Anxiety is a general term for several disorders that cause nervousness, fear, apprehension, and worrying. It’s normal to experience a state of anxiousness before something stressful. However, anxiety is considered a problem when symptoms interfere with a person’s ability to function or when the symptoms create health issues.
If you have feelings of doom and overwhelm, a pounding heart, worry, social phobia or suffer from panic attacks, you may be experiencing anxiety. Improved nutrition, lifestyle changes and CBD hemp oil can be used as alternatives or to complement traditional anxiety therapies (1).
While dietary changes are usually recommended for conditions such as heart disease and diabetes, nutritional changes are often overlooked for the prevention or treatment of mental health issues. Diet influences our overall sense of wellbeing in a number of ways from brain to gut health (2).
According to Trudy Scott, author of The Anxiety Food Solution, good dietary habits can help balance blood sugar, hormones and brain chemistry, address nutrient deficiencies, improve sleep quality, and improve digestion. We now have the added benefits of CBD hemp oil to help address these issues.
Blood sugar imbalances can cause the brain a considerable amount of stress, which leads to nervousness and anxiety. This can be easily managed by adopting dietary changes such as eliminating sugar and other processed carbohydrates, and eating balanced meals of complex carbohydrates, proteins and fats.
In combination with a low carbohydrate diet and exercise, CBD hemp oil may be effective in helping you regulate your blood sugar. It may help by increasing metabolism, especially the breakdown of carbohydrates. This means that your body may process carbohydrates and sugars faster, not letting them settle in your blood stream (3).
Cortisol is our body’s stress response hormone. Under normal conditions, the body’s stress response protects us from perceived dangers. However, under prolonged or chronic stress the body’s response becomes overwhelmed and organs that maintain hormone balance, such as the adrenal glands, struggle.
As a result, you feel stressed out and anxious. Diet along with rest, exercise, and stress reduction techniques is key to restoring hormone balance. CBD hemp oil’s anti-stress properties help lower heart rate, enabling stressed individuals to relax (4).
Neurotransmitters are chemical messengers that transmit impulses in the brain and have a huge impact on mental health. Their imbalance may contribute to anxiety and other mental health disorders. Traditional therapies increase, decrease, or block the affects of neurotransmitters. Alternatively, brain chemistry can be balanced with the addition of amino acids, the building blocks of neurotransmitters, through diet and supplementation.
Brain cells or neurons communicate with each other through structures called receptor sites. Plant compounds like those found in CBD oil influence brain activity by interacting with these receptor sites. CBD oil interacts with the receptor sites that relate to mood and brain function. This may account, in part, for its anti-anxiety properties (5).
There is a close connection between sleep quality and anxiety. Poor sleep can contribute to anxiety and that anxiety can cause sleep problems. The result is a never-ending cycle contributing negatively to overall health and wellbeing. Better sleep hygiene, improved diet, and lifestyle changes can help you overcome sleeping problems.
Nutritional changes will help balance blood sugar and hormones, such as cortisol, to improve sleep patterns. CBD oil can increase total sleep and improve insomnia. It may do this by reducing daytime sleepiness, which is important for the strength and consistency of the sleep-wake cycle (6).
The health of your gut or gastrointestinal system is extremely important to your overall wellbeing. The digestive system is responsible for breaking down food, absorbing vitamins and minerals, regulating hormones, producing vitamins, boosting the immune system, and eliminating toxins.
A breakdown in these critical systems is why poor gut health can be the root cause of many health issues. Individuals suffering from digestive disorders are more likely to suffer from mental health issues such as depression and anxiety (7). Addressing food sensitivities is the cornerstone of any nutrition program to improve gut health.
CBD hemp oil can further help repair the gut lining, reduce inflammation, and balance bacteria to aid digestion (8).
There are a number of indirect ways that CBD hemp oil reduces stress and relieves anxiety, while research looks for a direct correlation (9,10). It helps in much the same way as adopting good dietary habits and lifestyle measures. It can help balance blood sugar, hormones and brain chemistry, address nutrient deficiencies, improve sleep quality, and improve digestion.
To learn how CBD hemp oil can supplement good dietary and lifestyle measures, call us today at 1-83-265-6223 for a free consultation.