CbdMD : Ashwagandha and CBD for Better Sleep...

Recently, we introduced you to a natural ingredient called ashwagandha, derived from Withania somnifera, an evergreen shrub found halfway around the world. We've shared with you how this botanical extract works in partnership with CBD to help you combat stress in your life and today we'll talk about how this power duo helps you with one other important part of your life: sleep.

Today, we'll discuss ashwagandha for sleep, specifically when partnered with CBD for the nightly snoozefest your body has been begging for - so, pry those sleepy eyes open, grab a cup of Joe, and let's get started.

Key Points of Discussion

• What is ashwagandha and where does it come from?
• Is ashwagandha good for me to take?
• Can you take CBD and ashwagandha together?
• How does ashwagandha help sleep? Why take it with CBD?
• How do you use ashwagandha for sleep?
• What other things do I need to do when I take ashwagandha and CBD for sleep?

What Is Ashwagandha?

In a recent article "What Is Ashwagandha? Can It Help?," we introduced you to the botanical extract of ashwagandha, which comes from an evergreen shrub that grows in the Middle East, India, and Africa. This botanical extract is gaining popularity as a helpful aid to people who are working to manage everyday stress and find a little more Zen in their lives. But what about using ashwagandha for sleep? Can it help you to find a more restful sleep and wake more refreshed? As it turns out, this botanical can help with more than stress.

Ashwagandha for Sleep

Aside from its adaptogenic help for combating stress, ashwagandha, also called Indian ginseng, can also be a useful source to tap for help in the sleep department. Triethylene glycol, an active component of ashwagandha Withania somnifera leaves, is likely most responsible for helping people sleep. Also, because of its unique properties and how ashwagandha helps with stress management, we can apply it to one common adversary to sleep - the bodily stress that often keeps us awake for hours staring at the ceiling, or tossing and turning as we sigh our way toward sleep.

For many people, falling asleep doesn't come as naturally as it does for others. This can make bedtime a stressful time as we struggle against the sleep we know our bodies need. Our minds are busy with thoughts of the day, our bodies often feel tense or achy, and we roll around when we should be snoozing. Then, we wake feeling overly tired and maybe even a little grumpy. Every day feels like a wash-repeat cycle of sleep deprivation that can make us feel powerless to overcome it. And many people are turning to botanicals for help, rather than the sleep-inducing drugstore concoctions our grandparents used, or worse, alcohol.

When we use ashwagandha for sleep along with CBD for sleep, two botanical sources for sleep support, we may feel less stressed and less restless at bedtime, and may even feel relief the physical discomfort that can make our nights so restless. Calm mind + calm body = better sleep!

How to Use Ashwagandha

Instead of seeking out an ashwagandha supplement to use in addition to all your other health and wellness supplements, we've made it easy by adding it to some of our CBD products. In this way, you can reap the benefits of ashwagandha while you also use a product you love and trust. Our new Sleep Aid Gummies can be taken alongside your regular CBD nightly products so your bedtime routine can be a whole lot less troublesome.

Simply take one or two of these snoozy gummies at night. You can take them at the same time as your regular CBD tincture oils.

Sleep Aid Ashwagandha Gummies: Supportive Ingredients

We've chosen a lineup of sleep-supportive ingredients for our new Sleep Aid Gummies that will lure you into a more restful sleep (along with some important sleepy-time tips we'll get into later).

• Lemon balm extract - Extracts from this mint plant are a digestive and sleep aid, and we've been using it in our award-winning CBD sleep tincture formulation. Lemon balm extract makes a return appearance in our new CBD Sleep Gummies.
• Chamomile extract - A popular ingredient for relaxing and soothing teas, chamomile, which comes from the flowers of the Matricaria recutita plant, has soothing phytochemicals that make this extract a perfect choice for sleepy-time formulas of CBD.
• L-theanine - Has positive effects on how our bodies react to stress.
• Valerian extract - This sweet-smelling plant's root extracts help by promoting relaxation and supporting GABA levels.
• GABA - A natural relaxant produced by the brain.
• Melatonin - Your body's natural sleep hormone.
• Proprietary hemp extract (flowers and aerial parts) - This is the hemp blend that contains all those helpful phytocannabinoids your body loves, to promote relaxation and calm (for body and mind) to help you get the sleep of your dreams.

Combining CBD with Ashwagandha

As makers of superior CBD products, we are always searching for the best ingredients to partner with our proprietary hemp extract (as you can see by the carefully curated ingredients in the above list), and sometimes certain extracts really catch our attention, like ashwagandha.

We look at several things when selecting these partner ingredients:

• Extraction processes
• Efficacy and safety
• How the ingredients work alongside phytocannabinoids
• How easily the ingredient works for most people
• Historical uses, current studies, and anecdotal evidence for the ingredient
• Ease and pleasure of use
• And of course, we don't want to use any extracts that cause unpleasant or unwanted effects, so we vet for this in our selections.

Along with researching all of this, we take it one step further. We've always used third-party testing by ISO-certified laboratories, but we also think that transparency is important. So, we share our research with you and post the COA (Certificates of Analysis) of our products right on our website. We also provide chat services on our website to answer any questions you may have.

CBD's Relationship to Your Sleep Patterns

We've talked a lot about the relationship between CBD oil use and maintaining healthy sleep patterns, but how does it work? The nutshell version of how this theory works is this:

• Your body produces its own endocannabinoids which are processed by a biological system called the endocannabinoid system.
• For reasons we don't quite understand, some people do not have enough endocannabinoids in their system. Endocannabinoids help your bodily systems to work more efficiently by maintaining homeostasis, which we amplify by introducing phytocannabinoids. Phytocannabinoids are similar to your body's endocannabinoids and are produced by plants.
• We process phytocannabinoids from industrial hemp, which contains over 100 phytocannabinoid compounds.
• These phytocannabinoids are then formulated into hemp oils for consumers to use.
• The most well-known effect of taking these CBD oil blends of phytocannabinoids is a greater sense of calm which can help manage everyday stresses, ease tensions, and support a healthy sleep cycle, which has a myriad of health and wellness benefits.

