It feels like there are so many stressors in our modern lives. Work deadlines, tumultuous relationships, and financial obligations all contribute to our daily stress levels. Of course, navigating a global pandemic for the last year hasn’t been very helpful either.
According to a recent survey, Americans are some of the most stressed-out people in the world. It’s essential to our health that we take steps to combat this stress and try to relax. That’s where yoga and CBD come in.
Why Combine Yoga And CBD?
Both yoga and CBD are often used for similar purposes—to help us relax, ease physical pain, boost our mood, and assist our sleep patterns.
On their own, both yoga and CBD can be great tools in helping calm our body and spirit. However, when used together in tandem, they can each become even more effective. Keep reading to learn different ways to merge hemp-derived CBD with your yoga practice.
Using CBD During Your Practice
Go ahead and put on your most comfy pair of yoga pants, but before you step out onto the mat, try taking some CBD. Because CBD is non-intoxicating, meaning it won’t make you feel high, it’s perfectly safe to enjoy its sublime relaxing effects before your first pose.
CBD has several effects that make it pair well with yoga—particularly with restorative yoga. By manipulating the cannabinoid receptors in our endocannabinoid system (ECS), CBD has the potential to reduce our anxiety, as well as soothe an active mind. If you have trouble staying in the moment and maintaining your zen during yoga time, CBD may help you keep your mind off your to-do list and focused on your breathing.
CBD also suppresses the breakdown of the neurotransmitter anandamide, which takes its name from the Sanskrit word for bliss. Anandamide plays a key role in our body’s natural chemistry and can produce the feeling of bliss, the chemical it’s named for. By prolonging anandamide’s stay in our body, CBD can extend our post-shavasana bliss keeping us feeling good for longer.
Enjoying a relaxing cup of hemp tea can be a great way to relax and set the mood before beginning your practice. However, oral consumption methods of CBD have much lower bioavailability compared to other methods. This means that when you take edible CBD, most of the cannabinoid doesn’t actually make it to your bloodstream, where your body can put it to use. This is largely due to the fact that when we consume CBD orally, it first has to navigate the labyrinth of our digestive system.
Inhalation methods, like E1011's innovative CBD delivery device, elon®, has much better bioavailability since the cannabinoids are absorbed directly by the lungs. The practical effect of this is that not only do you need less of the cannabinoid to be effective, but it also takes less for the effects to take hold. For these reasons, CBD inhalation methods can make properly dosing for your yoga session easier than capsules or gummies.
Using CBD After Yoga
Upbeat or more physical yoga classes can be a real workout, leaving yogis with sore muscles.
Research suggests that CBD’s anti-inflammatory properties make it an effective tool for relieving different types of pain. CBD topicals are creams, balms, or salves that are infused with CBD. The topicals can be used to spot treat the specific areas of your body where you are feeling pain.
Alternatively, inhalation methods of CBD mitigate pain through all parts of the body at the same time. In the same case as oral consumption methods, CBD inhalation is faster and more effective at delivering cannabinoids into the bloodstream than topical applications.
Do you use CBD with your yoga? Let us know how you like to incorporate it into your practice. Namaste.
