxiety can be caused by a mixture of genetic and environmental factors.
Anxiety symptoms include sweating, trembling, hyperventilation, feeling tired and weak, and an increased heart rate. Anxiety can also be disruptive by causing you to have trouble thinking or concentrating on other things.
Depression
Depression is a mental illness that exhibits as a loss of interest in usual activities and a depressed mood that is persistent. It can significantly impair a person’s daily life. Depression could be as a result of many causes. Some of them could be biological or psychological. These could even be in combination with a social source of distress.
Depression exhibits in some of the following ways: Anxiety, general discontent, mood swings, irritability, restlessness, insomnia, excessive sleepiness, lack of concentration, and more. There could also be weight gain or loss.
Insomnia
Insomnia is usually associated with other mental disorders like depression or PTSD. It could also be a result of poor sleeping habits or medication. However, the result is the same: there is difficulty falling and staying asleep.
Symptoms of insomnia lack of concentration, depression, headaches, slowness in activity, and irritability. It is usually self-diagnosable and could make the person feel not well-rested even after managing to sleep.
PTSD
PTSD is a mental illness where people cannot recover after a terrifying event that they either experienced or witnessed. This condition could last months or years and often has triggers that could bring back memories. The individual then reacts by having an intense physical or emotional reaction.
Symptoms of PTSD include nightmares, severe anxiety, agitation, mistrust, hypervigilance, insomnia, and isolation. People with PTSD could also be emotionally detached and have some intrusive thoughts.
Addiction
Addiction is a mental illness that affects the brain’s ability to control the use of a substance. It leads to a continuation of whatever the person is addicted to despite being harmful. Some symptoms of addiction include decreased coordination, difficulty concentration, and anxiety.
Psychosis
Psychosis is a mental disorder where the patient is disconnected from reality. It could be caused by medication, a health condition, or drugs. Psychosis could also be a result of schizophrenia. Some symptoms of this illness include delusions, agitations, hostility, hallucinations, and incoherence.
CBD and Mental Disorders
As mentioned earlier, CBD has been found helpful in treating mental illnesses over the years. Many new studies and researchers are also looking into using CBD for many mental illnesses. Below are some mental disorders where CBD has been proven to help with treatment and symptoms.
Depression
Depression is one of the most prevalent mental health disorders in the world. People suffering from depression find CBD very helpful. Preliminary studies are finding that CBD could play a good role as an anti-depressant.
CBD does this by improving the brain’s ability to use the serotonin present. Low serotonin levels can lead to depression. By enhancing the brain’s ability to use the serotonins present, CBD can help people suffering from depression to feel better.
Anxiety
Anxiety is a disorder that makes life hard for the people with it. CBD has, however, been proven to be very helpful for people with anxiety disorders. Studies show that people with generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and social anxiety disorder have all found CBD to work.
CBD does this by binding to the brain receptors and helping to regulate the chemicals properly. Many people who suffer from anxiety disorders can testify to its help. You can also check out our article on CBD for Anxiety for more information.
Epilepsy
CBD has a proven track record of helping people with Epilepsy. So much so that it is prescribed for certain childhood disorders. A large study of people who have pediatric epilepsy discovered a 50% reduction in many who used CBD treatment. Recently many viral social media clips also discussed the same.
While the exact mechanism of action is unknown, CBD is known to regulate excessive neuronal firing. This is present in seizure disorders like Epilepsy. Some studies also showed the presence of anticonvulsant effects after the use of CBD.
PTSD
One primary symptom that people who have PTSD have is recurrent nightmares. This sometimes leads to insomnia and other kinds of sleep disorders. Studies have shown that CBD is beneficial with these nightmare symptoms.
CBD does this by playing a valuable role in the endocannabinoid system. Patients with PTSD who take CBD also show an overall reduction in their symptoms.
Insomnia
Sleep is an important body function. It is useful for your overall body health. People with sleep disorders have these functions completely disrupted. Their physical health also suffers numerous consequences as a result.
CBD is proven to have a calming effect and so can help treat sleep difficulties like insomnia. A large-scale study conducted on people with sleeping disorders had 65% of them show improvements with CBD.
Addiction
Addiction as a mental illness can be very hard to cure. People suffering from this often find themselves having a relapse even when they try to get clean. CBD has been proven to help with many kinds of addiction.
CBD helps with addictions by affecting the neural mechanisms that lead to the addiction disorder. It can dampen cravings and also help with withdrawal symptoms like anxiety. Feel free to check out our other article on how CBD can help people suffering from addiction.
Psychosis
Psychosis is a severe mental illness with symptoms like hallucinations and anxiety. We already know that CBD helps with anxiety. Studies also show that it helps with hallucinations too. Participants in this study showed a significant decrease in the number of hallucinations.
How to Use CBD
Most studies that show the positive effects of CBD in treating mental disorders have one thing in common. This was the quality of CBD used. That means you should get your CBD from only trusted sources like Hempika.
The best kinds of CBD products for use in treating mental disorders are the ones with low THC. These kinds of CBD products contain less than 0.3% or 0.2% THC, which could be problematic in mental disorders because of its psychoactive properties.
You can take CBD orally, topically, as an edible, or by inhalation. Just remember to make sure that you can trust the content of the CBD purchased for the best effects.
Final Thoughts
Existing studies show that using CBD to treat mental disorders is effective. While there needs to be more research done, current results show high promise in this regard. Patients looking into using CBD are advised to get CBD products from high-quality brands with third-party testing like these.
Frequently Asked Questions About CBD & Mental Disorders
Can CBD Oil cause mental confusion?
CBD Oil from quality tested brands will not cause mental confusion. CBD is a useful extract from Cannabis but does not have any psychoactive properties. THC is what causes the high, and for legal reasons, THC is kept to less than 0.2%.
Does CBD cause psychosis?
There are no studies showing that CBD causes psychosis. Instead, CBD has been proven to be helpful with symptoms of psychosis-like hallucination. CBD contains no psychoactive properties that will give you a high as long it’s gotten from a trusted source.
Can CBD cause mania?
CBD is not shown by any current studies to cause mania. Taking cannabis, however, which has other psychoactive components like THC, is linked with some early onsets of mania. That’s why researchers advise that patients stick to pure and trusted CBD products.
Can CBD make you paranoid?
CBD does not cause paranoia as it has no psychoactive properties. Please note that this is only true for trusted CBD products. CBD can even help with paranoia and other feelings of anxiety by working with the body’s natural endocannabinoid system.
Can CBD reverse psychosis?
While research shows that CBD is very helpful with psychosis and its symptoms, there are none showing that CBD reverses psychosis in Humans yet. CBD is, however, effective in treating symptoms like hallucinations and anxiety.
Author:S. O.
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