CBD or Cannabidiol is a drug compound famous for its heavenly safe and effective health benefits for a wide range of ailments. Being extracted from the marijuana plant, it’s strong enough to target the ailment and yet is quite safe that it doesn’t let you get high. In this article we will discuss how we can use CBD for depression.
After being labeled as a strong analgesic drug, the second most promising and known benefit of CBD Oil is related to the psychiatric system of the human body as it’s trusted to help people with depression, anxiety, stress or other brain and nervous system-related illnesses.
Let’s consider facts and figures to deeply understand weather CBD can cause depression and if yes, how.
CBD for depression
What is depression??
Depression is a mood disorder that causes a continuous feeling of sadness, isolation and loss of interest. Medically it’s named as major depressive disorder MDD or clinical depression and it can affect how you feel, think and behave. It’s a serious and most common illness that can lead to a variety of emotional and physical problems. The exact cause of MDD is unknown but it can be triggered via drug abuse, certain medical conditions or any personal life trauma that has been stuck to the human memory system. It’s basically a chemical imbalance in the brain.
CBD as antipsychotic drug
The CBD has shown figures to be highly effective as an anticonvulsant, muscle relaxant, anxiolytic, neuroprotective, anti-oxidant and anti-psychotic drug. And same as a headache-inducing agent, it’s tough to digest the statement that an anxiolytic and muscle relaxant agent can cause depression anyways.
Coming back to the question, it’s less likely for a CBD dosage form to cause depression as it is clinically tested on mice to be effective as anxiolytic, anti-convulsant, and muscle-relaxant drugs. Moreover, its herbal product is being used for hundreds of years for depression and has paved its path as a most efficient yet safest antidepressant drug of the future. So keeping this in mind, it’s less likely for it to be a causing agent instead of a healing agent.
Some scientific study’s data:
According to 2014’s review, CBD appears to act as an antidepressant and anxiolytic compound in animal models having depression.
A study report from 2018 says that studies have shown anti-stress and fast-acting antidepressant activity of CBD in animal models.
Study data has clearly shown that CBD exhibits an anti-stress effect after short or long term use.
Studies also found out that the compound work without activating the brain’s CB receptors directly, which may indicate that there is overall less risk of habituation or addiction with CBD.
Also, studies show CBD’s potential to help in reducing cravings in people with opioid use disorder.
Possibilities of inducing depression:
Although, CBD can induce depression via Dopamine manipulation. Dopamine is a chemical/charge inside the brain that’s responsible for executive functions, motor control, motivation, arousal and reward.
The connection between a CBD and depression induction can be a key in relation to this dopamine as CBD not only interacts with CB1 and CB2 receptors of the ECS system but also increases the levels of dopamine. These increased levels of dopamine are proven to be causing diseases like Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, bipolar disorder and depression.
But the thing to keep in mind here is that it’s only possible when our body has too much of dopamine and causing too much dopamine at a regular dose of CBD is close to impossible.
So we can interpret that if you are facing depression by using CBD, you probably are taking wrong doses or you’ve started taking it the wrong way.
Also, it’s a personal research based interpretation that is not scientifically proven yet.
Usage guideline for CBD:
In today’s time, CBD is available in many dosage forms so a customer can choose one that suits his needs best. Mostly an oral dosage form is highly demanded by customers and come in many forms including tinctures, edibles, capsule, and oils.
If you’ve decided on taking CBD, you should continue on it regularly as it’s not a steroid that’ll show up its benefits in a matter of a day. It takes time in healing you in the most right way. Also, it’s the safest drug so there’s clearly no risk of addiction or habituation and it can be used for longer time periods without worry.
Furthermore, you should always purchase from a registered and trusted source so you know you’re buying actual CBD and not a resembling low-grade compound. It is crucial to buy from reputable sources.
Side effects associated with CBD:
Usually CBD is the safest compound to be used for any ailment and rarely cause any side effect whereas causing an adverse effect for a CBD is quite close to impossibility.
However, a sensitive or allergen person may experience some mild side effects like:
- changes in appetite patterns
- gaining or losing weight rapidly
- unusual fatigue
- diarrhea
Also, patients that show liver-related issues/illnesses should use CBD with ultimate care as oral dosages have to pass the liver for metabolism before entering the bloodstream and the metabolites of CBD in liver can affect liver physiology in a negative way.
Final Note About CBD for depression.:
CBD is a highly trusted compound that safely treats depression and other psychotic illnesses. There are many researches and community observations that prove it as a strong anti-depressant agent. Although, if you are facing depression by using this, most probably there’s another underlying reason that’s causing depression other than CBD. Or you have done drug abuse accidently which is causing too much increase in dopamine that’s ultimately causing depression but for a normal consumer, at normal physical conditions and regular use, it’s very unlikely for CBD to cause depression.