Does CBD Oil Work for Anxiety? I Tried It to Find Out

Anxiety is not literally my middle name (it’s Alexandra) but it could be. Like my name, anxiety has been with me always. And until I had kids, everyone — including me — thought that I was simply a really good planner, a hyper-conscientious worker, and one of those 10-steps-ahead people who wards off problems before they occur. 

When my twins came along 16 years ago, however, my constant mind-grind became a liability — it was hard to simply enjoy their adorableness, because I was so distracted by the next thing I urgently needed to make happen or that could go horribly, catastrophically wrong. And then, three years ago, my unquiet mind — which I had learned to manage fairly well through exercise, meditation, an antidepressant, and therapy — really turned up the volume.

What’s going on in the news, especially politics, can send me into a state, and all the #MeToo stories roused some sleeping PTSD around events that I’d shoved into the recesses of my brain. Poor sleep kept me on edge during the day. My doctor prescribed lorazepam, the generic form of the anti-anxiety drug Ativan, and that helps in a pinch, but it also makes me spacey. So I asked her what she knew about cannabidiol (CBD), one of hundreds of compounds found in the cannabis plant.

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