CANNABIS, CBD & ANXIETY

We are currently living through anxiety provoking times. The coronavirus is the perfect recipe to turn even the most laid back and centered among us into worrying wrecks, imagining the most catastrophic (although unlikely) outcomes for ourselves and our loved ones.

And that, dear friends, is the day-to-day life of someone living with anxiety. I know because for the last fifteen years it’s an inner world I’ve inhabited. Only for me, it’s not a pandemic I’m freaking out about, but lesser evils such as whether I’m going to make a complete idiot of myself in some social gathering or my own favorite anxiety rabbit hole – feeling anxious about feeling anxious.

While there’s no magic bullet to banish anxiety for good, managing anxiety symptoms is a commonly stated reason why people take cannabis – medical or otherwise – with CBD showing particular promise in preliminary studies.

ANXIETY DISORDERS

Anxiety disorders are a collection of mental health conditions characterized by disproportionate worrying about future events that brings about physiological responses in the body such as tightness in the chest, shortness of breath, muscle tension, sleep disturbance, excessive sweating, agitation, restlessness, irritability, and difficulty concentrating.

Avoidance behavior are common strategies amongst anxiety sufferers. If you’ve had a panic attack crossing a bridge, there’s a fair chance you’ll never make it to the other side of that river again. And for the socially anxious amongst us, myself included, not turning up to that party or after work drinks or a friend’s wedding are tactics regularly employed.

However, the more situations we avoid, the smaller our worlds eventually become, and it’s often at this point when an anxiety disorder is diagnosed. Right now, it’s estimated 264 million people worldwide have some kind of anxiety disorder, with approximately 40 million of them residing in the United States.

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