· By Elsa Linsky
Workout & Recover With CBD
Whether you’ve got a consistent workout routine or you get your exercise in from wrangling young kids all day, we all want to stay healthy and live out our best lives. But let’s be real, working out is pretty damn hard - even when you’ve got the time for it! CBD can boost your workout in a growing number of ways, and is especially helpful in assisting with muscle recovery. As we age, it becomes increasingly important to nourish our mental and physical health, and CBD can make this much easier to accomplish.
CBD offers many benefits that reach far beyond exercise and recovery. CBD provides a natural way to improve your workouts through motivating, lessening anxiety, and increasing stamina. In addition, CBD can have a positive impact on your post workout recovery process by helping to ease muscle soreness, providing quality sleep, and decreasing recovery time. CBD is also a perfect complement to your yoga practice, as it allows you to stretch and bring your mind to peaceful focus with less effort. Whether you ingest your CBD through gummies or tinctures, or you apply a CBD infused topical to your skin, here are some ways in which using CBD can bring you a more rewarding workout and recovery experience.
How Can CBD Help Motivate You to Exercise
While everyone’s experiences are different, most people can agree that finding the motivation to workout can be difficult. This difficulty is amplified if you rarely have time to yourself (we see you, moms). By taking CBD, our stressors start to melt away, anxiety lifts, and we become better equipped to focus on the task at hand. This lessening of anxiety may be in part due to the activation of 5-HT1A receptors, which are responsible for emitting anxiolytic and antidepressive effects. CBD can help us clear a busy/frustrated mind, making us feel more uplifted and motivated to get active - which may be why (among other reasons) a third of cyclists, triathletes and runners reported to be users of CBD. The increased focus provided by CBD causes us to become more in tune with our bodies, making our exercise sessions more mindful, and lowering the chance of injury.
CBD for motivation and relief of anxiety is best accomplished through ingesting your CBD. We recommend CBD gummies or tinctures, consumed 2-3 hours before you start your workout. This is because it takes time for CBD’s effects to kick in. We also recommend avoiding CBD products that might contain a sleep aid. Play around with the dosage until you find what works best for you, knowing that an increased dose may help you better notice CBD’s uplifting effects.
CBD For Yoga
If the purpose of yoga is to quiet the mind and better connect with your truest Self within, then CBD should be a perfect complement to a focused and effective yoga practice - right? Yep. That’s right. While yoga poses can sometimes be strenuous and challenging, the real challenge is in quieting the mind. CBD relieves the anxiety and stress which clogs up our minds and in turn tenses up the body. Try CBD before your next yoga session to indulge in a more blissful yoga experience.
CBD For Recovery
If you’re taking CBD for workout recovery, the process begins long before your workout session. Productivity and exercise (especially intense workouts) are almost impossible to accomplish without having had a good night's sleep.
CBD For Sleep Recovery
Sleeping is our most valuable tool in healing and recovery. If you have trouble falling asleep and staying asleep, it may be due to a busy/anxious mind. CBD works to alleviate stress and improve anxiety, allowing our minds to settle, which may improve your sleep quality. Additionally, research has found CBD to have therapeutic potential for sleep apnea and insomnia - amazing!
CBD For Muscle Recovery
There are two ways to benefit from CBD for muscle recovery. One is through ingesting CBD (by taking CBD gummies, tinctures or other ingestible CBD products). The other is through applying a CBD topical (such as a cream, oil or CBD bath salt soak). There are numerous properties in CBD that assist in exercise recovery and healing. One study found CBD to boost recovery due to its pain-relieving, analgesic and anti-inflammatory properties. CBD’s anti-inflammatory effects are especially helpful in muscle recovery, as it is the inflammation of our muscles that causes soreness and muscle pain. To bring pain relief to a specific muscle or muscle groups, we recommend applying a CBD topical to calm the area.
There’s nothing more important than maintaining and nourishing our mental and physical health, so might as well invite CBD into your life. Throw some Bizzy into your gym bag and try CBD for your next workout. Let us know how it works for you! Learn more about CBD by reading more on the Bizzy Buzz. Stay Bizzy and chill!