CBD for Focus and Concentration: Can CBD Improve Mental Clarity?
What are the benefits of CBD for focus and concentration?
What are the benefits of CBD for focus and concentration?
CBD For Focus and Concentration
We get asked several times a week if you can use CBD for focus and concentration. The short answer is yes, but it must be used in combination with other botanical ingredients, such as essential oils or terpenes, to provide a good and lasting effect. Let’s take a look into the science and of CBD for focus and concentration.
Losing focus is often a sign of other elements of our life affecting our ability to concentrate. There are many aspects that can affect focus, from lack of good sleep, pain and diet to stress and anxiety. Research suggests that there is little evidence CBD directly impacts focus and concentration on its own. You simply cannot just take some CBD oil and have your focus and concentration suddenly boost.
Rather, the use of CBD to help factors like energy, focus and concentration, are due to a delicate balancing act in our lives. When we get proper sleep, our energy levels improve during the day due to increased rest. When pain is eliminated, our focus tends to settle elsewhere. A good diet can help increase our brain function and mental capacities. These are all aspects that daily use that many people use CBD for. Increased focus and concentration just happens to be a positive side effect of maintaining a healthy routine.
One 2014 research review did posit that CBD might promote wakefulness for some, although further research is needed to fully understand how and why.
How Does CBD Improve Focus and Concentration?
We get asked several times a week if you can use CBD for focus and concentration. The short answer is yes, but it must be used in combination with other botanical ingredients, such as essential oils or terpenes, to provide a good and lasting effect. Let’s take a look into the science and of CBD for focus and concentration.
Losing focus is often a sign of other elements of our life affecting our ability to concentrate. There are many aspects that can affect focus, from lack of good sleep, pain and diet to stress and anxiety. Research suggests that there is little evidence CBD directly impacts focus and concentration on its own. You simply cannot just take some CBD oil and have your focus and concentration suddenly boost.
Rather, the use of CBD to help factors like energy, focus and concentration, are due to a delicate balancing act in our lives. When we get proper sleep, our energy levels improve during the day due to increased rest. When pain is eliminated, our focus tends to settle elsewhere. A good diet can help increase our brain function and mental capacities. These are all aspects that daily use that many people use CBD for. Increased focus and concentration just happens to be a positive side effect of maintaining a healthy routine.
One 2014 research review did posit that CBD might promote wakefulness for some, although further research is needed to fully understand how and why.
What Causes Brain Fog and Decreased Mental Clarity?
The Effects of Stress and Anxiety on Mental Clarity
CBD is often used by those with symptoms of stress and anxiety.
Anxiety disorders can cause you to feel fatigued, apprehensive, and focus on negative thoughts that can even lead to insomnia. A study on the effects of CBD and anxiety showed how CBD was able to help those whose sleep was affected by anxiety.
Stress is a normal aspect of our lives, but how it affects us is different from person to person. Some may be able to move on relatively easily while others cannot stop continually dwelling on it.
PTSD is another form of stress many people experience often relating to personalized and traumatic experiences. Several recent studies found that CBD was able to help those who suffered from PTSD.
If you suffer from social anxiety, stress, PTSD or other conditions such as SAD (Seasonal Affect Disorder), CBD may be able to help you regulate and balance those thoughts and allow you to focus on other aspects of your life, such as work, family and friends.
The Effects of Sleep Loss on Mental Clarity
CBD is also a favorite of those who suffer from lack of sleep, waking multiple times a night and insomnia. We need sleep to rest and relieve our bodies from stress. Those who are not able to get proper sleep often feel the effects in the form of fatigue, irritability, weight gain, lack on concentration and increased levels of stress. Some sleep disorders have been shown to be quelled with the use of CBD.
A study on the use of CBD for insomnia published in the journal, Medicines, involved 409 people with insomnia with most participants benefiting from the use. As noted above, a study about anxiety and sleep showed the use of CBD was able to positively affect those who had sleep issues from anxiety.
The Effects of Pain on Mental Clarity
CBD is a natural alternative for those suffering from pain. Pain can cause increased levels of stress, reduce your appetite, deter restful sleep, cause fatigue, increase irritability and make focus and concentration impossible.
People can suffer from a variety of different types of pain such as neuropathy, chronic pain, and externally stimulate pain such as working out or pulling a muscle. Each type of pain has its own source of causation and some cannot be remedied easily without the use of prescription medication or some type of alternative, such as CBD. CBD has been shown to help relieve chronic pain, arthritic pain, and is most commonly used to alleviate general pain from strenuous activity – something you can see directly from the increased CBD infused topical use by athletes.
CBD Products for Focus and Concentration
We have explored how the use of CBD can positively affect your focus and concentration, but there are many products formulated to directly address this need. As you may be aware, there are herbs and supplements that may help increase mental awareness and acuity such as Gingko Biloba or even essential oils. Just beware of one key element, not all products will produce the desired effects.
You wouldn’t buy a Body Butter to help improve mental clarity just as you wouldn’t buy a candle for knee pain. When deciding which products you will use in the end for focus, consider the method used first. For something like concentration, CBD aromatherapy would be one of the best options next to something ingestible such as a tincture or capsule.
Essential Oils for Focus and Concentration
Essential oils are often used for this purpose and many people swear by their use. Some essential oils such as Rosemary, Peppermint and Spearmint can help increase blood flow and thereby improve mental capacities. Diffusing essential oils is an easy way to benefit from essential oils but it is not the only way. CBD infused essential oil candles such as our Focus blend utilize essential oil blends to provide a stress relieving, calming and focusing effect on your body. Indeed as I write this, as I do most days, I have my trustee Focus blend candle by my side to help me stay on task and reduce distractions. Essential oil roll ons with CBD are another great option when diffusing is not possible and are able to provide the body with higher amounts of essential oils and CBD directly through the skin.
Candles for Focus and Concentration
CBD candles work very similarly to essential oils but are much easier to use requiring only a simple lighter or match to light and quick breath to extinguish. CBD candles are available with a variety of focus increasing, energy boosting and mood enhancing essential oils blends including Focus, Lemon Aid and Citrus Rain.
Tinctures for Focus and Concentration
Tinctures are fantastic for daily use due to their ease-of-use, affordability and ability to control dosage. Used for general wellness, stress, sleep and focus, CBD Tinctures can help to balance many aspects of your life by reducing stress and anxiety, promoting better, more restful sleep, reducing irritability and fatigue and helping to reduce any distracting pain you may have. All these factors can dramatically affect our lives and as each one plays a role in affecting the others, relieving one can help alleviate other and provide a greater sense of balance. For general wellness, CBD must be used 1 to 2 times each day routinely before you will be able to decide if the effects are benefiting your appropriately.
Capsules for Focus and Concentration
Capsules are great alternative to aromatherapy and tinctures. A capsule can be filled with brain boosting ingredients such as Vitamin B12 and Folate as well as other ingredients to help boost your body’s energy levels and increase motivation.
Key Takeaways
As you can see, there are several ways CBD can help improve your focus and motivation. Getting the results you want simply boils down to ensuring you are using a product that is able to achieve the results you are looking for. Any of the products we outlined above will provide a noticeable difference in mental clarity. The one you choose, is, as always, entirely up to you and your preferences.