That's me trying CBD at a shop in New York City.

Lately, I've seen this stuff everywhere, okay, at your local health food store, but also at Urban Outfitters, Sephora and CBD shops like this one.

And if you look at some of the branding, it kind of makes sense.

Thes products claim to help with everything from anxiety to insomnia to muscle pain.

It almost sounds too good to be true, and maybe it iss to find out.

I set up a little experiment for one week.

I took CBD three times a day, while at the same time I tracked my anxiety with a scorecard, and I also chatted with an expert before and after to sort through the results.

Here's what I learned.

CBD is a distant cousin of THC that's the psychoactive chemical in marijuana.

They both come from the cannabis plant.

But CBD isn't psychoactive, meaning it doesn't get you high now.

Of course, getting high isn't the only reason why cannabis is popular.

People also use it to relieve pain, control seizures and lessen anxiety.

But as researchers like Dr Yasmin Heard are discovering, it's likely CBD, not THC.

That's behind these benefits, it can activate some serotonin receptors, and serotonin system is associated with alleviating anxiety.

Dr.

Hurt has been studying the effects of CBD for over 10 years, and she's found that it can reduce anxiety and people with a history of heroin addiction.

Now, fortunately, I don't have a history of addiction, but I do see a therapist for chronic anxiety and CBD could help both under normal conditions and in people who have anxiety disorders, enough research has started to show that it does have an anti anxiety effect.

So, back of the shop, I tried all kinds of products from sweets.

It looked off toe lotions and sprays.

E missed myself on while Dr Heard couldn't recommend a specific dose for me.

She did say that 300 mg should be enough to feel something if I take it every day, because participants in clinical trials typically take anywhere from 300 to 600 mg.

So those chocolates and sprays, yeah, they weren't going to cut it.

Instead, I went for something different.

Tinctures, right, these.

These are where you really get into the higher strength things.

Uh, I decided to err on the side of caution and take 250 mg each day broken out into three doses, 50 mg in the morning, 100 mg at midday and another 100 mg at night.

That way it wouldn't hit me all at once.

All right?

Today is the day.

I'm kind of nervous.

All right, here we owe now.

Mind you.

This was a Wednesday, a work day.

It's 50 e.

My mouth is filled with oil.

Right now it's like a nasty feeling and others tastes good.

Side note.

The reason I'm taking CBD this way is that there are tons of capital areas under your tongue, so anything you put there could be absorbed directly into your bloodstream.

Now, that's different than when you ingest CBD.

Like with that chocolate.

Ah, lot of it is broken down by your stomach, so you probably won't feel much.

Anyway, several hours later, I took my last dose of the day and I would say anything.

I just feel extremely tired.

That was the first thing I noticed that CBD was making me drowsy.

Really drowsy, Doctor Heard said.

That's actually a pretty normal side effect at high doses.

So tired.

But as I discovered the next night.

It might also be great for hangovers.

E went to a concert.

Carly Rae anyway, had some alcohol.

The next morning, e felt great.

And according to Dr Heard, that might be because CBD also has some anti inflammatory effects.

But what about anxiety?

What?

I was really in this for.

Each morning I filled out the anxiety scorecard the doctor heard gave me.

It's a rough estimate of my daily emotional state, based on numbered responses to statements like I feel at ease.

But day to day, it was a lot harder to figure out whether CBD was actually helping.

After three days now of CBD, I am mostly just tired.

But over the weekend I finally got that relief.

I was looking for even more quickly than I had expected.

So I happened.

It takes to be right before I had to do something kind of stressful today and I took 100 mg and felt like pretty quickly, I felt my nerves calming down, and I was like, Oh my God, this is totally working.

Um, which is really great because I feel like I'm looking for that.

Like quick relief as everyone is now.

Of course, this could have been a placebo, E.

I mean, all of this could be placebo.

So a few days later, I tried it again in a similar high stress situation.

Knuckle, I actually feel a little bit more calm.

It kind of puts me into this almost like Disassociative state.

I will say that I have also been listening to the Lion King soundtracks like, maybe that's a part of it.

When is the Lion King not gonna relax you?

Right.

At that point, I just had one day left.

I must say, I'm kind of excited to stop having to take this three times a day.

I think part of it is just like scheduling it, remembering I've also just been so much more tired.

I don't feel like my anxiety was kind of washed away.

I felt like there were a few times where it really helped.

In certain instances, onboard overall, kind of maybe lowered three intensity of how I was feeling because I felt kind of lethargic at the end.

I looked over my anxiety scorecard and sure enough, it showed that I was feeling slightly less anxious on my last day compared to my first.

Especially when I looked at statements like this.

Yeah, that's a big one for me.

And I was excited to run these results by Doctor heard.

How do you feel?

Um, to be honest, I don't feel that different.

I think that the biggest change that I noticed is I was just tired all the time.

Kind of like slow mo like with Arja.

That makes me feel like a little bit disassociated with reality, but quite kind of a good way.

And I think that that is what made me feel a little less anxious at times.

Taking it at night only might be the best.

So that this way get past the initial sedative effects or groggy effects, and then you don't have to worry about taking other things like caffeine.

Oh, so on to try and keep away.

And what about those moments of mawr Instant relief?

Was that in my head, or could CBD act that fast?

Yeah, absolutely.

For us in our studies, you know, people did shortly after getting CBD, but again at higher doses than you had.

Um did have report reduced anxiety, but if there was one take away from our conversations.

It was this CBD.

Ironically, even though it's now this huge fat in our society, we still don't have a very good handle on how it's working.

In other words, we don't know what size dose you should take, how exactly it changes your brain or how it impacts different people in different ways.

And that's largely because until late 2018, nearly all CBD was classified as an illegal substance, which made it really difficult for scientists to study.

And while research is starting to catch up, in some ways it's kind of too late.

It's one of the first times in history that the public is determining whether something is medicine, not scientists and physicians.

As for me, will I continue using CBD?

Yeah, but likely Onley for those moments when I need that instant relief because, well, it seems to benefit a lot of people.

I'm personally not fully convinced and also because this bottle it costs more than $130.

And if I'm going to spend that much on anything, I wanna be totally sure that it works.