Do you have trouble sleeping? There are now natural ways to help insomnia, including plant medicine such as CBD, which has been shown to help aid sleep as well as pain, inflammation, anxiety and other disorders.
The mental and physical health benefits of sleep
The physical and mental health benefits of sleeping a solid eight hours a night have been well-documented.
The health.harvard.edu website, belonging to the Harvard Medical school, published an article on their site titled “Sleep and mental health,” noting that “sleep and mental health are closely connected.” A lack of sleep affects your mental health and psychological state and individuals with mental health challenges are more prone to insomnia and other sleep disorders.
Statistics quoted in this article, highlight that chronic sleep issues affect between 50% and 80% of all patients who see a psychiatrist for problems like depression, bipolar disorder, ADHD, and GAD (Generalized Anxiety Disorder). Up to 18% of American adults who do not have a psychiatrist also battle with insomnia.
Finally, the connection between sleep and mental health is not entirely understood. Research studies are ongoing and neuroimaging and neurochemistry studies are supporting the hypotheses that:
“A good night’s sleep improves mental and emotional resilience.
Chronic insomnia triggers negative thinking and emotional vulnerability.”
Consequently, it does not matter whether you have a mental health challenge or battle to fall asleep at night; it is essential to treat the chronic inability to fall asleep, otherwise, your cognitive, emotional, and physical ability to function optimally every day will suffer.
COVID-19 and insomnia
The world entered 2020 alongside a novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, first seen in Wuhan, China, and has since rampaged its way across the globe, resulting in an almost instant shutdown of the global economy. All non-essential businesses were closed, and everyone except frontline workers sent home to wait out the virus to slow the infection rate and reduce the fatalities caused by the virus.
An academic journal article titled, “The acute effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on insomnia and psychological symptoms,” discusses the fact that the “2019 coronavirus pandemic is a worldwide crisis that has produced unprecedented changes in our lives.”
It also states that with all significant stressful events such as natural disasters and wars, this pandemic has “generated significant stress, anxiety, and worries about health, social isolation, employment, finances as well as the challenge of combining work and family obligations.” This, in turn, has led to an increase in insomnia by disturbing natural sleep patterns and circadian rhythms in a time where sleep is desperately needed to cope with the coronavirus and its impact on daily life.
Prescription tablets versus plant extracts
Something must be done to help people sleep, otherwise, the number of people with mental health disorders have a good chance of skyrocketing.
The use of prescription sleeping tablets is the first solution that comes to mind. Statistics show that approximately 38 million prescriptions for a standard sleeping tablet (Ambien) were written out between 2006 and 2011.
And while there is a place for medication prescribed by a medical specialist, the counterbalance to this is that prescription sleeping tablets belong to a category of sedative-hypnotics. In summary, they are potentially addictive. This is the reason why sleeping tablets are most often prescribed as a short-term solution.
What are your alternatives if you don’t want to take prescription sleeping tablets or need assistance sleeping over the long-term?
Can plant extracts help when it comes to natural ways to help Insomnia?
The succinct answer to this question is that, yes, plant extracts can help.
By way of expanding on this answer, let’s consider the following points:
1. What is a plant extract?
The becarre-natural.com website defines a plant extract as a “substance or an active with desirable properties that is removed from the tissue of a plant.” These extracts are created through a specific plant extraction process. It is essentially a solid/liquid separation operation: the plant as the solid object is placed in contact with a solvent (liquid). The essential plant components are then solubilized and contained within the solvent.
Should it be required, the solvent will eventually be eliminated to isolate the plant extract. If so, a second separation operation makes it possible to obtain a dry extract.
A good example is the extraction of CBD or cannabidiol from a hemp plant. The hemp plant has a high percentage of CBD and either zero or less than 0.03% of THC. CBD can be extracted very easily using either CO2 or carbon dioxide under pressure combined with extremely low temperatures. This is the best way to extract CBD from the plant material because it is safe, pure, and without chlorophyl.
As an aside, it is interesting to note that hemp seeds do not contain CBD. It is only in the plant material such as the stems. Therefore, products that only have the hemp seed oil in them and no other extract from the hemp plant do not contain CBD.
Consuming hemp seed oil is beneficial because it is rich in unsaturated fatty acids and essential amino acids.
2. A CBD extract as a sleeping aid
While the CBD extracted from the cannabis plant is a cannabinoid, it is not psychoactive. It does not have the side effects of THC, the other primary cannabinoid found in marijuana. In other words, it does not have the intoxicating effects. You cannot get high from CBD, whereas you can get high from consuming THC-based products.
CBD tends to have a relaxing, sedative effect on people who ingest it in one of its many forms. Several preliminary research studies are being conducted for its anti-psychotic and anti-anxiety effects.
It is also perhaps worth noting that cannabidiol can reduce the adverse effects of THC when consumed together.
Therefore, based on this information, it is reasonable to assume that a natural remedy that includes a CBD extract will work as a natural sleeping aid to reduce insomnia’s adverse mental and physical health effects.
The caveat here is that CBD as a sleep preparation is still in the early stages of research. The scientific community is not yet able to identify how CBD makes you sleep. However, there is anecdotal evidence that CBD has successfully been used for thousands of years as a natural sleep remedy, concluding that plant extracts can help as a sleep aid.
** Please always consult a certified medical practitioner before using supplements or adopting lifestyle changes **
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