For added support, we add other ingredients with similar effects to help provide a holistic, botanically based aid for people who are searching for natural solutions to their restless nights.

How to Use CBD and Ashwagandha to Help Sleep

There are a number of ways to use CBD products, now partnered with ashwagandha, to help you sleep better. The most common way, and the most effective, is to develop a daily routine of taking CBD oil products morning and night, and then add in the other supportive products you need such as a CBD sleep aid or topical CBD product to help with more targeted aches that may keep you up at night.

Choose a Product or Products

A good sleep regimen begins with choosing the right CBD products for daily use. You may prefer a daily CBD capsule or to take easily measured CBD tinctures. Either of these choices will help to provide your body with an ongoing source of CBD and other cannabinoids, plus other supportive botanical ingredients.

Then, choose CBD sleep aids such as an additional serving of CBD oil sleep tinctures to add melatonin to your nightly routine. One other option we now have available is the new CBD Sleep Gummies to use at night for the added support you need to get a good night's sleep. However you choose to pair them for your optimal nighttime CBD routine, calculate the amount of CBD you are getting in each serving from each product. Though taking "too much CBD" isn't a problematic issue, it can be possible to take more than your body needs.

CBD sleep helpers available include:

1. Our award-winning CBD sleep tinctures
2. CBD sleep capsules
3. CBD Sleep Gummies
4. CBD bath products (like CBD Relax bath bombs or CBD sleep bath salts) infused with lavender can help prepare your body for restful sleep
5. CBD topicals can also help with the aches and pains that disrupt your sleep

Take Your Sleep Helpers on the Regular

When you choose to use a CBD sleep aid, remember that regularity is important. CBD products work better when you take them regularly and when you pair them with nighttime behaviors that also help to support a healthy sleep cycle. What you do in those crucial hours before bedtime can either help or hinder the efforts you make with your CBD to get a good night's sleep. Here are some helpful tips for preparing your body and mind for the restful sleep you need.

Practice Smart Bedtime Routines to Get Better Sleep

You can take all the CBD and other sleep helpers in the world and thwart the results if you aren't careful with the activities you do before bed. We play on our cellphones and interject bluelight which tricks our minds into thinking it is not yet time for sleep. We eat foods or drink beverages that interfere with a good night's sleep. So, to get the best from your CBD sleep aids, try these tips for a more relaxed evening that can help you fall asleep better (and stay asleep better!).

• Cut out the lights - Light (any source) can throw off your natural circadian rhythm. One hour (maybe two) before bed, turn down (or off!) the lights and the TV, and set aside the tablet, cellphone, and laptop. Save those well-lit activities for the daytime.
• Lay off the caffeine - The Sleep Foundation explains the relationship between caffeine consumption and poor sleep: "Inside the brain, caffeine blocks adenosine receptors. Adenosine is a sleep-promoting chemical that is produced in the brain during our waking hours. Normally, adenosine builds up in the brain the longer we're awake. The more it builds up, the sleepier we become. When caffeine blocks this process, we remain alert and vigilant."

Limit caffeine products within a few hours before bed. If you are particularly caffeine-sensitive (a genetic condition), you may need to cut out caffeine after lunch or altogether.

• Don't rely on alcohol - Many people think that alcohol helps them sleep, but in reality, alcohol impedes quality sleep, which can make you feel overly tired the next day. Alcohol consumption can also be habit-forming and leave your body dehydrated. Remember that quality sleep is just as important as falling asleep, as your body needs good sleep to perform bodily repair functions and other biological processes it does while you are sleeping.
• Play some soft instrumental or nature music - Similar to meditative practices, gentle and soothing sounds can also keep your mind relaxed and soothe you into sleep.
• Restrict uses for your bed - Your bed should only be used for certain things when you are in it: sex, sleep, light reading, or relaxing meditative practices. Experts say, by way of associative learning, this technique can help you to train your brain to produce sleep hormones when you climb into your bed.
• Try reading in the evenings - For some people, simply lying down and turning off the light can create anxiety that impairs sleep. If your mind is prone to rumination or worry during the fall-asleep time, reading something you enjoy can help distract your mind while you relax in bed. A bit of light reading can fill the void of time between when you take your ashwagandha + CBD and when you click off the bedside lamp and roll over to fall asleep. You can even get book lights now that don't have the blue light that keeps your body awake.
• Get in your exercise early in the day - Exercising your body regularly helps to work the muscles, joints, heart, and lungs, but it also burns up some of that energy that might be keeping you up at night. But do the exercise early in the day so you don't overheat your body right before bed and stir up all those exciting endorphins. Do it early, get in a good sweat, and at night you may find sleep comes more easily.

Your Trusted Source of CBD Sleep Aids | cbdMD

Gone are the days of late-night desperate runs to the drug store to buy some syrupy concoction to help you sleep. We're excited to offer something helpful to you without all the worry of "Hey, what's even in this stuff?" and of the habit-forming issues of many sleep aids on the market today. We make using ashwagandha for sleep and CBD for sleep even easier by creating a tasty gummy that gives you both. Quick, easy, sleepy.

We are proud to be your trusted source for CBD and CBD sleep aids. You can check here for a full lineup of our trusted sleep formulas.