CBD Product Reviewer

WEEK 1

Part 1
I am looking forward to trying the Charlotte’s Web CBD oil, to see if it can make a difference in the quality of sleep. I may have to play with quantities and/or timing of the dosage. I definitely do not want to feel groggy in the am, (which I’m not expecting) but will see what happens after the first few evenings of trying the CBD oil. My sleep has been fairly erratic for a few years now. I will have phases where I can turn off the light at 10:30 and sleep until 6am, with no disruption, except to get up and pee in the night.  (That always depends on how much liquid I drink closer to bedtime.)There will be rare times when I can actually sleep until 7:00am (even if I’ve gone to bed at midnight. But regardless, I generally feel like I have not gotten a really good night’s rest…..that kind where you wake up and are raring to go. I do things like put my phone on airplane mode; try to read instead of watching movies or be on the computer just before sleep and I’ve stopped drinking alcohol altogether to see if that helps to allow me to have a deeper sleep. I don’t have any particular anxiety or stress in my life (lucky me) so I was at a loss as to what I could do to try to get a better sleep. I used to take magnesium upon going to bed but I stopped that a while back.

Part 2
Took 2 droppers of the Charlotte’s Web CBD oil last night. Tastes fine. (Lemon Twist flavor). I didn’t notice any affect it may have had on me. In other words, I didn’t feel sleepy or the least bit affected by it. Turned out the lights at my around 11:00. Seemed to sleep ok….remember dreaming a bit. Got up to pee at least twice and felt pretty sleepy through that and got back into bed and right back to sleep. Before initially turning off the lights I turned on my SnoreLab app on my phone, so I could record my snoring or lack thereof through the night. I’m doing this in conjunction with testing the CBD oil, to see if there’s anything noticeable in my sleep regarding snoring, sounds, and/or talking in my sleep. I’m not anticipating anything unusual, but just wanted to test it. In addition, I’m listening to Michael Pollan’s book ‘How to Change Your Mind’, so it’s got me thinking a lot.

Upon arising, my eyes feel tired (as though I didn’t get enough sleep). Sometimes it’s difficult to know if that means I didn’t actually sleep well because later in the day I have the feeling that I could just lay down, close my eyes and take a nap (which I NEVER do). I know there have been some reports of low quality of air, which can affect the eyes and breathing. So I’m looking forward to see how the next couple of nights go with the CBD oil and hoping to wake up feeling refreshed and raring to go. Maybe it needs more time to get deeper into my bloodstream? 

Part 3
Woke up Tuesday am feeling refreshed, eyes not tired. The whole day I was pretty good until the late afternoon, which I noticed I felt tired and somewhat sleepy. It’s hard to say what causes the afternoon sluggishness. I’ve always had the idea it is due to lack of a good sleep but was never sure.

When I squeeze the dropper top and extract the CBD oil, it doesn’t fill up the dropper entirely, but only about 1/2 to 2/3 of the way. So on Tuesday night I tried what I would say was 1 1/2 dropper full. I woke up 2x to pee, the last time being at about 5am and went back to bed feeling as though I was pretty rested but that there was no need to wake up so early, so thought I’d attempt to go back to sleep, which often doesn’t work. Lo and behold, I slept in until after 7:00! I am so happy! I feel rested and am curious to see how the day goes, with what appears to be some extra sleep. Stayed up until past my usual bedtime, feeling like I still had energy.

Part 4
Took 1 ½ droppersful of the CBD oil and had a decent sleep. Although I turned out lights at 11:00ish, I slept until about 7:30, which is unusual for me. I usually wake up around 6:00/6:30 so I’m always happy to sleep later and at least get 7-8 hours sleep. I will say that my eyes hurt/burn, which again I’m not sure is due to lack of sleep or just dry eyes. That’s something I will need to work on and figure out. I think the ideal dose will be two full droppersful, but when I look at the bottle, it doesn’t seem that it has enough to carry me through a month, if I actually fill up the dropper, vs use only the amount that enters the dropper when I squeeze the bulb to extract the oil. 

Oct 12th & 13th Both days I’ve had a lot of energy and felt as though I got really good nights of sleep. Haven’t felt the afternoon fatigue at all and my mood’s been really good, which is often due to a good sleep as well as other factors. But when my sleep isn’t good, my mood is affected.

WEEK 2

Part 1
Took 1.5 dropperful of Charlotte’s Web CBD Oil last night at about midnight. I stayed up later than usual since I still had energy but was concerned that I would still wake up at my usual 6:30ish…But lo and behold I got to sleep until 8:45 – LOVE it! I feel rested and ready to go. I like the early mornings, generally, so don’t necessarily like to sleep so late so tonight I’m going to try to get to sleep earlier. I will take the CBD oil around 10:00 pm to see if it makes me a bit sleepy, enabling me to get to sleep earlier. Don’t get me wrong, I like having this type of energy and it seems to be related to getting a better sleep.

