CBD has the potential to remedy a variety of common ailments that affect all of us. Maybe it could help you with your muscle/joint pain, or relieve some daily stress and anxiety, or getting better sleep throughout the night. Maybe you even found a product or brand that really resonates with you. But how do you know how much to take for any of those potential use cases? How do you know how much more to take on a severe day versus a mild day? Which product is best for certain issues? When it seems like every product has a different unit of measure (ml, mg,fl oz), how do you know what dosage you’re actually getting? The world of CBD can feel pretty daunting before you even try out a product, but don’t worry, we got you covered.
Navigating through the weeds
If trying to understand how much CBD to take in your daily routine seems complex, that’s because it is. Unlike ibuprofen, we can’t just say ‘take two every 4-6 hours’. And that’s because CBD has a much more expansive range of beneficial effects that work in a number of different ways. The effectiveness of CBD depends on a couple of important things:
Size of the person: If you’re 5’2”, 105 lbs person, the chances are that you’ll need much less CBD than someone who’s 6’5” and 210 lbs to get the same effect.
Genetics: Let’s say that you decide to take CBD at the same time as your best friend who’s the same height, weight, and is taking CBD for the exact same condition. Even if you take the same amount of CBD as your best friend, chances are that you’ll both feel the effects differently. And that’s because CBD interacts with our bodies in a wide variety of ways that can be specific to your specific genetic background. For example, some people are fast metabolizers while others are slow, which affects how quickly CBD is removed from your system. It’s important to know your own body.
Condition: The amount of CBD you take will vary depending on the reason you’re taking it. Someone with muscle soreness or a mild headache won’t need to take as much as someone trying to deal with a migraine.
Product Quality: This probably won’t come as a huge surprise, but not all CBD products on the market are the same. Some have extra chemicals due to the type of extraction process used and aren’t pure, which will affect how well they work. Others don’t incorporate full-spectrum CBD and all the other beneficial hemp compounds that enhance the effects of CBD.
A simple way forward
Now that we know what to look out for, there are a few simple rules you can follow to optimize your CBD dosage. First and foremost, choose a quality product. Check out our blog post on what to look for in choosing a premium CBD product. Because without actually having a pure and clean product, none of the following steps will matter. The next thing to do is see where you fall in this chart:
CBD Dosage Guide
Put it to the test
Depending on your weight and the severity of the condition you’re trying to help with, you can get a range of CBD in mg’s (milligrams) that might be right for you. When it comes to looking at all CBD dosages, mg is the best unit of measure. But once you know where you fall in the chart above, you need to do a little experimentation. As mentioned above, things like your own genetics, the hemp genetics the CBD is extracted from, and the type of condition play a big role in effectiveness. To properly account for these and find a dosage that works best for you, you’ll need to experiment with different dosages at first to hone in on the best amount.
Experiment Example
Let’s say you’re 120 lbs and trying to remedy some mild stress, you’ll want to start off with a 18mg dose.
Unfortunately, due to that whole genetics thing, the time it takes someone to fully absorb a tincture dose can range from 30 minutes to 5 hours. And this will also vary with other forms of cbd products like capsules and salves. Make sure to give it time!
But how do you know if it worked? This really depends on what you’re taking it for. If you’re taking it for pain reduction, then hopefully you’ll feel that pain decrease over time if you are at the appropriate dosage level. If you take it for sleep, check to see whether you’re still awake 😉 However, things like anxiety and stress are assessed over time with repetition and routine which will differ for everyone.
I didn’t feel anything, now what? If you feel that the amount of CBD didn’t have an impact on what you were taking it for, try upping the dose by 2-4mg. This may take some visual fudging if using a dropper, but the below chart may help. If one full dropper of a 250mg tincture is 8.6 mg and you want to up your dosage from 18mg to 22mg, you’ll want to take 2 and a half droppers or about 1 and a half droppers from a 500mg tincture.
One important thing to note is that if you’re taking CBD for a change in mood, such as decreasing stress or anxiety, CBD becomes increasingly effective after taking it over a period of time such as a couple of weeks. This is because it takes CBD some time to build up in your system to have a consistent impact, similar to using an allergy medicine for a couple of weeks before it starts working effectively. Some people do feel more immediate effects, but if you don’t just give it a little time.
Remember that different CBD companies may have different methods of reporting CBD concentration. Some of them may only report the total extract in mg, which contains CBD + other compounds. Make sure to look carefully at the labels. At the end of the day, you want to measure your dosage in mg of CBD. Most products will give you the total mg in a bottle, but not all will tell you how many mg’s are in a single serving. So you may have to do a little calculating yourself, but hopefully, the above chart should make that easier. At Asha, we work hard to provide clear and simple labeling to inform you of the concentration of CBD per serving. Just take a look at our Supplement Facts on our bottles where we list the amount of CBD per serving in mg depending on the product. We also include a QR code on every product that you can scan to check the 3rd party lab results of everything contained in that product.
Boiling it down
We wish we could just say ‘take one dropper of CBD twice a day and all your cares will vanish away’. But unfortunately, our bodies are complex. To get the optimal dose of CBD that works the best for you, it requires a little trial and error. Yet once you find that perfect dose, the improvements to your life can be substantial and long lasting. In the meantime, always think about your own body, what you’re using CBD for, and define what a successful dosage means to you.
At Asha, we do our best to make that process as easy as possible by providing you with high quality, pure and broad-spectrum CBD products as well as a variety of methods to take CBD so you can find the one that works best for you. Life is hard enough without having to blindly guess at CBD best practices. Let us help take on that burden so you can focus your energy on what truly matters.