The link between mental health issues and the numerous claims made about how CBD oil can improve symptoms of a whole range of ailments has been a hotly debated topic. There have been claims that CBD oil can help to provide relief from symptoms of mental health issues like depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and anxiety. As a person who has always viewed the natural way as the best way and who has always wished to explore their options further before turning to pharmaceuticals, I decided to try it out myself to see if it helped with the symptoms of my own anxiety disorder.
Cannabidiol oil, or CBD oil (which is what most people know it as), comes from the cannabis plant. CBD is a chemical and is a type of cannaboid that is naturally found in marijuana. Despite the fact that it derives from the marijuana plant, you do not experience a feeling of being “high”. This is because it is THC which gives marijuana its intoxicating effects whereas CBD gives it its calming effects, something that in theory should help people suffering from anxiety. There has been some controversy surrounding cannabis-derived products like CBD oil because of the recreational use of marijuana, especially regarding whether CBD oil should be legal in the first place. This may be due to the fact that some people don’t appear to understand the difference between THC and CBD. However, there has been an increase in awareness about the possible health benefits of taking CBD oil, whether that be in capsule or liquid form.
I have suffered from anxiety from a very young age, even before I knew that the word anxiety existed. The first memory I have of anxiety rearing its ugly head was when we had to take turns to read out a few paragraphs of a piece of text in English lessons in front of the whole class in primary school. What seemed like an easy task for everybody else made my heart race and my palms sweaty – what if I made a mistake and the whole class start laughing at me, or what if I forgot how to say a word in my own language? To other people, reading out loud was a simple task, but for me it was almost impossible. Anxiety has affected my life in so many different ways that including everything here would possibly create a novel instead of an article, but here are the main ways…
The main way that anxiety has affected me is that it cause me to constantly overthink every scenario in my head. I create a story from nothing with a beginning, middle and end, despite having no idea of what will happen. Another one of the main problems anxiety has caused is that I always need to know how people are feeling, which then causes me to over analyse peoples behaviours to check ‘Are they annoyed with me? Did I say the wrong thing?’.
Anxiety also causes physical symptoms that many people can forget about. The first is blurry eyesight, which almost feels like being underwater. My hearing becomes worse and people sound like they are talking from far away – this normally occurs when I’m feeling particularly anxious. Another physical symptom I experience is my heart starting to pound in my chest, which I can hear in my ears and which makes me feel like my whole body is vibrating. This is accompanied by a tight feeling in my chest, which in itself is rather disconcerting. Additionally, I suffer from Bruxism (which is just the medical term for teeth grinding or clenching) which is connected to having anxiety. I didn’t even realise I was doing it until the dentist told me that I had sores in my mouth, as I was doing this at night because many people with anxiety, including me, typically have difficulty turning their brains off. Finally, like many people with anxiety I experience the physical problems of stomach pains and bloating.
After years of battling with these symptoms, I decided I needed to try something. The first time I took CBD oil I decided to take the capsules as I had been informed that the oil has quite a foul taste to it. I felt slightly anxious (I mean, nothing new there) before taking it with a glass of water and then waited a while. After about 45 minutes I began to feel calm, almost like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. Was I dreaming or was this actually working?
My intrusive thoughts reduced, and I no longer thought that the stranger that walked passed me on the street was quietly judging me. I could now perform normal tasks, like asking for another size of that gorgeous top I just saw in Zara, without feeling like I was going to have a panic attack and my heart had stopped pounding frantically in my chest. I now suffered from less panic attacks than I ever had before, and so my overall well-being was improving.
Before trying CBD oil I suffered from severe anxiety. I use the past tense loosely here, because am I cured? Absolutely not, but it has most definitely provided me with some real relief from my symptoms which I will be forever grateful for. The fact that a natural remedy that has little to no side effects is helping so many people out there, including me, is a pure miracle. If you take anything from this article, please let it be that you should rethink when you decide to judge someone who decides to go down this route. We all have our own stories and struggles and perhaps this was their last hope, who knows?
