How Can CBD Oil Help You Balance Hormones?
In our previous post about hormones, we attempted to explain hormones in simple terms and give practical tips on how to balance them. In this post, we would like to answer a more specific question – can CBD oil balance hormones?
One thing we know for sure is that CBD helps your body balance the hormone cortisol. But let us show you how, by simply balancing that one hormone, your whole endocrine system gets affected and multiple other hormones also come into better balance. Let us explain it step-by-step.
Cortisol is considered to be the stress hormone, however, it’s one of your energy hormones as well. Cortisol is at peak levels one hour after waking up and it slowly goes down during the day if everything is functioning properly. Therefore, it’s the lowest in the evening, which allows the sleep hormone melatonin to kick in. If there are imbalances in cortisol, which means it’s either too high or too low during the day, then you will experience energy spikes and crashes, sugar cravings, and the inability to fall asleep at night. An important thing to keep in mind that if you spike cortisol, it will eventually go down lower than it would if you didn’t initially spike it. The same goes for most of the other hormones in the body.
What causes imbalances in cortisol?
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Stress causes a spike in cortisol, thus causing it to crash later on.
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Too much sugar causes a spike in insulin, which causes blood sugar levels to drop too low, which further causes a spike in cortisol.
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Caffeine causes a spike in cortisol, followed by a crash.
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Too much exercise spike cortisol, followed by a crash.
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Too much stress, in the long run, will cause low production of cortisol when the adrenal glands get burnt out.
Since stress has the biggest effect on your cortisol levels, we want to make sure we minimize it and that’s where CBD oil comes in to save the day.
It is clear that CBD oil balances cortisol, but how does it balance the rest of the hormones?
Well, as we saw in the previous post, cortisol affects the sleep hormone melatonin. Melatonin makes you fall asleep and keeps you asleep at night, so when cortisol is too high in the evening then melatonin can’t go up, thus preventing you from sleeping and resulting in a vicious cycle.
So, does CBD oil balance hormones?
CBD lowers your stress levels and gives you more steady energy throughout the day while also helping you sleep at night. Lack of sleep affects the hormones leptin and ghrelin that control your hunger and satiety, as well as energy and cravings. When you have a more balanced appetite and cravings that are under control, you are way less likely to go for a sugary snack (all simple carbs are technically sugars including chips and french fries). Consuming sugar will spike insulin which affects your metabolism, fat storage, and will cause even more sugar cravings.
CBD helps you get proper sleep which helps you manage appetite, lowers cravings, and balances energy levels. Sugar consumption and extra body fat cause imbalances in the sex hormones estrogen and testosterone. Imbalances in those hormones cause further fat storage, muscle and bone wasting, PMS, and menopause symptoms. Estrogen imbalances affect our thyroid hormone which is responsible for metabolism and energy production. CBD helps balance your metabolism, fat storage, and energy production.
It is easy to see how by affecting just one hormone like cortisol, we then influence the rest of the important hormones also. So if you are taking CBD oil for stress management, you can also expect that you will sleep better, have more energy during the day, have fewer sugar cravings, a more balanced appetite, and have a healthier metabolism with the proper amount of fat storage and muscle gain.
Curious to give CBD oil a try for yourself? We suggest ICARIA’s Theia Double Strength which will provide you with a higher concentration, and zero flavoring making it easy to take throughout the day when needed.
You can also check out what other happy customers are saying here!