Life can get tough and sometimes it can start to affect our general health and mental state. Right now, we all are experiencing some type of stress from COVID, the weather, bills, etc. and can experience depression. Everyone at some point in their life will have this happen and it can affect every part of our lives including our mood, our sleep, relationships, and more. CBD is one solution for many of these problems.
Many people will go to their doctor and receive an antidepressant to help with their depression, but they often take up to 6 weeks to fully work. This isn’t an ideal time frame for many people. Many studies have shown that CBD can be used to help with acute depression symptoms as well as our mood in a faster time frame.
When someone experiences depression, their body is lacking serotonin. Our body doesn’t have enough of the serotonin to pass between the synapses in the brain to cause us to feel happy. These synapses work on 5HT receptors which are the synapses responsible. CBD is thought to work on 5HT1A receptors, and indirectly through CB1 receptors. This can be a potential reason why CBD works for more acute symptoms. CBD may indirectly work on serotonin by elevating tryptophan, which is what serotonin is made from.
In animal models, more levels of serotonin were found when they were treated with CBD. Other animal studies put rats though various stress related tests to see the effect. It was found that rats showed better symptom management in these stress tests. This evidence is a strong indicator on the ability for CBD to help with a person’s depression.
References
El-Alfy AT, Ivey K, Robinson K, et al. Antidepressant-like effect of Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol and other cannabinoids isolated from Cannabis sativa L. Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior. 2010;95(4):434-442. doi:10.1016/j.pbb.2010.03.004
Bonaccorso S, Ricciardi A, Zangani C, Chiappini S, Schifano F. Cannabidiol (CBD) use in psychiatric disorders: A systematic review. NeuroToxicology. 2019;74:282-298. doi:10.1016/j.neuro.2019.08.002
