Treating Anxiety & Depression with CBD

Unfortunately for some, the holiday season can be difficult. Loneliness, loss, a tight budget that keeps you from giving the gifts you want to… all contribute to anxiety and depression. 

Health Central recently reached out to our team for our opinion on using CBD to treat anxiety and depression. You can read the article below, but we wanted to share a few techniques to help manage anxiety and depression here as well. 

  • Get an adequate amount of good sleep- Restful sleep promotes healing, regulates blood sugar, and is even needed for weight loss. Weight gain is often a source of anxiety for many people during the holidays.

 

  • Avoid too much sugar- Sugar significantly contributes to inflammatory conditions, is very addictive, and wreaks havoc on all of our physiological systems, greatly affecting our mood.

 

  • Do something fun that gets your heart pumping- Of course, check with your physician first, but exercise is one of the best-known anti-depressants. Anandamide, also known as “the bliss molecule,” a cannabinoid our body produces, is responsible for the “runner’ high” that makes us feel oh-so-good after an effective workout.

 

And lastly, if you are becoming too overwhelmed with anxiety or depression, please contact your health-care provider. We are also happy to provide you with local mental health resources anytime. Please call 888-810-WELL (9355).

Read the Health Central article here

“I’m just calm”

Brandon Sparks, of USMC, finds calm with cannabis.

Brandon Sparks, 19, saw more at his young age than many men will see in a lifetime on a dark night in 1996.  Sparks would recall 20 years later the horror of the night when two US Marine Corps helicopters collided in mid-air claiming the lives of 14 marines.

A member of the Quick Reaction force, Sparks was called to the scene with fellow teammates to recover the bodies of the fallen and in a North Carolina swamp, that’s not an easy task in any type of weather or light conditions.  That moment in time would change his life forever, as he recalls his exposure to the sheer carnage of retrieving bodies that had literally been hacked to pieces by the tail rotor of one of the aircraft.  Sparks said of that night, “I just kinda started falling apart.”  He would leave the USMC within a year and squashed his memories of that fateful night into the corners of his mind for the next 20 years, when he was finally diagnosed with PTSD – post traumatic stress disorder.  

In 2018, Sparks would apply for and receive his medical marijuana card in an effort to lower the use of five different kinds of medication to treat his insomnia, bipolar disorder, as well as anxiety, depression, and insomnia.  Smoking cannabis flower has led him to a place where he says he has been able to reduce his medications and only take pharmaceuticals for bipolar and anxiety.  

Today, Sparks says “I wake up in the morning, I have a cup of coffee and I smoke a bowl or smoke a vape and within 20 minutes I’m just calm, I’m not over processing things in my brain.  I’m not hypervigilant, I don’t have a ton of thoughts.”  A true believer in the power of the plant medicine offered by cannabis, Sparks is now a 42-year-old father to three girls in Buffalo, New York. 

With every journal purchase we donate 20% to TAPS, the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors. An organization dedicated to helping veterans and their families. To order, use the link below.  



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