Although, I did have a dream last night that I gave myself a haircut that none of my hair salon people seem to be able to manage….that meant getting the scissors and pretty much chopping it up. I remembered the dream when I looked at myself in the mirror this morning. I was kind of relieved that I hadn’t really chopped the hair up but now I have an appointment for Wednesday and will see if I can get the hairdresser to do what I like. Haha.

Anyway, it’s only 11:00  am. Let’s see how I feel by 6:00pm.

Now, this evening, hours later I feel pretty full of energy and am happy to not feel so tired. But I can tell that I’m going to be up late.

Part 2
Stayed up until 12:45 am….so I’m feeling like I have a bit more energy than I’d like. It’s not that I couldn’t close my eyes and just go to sleep but it was more that I still had energy to stay up a bit late if I wanted. Didn’t take the CBD oil until about 11:30pm. Then slept in until about 7:45 am, which was enough sleep. Although, I do like the idea of trying to get more like 8 to 8.5 hours of sleep. Energy was still pretty good and I stayed up again until a little past midnight and woke up around 7:30am. 

Today I felt pretty good energy wise but noticed that around 4:30 pm I was starting to feel my energy waning. So I think I’m right about needing to try to get at least 8 hours of sleep. And since my body clock is pretty much set to wake up at least by 7-7:30 am during these cooler fall days, (with the rare recent occasions of sleeping in a bit) I think it’s probably still a good idea to get to sleep by 11:00 pm, which I will try out for tonight and see how it goes. I plan to take the CBD oil around 10:00 pm and see what happens. For now, my eyes feel a bit tired and yet my body feels ok. And I’m going to stay off of the computer or phone and just read a book. Tomorrow has to be an early day for me anyway, so I can’t sleep in, even if I wanted to or felt like it.

Part 3
I woke up one morning with a headache. It was after an evening where I stayed up very late again and didn’t take the CBD oil until about half an hour before sleep. I can’t say what caused the headache, but since I’m not drinking alcohol for the last few weeks, I can’t blame it on that. So it might be dehydration. However, I’m still noticing that my days are pretty much full on with energy. It’s not like energy that feels frenetic or chaotic, just I simply notice that I’m not tired in the afternoons like I usually was before taking the CBD oil. My plan is to get back on my regular exercise routine, which I expect may give me a little more fatigue late day, but I will test that out as we go.

I spent about 45 minutes at the gym this morning after having not been there for about 2 weeks. I did mostly aerobic stuff, treadmill, elliptical, and stationary bike. And it’s 9:30 pm and I’m beginning to feel tired and maybe even sleepy. I plan to take the CBD oil at around 10:00 pm and see how it goes tomorrow with another visit to the gym and some other activities during the day, one which will be a lot of walking at a museum. I mention this because it’s important for me to see what my energy levels are like when I have slept well. Previously I felt like the alcohol could be interfering with my sleep, which is why I stopped it.

WEEK 3

Part 1
Woke up with bad headache Monday morning. Went to bed late, but woke up around 7:30am. The headache went away on its own after a couple of hours. Throughout the day I felt fine and felt enough energy. I didn’t have to work that day so I just got a bunch of little projects completed. Felt quality energy throughout the day. Was one of the first times I felt like cooking something a little more substantial and again, I relate this to getting better sleep. My mood seems to have improved over all and despite the cooler weather, I feel like I have enough energy to last me until the end of the day. I have limited myself to the 2 droppers as they fill up with one extraction of the CBD oil and would like to try taking a bit more to see if it will give me an even deeper sleep with a higher quality of energy. There seems to still be room for a little more energy. That means that I’d like to feel little or no fatigue until bedtime. Haha…maybe that’s asking too much of a CBD oil. I’ve decided to just stick with my routine schedule vs changing my schedule to accommodate the taking of the CBD oil. I decided that this was the best way to test if something works, otherwise in changing my routine, it wouldn’t be a true picture of the CBD oil effect.

Part 2
I have been occasionally having a headache upon arising, in the last couple of weeks, but I’m also having a certain amount of back pain/sciatica, so I believe it’s related to that and NOT the CBD oil. I decided to skip one night of the CBD oil to see what the result would be. And I still had a bit of a headache when I woke, so that was my way to test it. In general, I’ve noticed that the energy is continuing to be enough throughout the day and that some days when I have less energy, it’s usually related to other things than lack of a good sleep. And I have noticed that the pain isn’t waking me up at night, like it has in the past. That’s a good sign. I used to take an Ibuprofen before sleep so that I could avoid being woken up by pain, but I am just now realizing I haven’t been doing that. And in fact, I’ve had a couple of nights sleep ALL the way through the night, without even getting up to pee. That was a nice surprise to me and I really like when my sleep isn’t interrupted at all. It’s so good to wake up and see that the clock says 6:30 am instead of 3:30 am. I’m getting close to being at the end of the bottle I’m testing. I don’t think it’s going to last a month, which is what I thought would be the case. I think I might have another few days remaining.

