CBD offers broad anxiolytic effects with minimal risk of side effects when taken at therapeutic doses. It reduces experimentally-induced anxiety in healthy people as well as those suffering from SAD without changing baseline anxiety levels.
A 2022 study demonstrated that young people whose regular anxiety medication wasn’t working well saw significant improvement after four weeks of using a product with high CBD concentration.
Anxiety
Over the years, numerous studies conducted with lab animals have confirmed CBD’s ability to significantly decrease anxiety behavior. A 2022 Nature study concluded that people suffering from social anxiety who took CBD experienced less stress during simulated public speaking test than those taking a placebo pill.
Preclinical evidence demonstrates that CBD’s anxiolytic effects depend on activating CB1R and 5-HT1AR receptors across various brain regions. For instance, in one animal model CBD reduced both acute increases in heart rate and blood pressure induced by restraint stress and delayed anxiogenic reactions associated with public speaking tests.
CBD has also proven effective against some of the harshest childhood epilepsy syndromes. Recently, Epidiolex was approved by the FDA as an epilepsy treatment product to address Dravet and Lennox-Gastaut syndrome seizures which cause extreme anxiety. CBD comes in many forms including pills, capsules, lotions sprays edibles available both offline and online at health food stores or health food store websites.
Depression
CBD has been found to relieve anxiety and depression in animal studies. Human trials have also demonstrated its beneficial properties; however, more research needs to be conducted into how it works and the correct dosages for each condition.
CBD produces many actions relevant to anxiety disorders, including anxiolytic, panicolytic, anticompulsive and antidepressant actions. It reduces autonomic arousal while simultaneously decreasing fear expression and inborn response as well as improving fear extinction/reconsolidation blockade and mitigating stress’ long-term anxiogenic effect – without producing anxiogenic side effects at higher doses unlike THC and direct CB1R agonists.
CBD reduces pre-test anticipatory anxiety in a fearful faces paradigm and attenuates blood-oxygen-level dependent activation of amygdala and anterior cingulate cortex during this task. Furthermore, CBD enhances contextual fear memory and attenuates reinstatement through 5-HT1ARs as well as possible activation of the NMDA receptor.
Stress
CBD, unlike many pharmaceutical treatments, is a natural plant-based approach to stress relief. CBD works on multiple receptors in the brain to balance serotonin levels and establish more stable emotions – possibly explaining why THC-dominant cannabis products tend to provide less relief for anxiety symptoms than CBD products do.
Preclinical and human studies demonstrate that CBD has antianxiolytic effects when taken acutely for GAD, SAD, PD, OCD, PTSD and panic disorder patients. Furthermore, it appears to improve PTSD symptom domains by decreasing arousal levels, improving fear extinction abilities and blocking reconsolidation of fear responses.
Neuroimaging studies reveal that CBD can reduce blood-oxygen-level dependent activation of the amygdala and medial prefrontal cortex when faced with fearful faces, as well as attenuate skin conductance fluctuations during an imminent threat. Dynamic causal modeling analyses indicate CBD also decreases forward functional connectivity between amygdala and anterior cingulate cortex, thus making it a promising candidate for future anxiolytic medications.
Sleep
CBD can be an effective treatment for insomnia, increasing length of sleep while decreasing wakefulness during the night and helping improve quality of life by decreasing anxiety and depression. CBD may be especially useful in cases involving chronic pain or anxiety as it helps with gastrointestinal symptoms that impede restful rest.
This clinical trial aimed to explore the effects of CBD on objective and subjective sleep outcomes for participants with primary insomnia using validated questionnaires and physiological measures. A secondary objective was assessing mood outcomes such as trait anxiety and well-being.
Study participants were recruited through Swinburne trial recruitment databases and word of mouth. A 30-mL bottle containing corn oil served both CBD and control treatments and stored safely until each visit; laboratory staff kept track of an allocation key so participants had no way of telling which treatment they received during the trial.
