
Should CBD be part of your preventive medicine strategy?

“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”
The above statement was said by Benjamin Franklin in 1736. Franklin said it to remind Philadelphia citizens to remain vigilant about fire awareness and prevention.
However, it can apply to a lot of things. Most importantly, your health. The meaning of Franklin’s statement is that it’s easier to stop something from happening than repair the damage after it has happened.
One of the biggest faults of most healthcare systems in the world is they are focused too much on treatment and not enough on preventive medicine.
The importance of taking preventive action towards your personal healthcare can’t be overstated. It can improve your health long term by catching potential problems before they become problems. It can increase your lifespan especially if part of your preventive medicine strategy is weight management. Plus, it’s a lot less expensive both time and moneywise if you stop something dead in its tracks before it can blossom into a full-blown situation.
Now, while CBD is often used by people for pain relief, sleep support, and stress management, it’s only logical to wonder if CBD (and other cannabinoids) would make sense as an addition to your preventive medicine strategy.
The key is your body’s endocannabinoid system (ECS). The ECS works on multiple systems in your body including the cardiovascular, respiratory, reproductive, and nervous systems. It sends outs neurotransmitters to all your body parts to check whether everything is running smoothly. If it finds a problem, it sends out instructions on how to fix it. Unfortunately, the endocannabinoid system is easy to throw out of whack. Your diet, how much you exercise, your stress level, and so on can take a toll on it.
There is thought to be a condition called “endocannabinoid deficiency.” This is when your body doesn’t produce enough cannabinoids on its own. The result is an imbalance within the homeostatic processes. It’s not known if endocannabinoid deficiency happens because of illness, mental distress, or whether it’s genetic. Because the ECS plays such a critical role in so many bodily functions (sleep, mood, clarity) not having enough cannabinoids can cause problems and have lingering effects. So, it goes to follow that if you increase the cannabinoids in your body, you’ll be less likely to suffer from an endocannabinoid deficiency.
Here are five more ways CBD can play a role in your preventive medicine strategy. CBD is thought to contribute to…
Relief from Exercise-induced Aches and Pains
Many people have found that CBD provides them relief from soreness and muscles aches caused by working out. This allows you to recover faster from intense workouts.
Relief from Joint Discomfort from Exercise
If you lead an active lifestyle, you’ll be happy to know that CBD might also provide you with immediate relief from joint discomfort caused by exercise.
A Healthy Restful Sleep
Using CBD to enhance sleep has become very popular. Although the research is still limited, it’s thought that CBD has a calming effect on your body’s natural sleep-wake cycle, which leads to a more restful sleep. Plus, CBD may help your body go from REM sleep into deeper NREM sleep. NREM sleep, which is more restful than REM sleep, helps your body heal and gives your immune system a boost.
Enhanced skincare
CBD has been shown to improve blood circulation, which will improve the health of your cells and reduce skin discoloration. A June 2017 study published by the Journal of Clinical Investigations found that “CBD is a vasodilator which means it makes your arteries and blood vessels wider, allowing for greater blood flow with less pressure.” Plus, research has shown that CBD helps ease the damaging effects of free radicals. Free radicals are “toxic by-products of oxygen metabolism that can cause significant damage to living tissues in a process called ‘oxidative stress.’”
Every effective preventive medicine strategy must also involve eating right, exercising, getting a restful sleep each night, and keeping your stress level low. Making CBD part of your preventive strategy could contribute to your overall wellness, health, and vitality.