Part 3
My other comment about the CBD oil is to say that I do notice that my mood is pretty good throughout the day, which I will say has a lot to do with getting a good night’s sleep. When I’ve had a couple of nights of bad sleep, I will notice that I’m less patient and feel grumpy about things that don’t bother me when I’ve slept well. So since taking the CBD oil, I will have to say that I’ve felt pretty positive about now and the future. This is important and I believe getting a more quality sleep, due to the CBD oil, is making a big difference. I generally don’t like being dependent on any type of medication or even a supplement, but when it comes to getting decent sleep and feeling good and upbeat, is worth it. But I would not go so far as to take Ambien or any pharmaceutical. So I’m happy that a natural and non-toxic product is available. The other thing that is important (upon some recent research of CBD oils) is to make sure the CBD oil I take has no heavy metals or any other toxic ingredients. I also like that this CBD oil is from a local company, especially from an area that is very health oriented. I have a few food sensitivities, so it’s important to me to not take anything that would affect me negatively.  As I continue to use this CBD oil, I enjoy the knowledge that it’s a quality product.

WEEK 4

Part 1
I ran out of the bottle of CBD oil so I had a few days break. And that was good because I was able to test how I slept without the CBD oil for a couple of nights. I didn’t notice too much of a change except that I felt like I didn’t sleep as deep. What that means is that I felt a certain kind of fatigue, although it wasn’t severe. It was more like I missed my morning cup of coffee (which I don’t drink by the way). But those of you who do drink coffee might know what I mean. I suppose one could call it the morning jump start. So those couple of days felt like I didn’t get a shot of caffeine that morning. I do drink black tea however, so I do know what a milder shot of caffeine feels like. So for those couple of days felt a little flat with less overall energy. Now, I would relate that in general to any day after a night of not sleeping well, but this was a bit different, qualitatively different. Kind of difficult to describe. After the first night of taking my first dose of CBD oil after missing it for 2 nights, I didn’t notice too much of a difference in my day. After the 2nd night of being on the CBD oil again, I noticed a vague return of energy and felt like my sleep quality had improved again. That was nice to see.

Part 2
I’d like to note that I didn’t like the mint flavor CBD oil as much as the lemon twist CBD oil that I took for the first three weeks. It left my throat feeling a bit scratchy. I’m not sure why. And I always drink water after taking the CBD oil. And I make sure to shake the bottle. In general, I don’t necessarily like mint flavored anything, so it could just be that I have a sensitivity to it. I continued taking it despite that and noticed that it affected me that way less intensely after that one time. The next couple of days felt like my energy level got lifted again and my days felt fuller, as though I had more energy to get things done and had remaining energy at night. I will say that I have ended up staying up later than usual when I’m taking the CBD oils. It seems my overall  energy level has increased because I’m getting a good night’s sleep. And I’d like to test that theory by going off the CBD oils for a week to see what happens and then go back on afterward. But in general, I feel good and would continue using CBD oil to help with getting a restful sleep.

Part 3
The days of using the CBD oil felt pretty routine except that I wasn’t sleeping in late anymore (despite a late hour of getting to bed.) So I’d wake up and be worried that I wasn’t going to feel great that day due to lack of enough sleep.  But that wasn’t entirely the case. It is true that by 10pm or so that evening, I would begin to feel a bit tired but I still felt energetic the entire day. So even though I might be running on 5 hours sleep (damn those thriller detective shows that have cliffhangers at the end of each episode!) I realize I was feeling pretty good despite that lack of sleep. I will admit that also my living situation is currently one where I like to get up earlier than my housemate, to avoid having to communicate first thing in the am (when I like my quiet time). So the psychology of that could be overriding the body’s desire for more sleep. Lol Overall, I find that using the CBD oil has affected my quality of sleep in a positive way. And although it isn’t dramatic, it feels nice and subtle and doesn’t leave the feeling like I’ve taken some pharmaceutical. I found a coffee shop that will add CBD to your tea/coffee drink for $2.00 and I tried that once just to see what it was like to do that in the middle of the day. And I will say that I noticed a very very slight, mild buzz. More like an energetic relaxation. I don’t think I have the opportunity to feel that with taking the oil at night because I fall asleep soon afterward.