3 ways CBD can improve your sex life

CBD may be a well known aid for stress and anxiety, but it’s also great for what goes down in the bedroom. Here are 3 ways CBD can improve your sex life

CBD is one of the hottest trends to date and one of the fastest growing wellness supplements on the planet – literally everyone is talking about it.

In fact, a CBD Usage survey carried out by the Centre for Medicinal Cannabis (CMC), found that 6 million people in the UK have used CBD in some form.

CBD oil – which is short for cannabidiol oil, is derived from cannabis but without the psychoactive substance THC.

It’s become such a popular aid that companies are coming up with plenty of innovative ways for people to get their CBD hit, such as adding it to beauty products, gummies, foods and drinks.

Most people are aware of the benefits of taking CBD and how it can help mitigate a range of wellness issues, such as promoting relaxation and restful sleep, relieving anxiety and stress by having a beneficial effect on the brain and having anti-inflammatory properties.

But did you also know that CBD can also help in the bedroom department?

Are you feeling irritable, depressed or sleep deprived? From money worries to arguments with your nearest and dearest or deadlines at work to the current coronavirus crisis – plenty of factors may be playing havoc with your libido and sex life.

Given the current circumstances, many of us will be spending more time inside. Could upping your sex life be a welcome addition to your schedule?

Here are three ways CBD can improve your sex life. You can thank us later…

#1 CBD eases stress and anxiety

One of the key reasons most people supplement with CBD is due to its ability to reduce stress and anxiety.

This is mainly due to the fact that CBD is believed to enhance the effects of your natural feel good brain chemicals and receptors within the body’s own endocannabinoid system (ECS) – a collection of cell receptors related to mood, such as serotonin.

Stress affects relationships in many ways, but it certainly affects intimate relationships and can lead to longer periods of celibacy.

‘Stress affecting your sex life is a very common problem, I even feel this way myself when I am going through a particularly stressful time,’ says health expert, Dr Moltke.

This is because when reacting to stress, our bodies go through a series of changes in order to prepare for you to either run away or stay and fight. This is known as the fight or flight response, where you’ll notice an increase in heart rate, blood pressure and breathing rate.

This fight or flight response triggers the release of hormones, such as cortisol (stress hormone) and epinephrine (adrenaline), which in high levels can cause a decreased sex drive.

When stress is chronic or long lasting, the body uses up our sex hormones to meet the increasing demands for higher cortisol production, this diminishes sex drive leaving you with absolutely no interest in having sex.

‘Stress involves the release of different hormones, but especially the chronic stress hormone known as cortisol, which is directly involved in lowering your libido and your sexual drive,’ explains Dr Moltke who is also Editor in Chief of Getthedose.com and Scientific advisor to TheDrug.Store.

‘In fact, cortisol can completely rob a woman of her sex drive and can make it difficult for men to get an erection’.

So, in order to help increase your sex drive you’ll need to lower your stress (cortisol) levels.

To do this, many people turn to alcohol to help them relax. However, you don’t need us to tell you that alcohol probably isn’t the best answer. It may reduce stress in the short term, but long term it can cause a whole heap of health issues.

Plus, alcohol has a direct negative effect on sex drive. This is because alcohol is a depressant, meaning it can dampen mood, decrease sexual desire and make it difficult for a man to achieve an erection as well as make it harder for a woman to reach orgasm.

What can reduce stress levels though without the need for alcohol is CBD. This is due to the role CBD has in supporting the endocannabinoid and serotonin system.

Incorporating CBD into your daily routine rather than that glass of wine could be far more beneficial in reducing your stress levels and therefore your sex drive.

We spoke to 40-year-old Catherine who switched her and her partner’s stress relieving post-work wine for CBD.

‘Although I wasn’t drinking loads, I did find that I was becoming a little too reliant on alcohol to help ease tension and feel more chilled out at the end of my day,’ explains Catherine.

‘Last year, my partner and I decided to give up alcohol for 30 days for Stoptober, and despite finding a great selection of alcohol-free tonics and nice tasting drinks, we still found it really hard to relax in the way I used to with alcohol.

‘I had read loads about the benefits of CBD for stress, so decided to give it a go and see if it would help relieve any stress and tension. There were plenty around to choose from, but most tasted rather yuck.

‘After a bit of research I found out about Pollen, made with CBD from broad spectrum hemp oil that comes in three delicious flavours of drink drops, (£55 to £135 per 100ml).

‘All I had to do was add these drops to my regular tonic or juice as part of my daily routine, and after a couple of weeks I found myself able to relax and enjoy more intimate moments with my partner.

‘When it came to bedtime, rather than passing out after a few glasses of wine, we enjoyed chatting and spending time in bed together discussing our sex life. Feeling more relaxed and connected helped with both our arousal and meant we had more satisfying and meaningful sex.

‘Taking time to enjoy being intimate and explore ways to touch and feel was really exciting and rather unexpected, which was a a huge bonus.

‘Oh, and having more sex has been proven to reduce stress, we are so much more connected, so it’s a win-win for us’.

CBD can also help with anxiety during sex…

CBD can also stop the worrying thoughts that go through your head before or during sex.

Not only does stress affect your sex life physically but physiologically too, as stress can cause you to have a busy and racing mind which can distract you from wanting sex or being present whilst having sex. This can lead to relationship tensions.

‘What often accompanies stress is ruminations, worry, obsessive thoughts and self-critical statements which can consume a person’s thoughts, diminishing sexual desire,’ adds Dr Moltke.

‘If you can’t rest and relax the mind, your brain turns into a broken record of thought processes and destructive thoughts, making it very hard to get into the mood for sex and intimacy, neither are you present in the present moment’.

Plus, during sex anxious thoughts may distract a person from pleasurable sensations, making it difficult to become aroused or orgasm.

So basically, stress and sex drive do not mix. You just cannot have a head full of worries as well as a great sex life.

Try also: Pollen’s three flavours of delicious gummies infused with 10mg of CBD per piece (1-3 gummies at a time), made with natural ingredients, £35 (30 gummies).

These gummies are perfect for those who aren’t too keen on the bitter taste of other CBD products as they are flavoured with delicious natural flavours such as cayenne and grapefruit, as well as honey and tart cherry with no distinctive aftertaste.

#2 CBD helps you sleep so you have more energy for sex

As well as being a popular supplement for stress and anxiety relief, CBD is also excellent in aiding restful sleep, which is necessity if you want the energy to have a great sex life in the first place.

‘CBD is great for helping people sleep and when asking clients many of them do use CBD especially for sleep purposes,’ says Dr Moltke.

‘Sleep is a huge stress reliever and is super important when trying to manage your stress levels. You must make time to work on your sleep pattern and prioritise a good night’s sleep of you want to diminish chronic stress.

‘If you’re really stressed and I often see this in the stress clinic I work with, people will have such high cortisol levels and constant racing thoughts, it makes it increasingly difficult for them to fall asleep or they wake up many times during the night, meaning they do not feel refreshed or energised the next day.

‘I recommend taking 25mg of CBD consistently in order to feel the effects, says Dr Moltke. ‘But you may even need more. Some people feel the effects almost instantly but for others it may take two weeks to a month.

‘If you don’t feel anything after a month it’s probably because you are taking too little or you are taking a CBD product that isn’t right for your endocannabinoid system. There are certain medications that do not work well with CBD (e.g certain blood-thinners), so be sure to check with your GP,’ advises Dr Moltke.

It’s important to use a CBD brand which is independently tested and clearly states the percentage or amount of CBD within the product so you can control your dosage.

A study in The Times found that a huge percentage of CBD products had far less CBD than they were claiming. Pollen CBD is independently tested twice which means you can be certain that Pollen products have the amount of CBD that is stated on the label.

As well as taking CBD, Dr Moltke advises meditating before bed, having a warm shower and making sure you have a bedtime routine that allows you to sleep for a total of seven to nine hours.

#3 CBD reduces pain

Although CBD is often used to help with joint related pain and arthritis, CBD can also benefit pain such as menstrual cramps.

CBD addresses pain in two ways, it can desensitise pain-perceiving nerves as well as limiting inflammation which is often a major contributor to pain.

This works because CBD targets the same enzyme that Ibuprofen does, which decreases your body’s production of inflammatory prostaglandins. This reduces both the intensity of menstrual cramps and your ability to feel their pain signals.

What’s more, CBD also increases blood flow and nerve sensation, which can help enhance sexual pleasure and intensify orgasms.

We spoke to Terri and her partner who have been together for four years. Terri started taking CBD for anxiety, and for pain caused by endometriosis. Both her and her partner have been taking CBD for four months.

Terri and her partner Reagan

‘It was a friend who recommended I use CBD to help my anxiety and for pain relief from my endometriosis symptoms.

‘My endometriosis often meant that I used to get some pain after sex like a bad bout of cramps. It’s difficult to explain, but it could often go on for days.

‘There were also lots of days when one or both us were just too stressed out to be interested in sex either. Stress levels seemed to dictate if we had sex or not, and if we did it was often a quicky on the weekend once we’d had a couple of drinks.

‘The drinking helped me forget about the potential pain issues, which would usually cause me to tense up and find it impossible to be in the moment.

‘But although this helped in the short term, long term it meant that I no longer looked forward to a drink and I really didn’t like the fact I was relying on alcohol.

‘Plus, in the end we’d got out of the habit of having sex sober and it was sad because at the beginning we always had a healthy, loving sex life rather than a drunken fumble.

‘Initially we started by taking a CBD tincture which didn’t seem to have much effect as it was too low in CBD. We then swapped to Pollen and it took about two to four weeks for us to see noticeable effects.

‘After taking Pollen CBD Drink Drops two to three times a day, I started to feel more relaxed for sure. Not having to rely on booze to get me in the mood also meant our sex is now more loving and we’re back to mid-week and morning sex – which is great!’

Think you – or your sex life – could benefit from some CBD supplements?

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