CBD Product Reviewer
Michael McCarthy
Male | 45-54
Sleep
Michael has found that CBD combined with good sleep hygiene gives him the best chance for a good night of rest.
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Products Reviewed
Charlotte’s Web CBD Gummies 10mg – Sleep
$44.99
Charlotte’s Web | CBD Gummies | Sleep
PRODUCT RATING
WEEK 1
Part 1
I took my Charlotte’s Web CBD 10mg raspberry hemp extract-infused sleep gummies for first time last night. The packaging was nice and substantial. The freshness cover was easy to take off. The jar was easy to open, but I noticed also child proof. All instructions and labeling was easy to read, although there are a lot of words on the packaging. It’s not that intuitive to know what brand it is and then what the product name is. Could this be simplified? I was surprised by the taste. They tasted great. They got stuck in my teeth a bit like a soft candy might (think soft Dots), but I got over it. With regard to the sleep, I am a terrible sleeper and I think that I got to sleep easier and had a deeper sleep—but it’s just one night. I look forward to waiting and seeing if this is true over longer term. I woke up a bit groggy as well, but again it’s just one night sample. I am going to do some research on Melatonin as well as I wonder how much this is contributing to the better sleep. I also want to know if taking Melatonin daily is a good thing for your body. I have heard that it is a thing naturally produced by the body and does not need regular supplementing unless you know that you are deficient.
Part 2
I have been taking the Charlotte’s Web CBD 10mg raspberry hemp extract-infused sleep gummies for about 5 nights now and I think I am noticing a difference both in effectiveness in getting to sleep and staying asleep. I do think that I wake up a bit more groggy, but this may be due to the fact that I am sleeping deeper throughout the night and am just not used to that feeling. I am taking the gummies at about 9:30pm and may need to try and take them a bit earlier and get to bed a bit earlier. They seem to take at least 30 minutes before I start to feel the effects. The effect feels like heavier onset tiredness and seems to help reduce the mind racing mode that I can get into when I am not falling asleep well. I often times watch TV from bed as I am going to sleep and have noticed much heavier eyes when I do this now. I am definitely not staying up as late and my time to falling asleep has been reduced. I am going away for a few days and will not be taking my gummies so I will be interested in noticing if there are any changes. I wonder if there is a cumulative effect to taking the gummies as well. Does it take a few days to take good effect? If you stop taking them, does it take a few days to build back up a critical mass?
Part 3
I have been taking CBD 10mg raspberry hemp extract-infused sleep gummies for about a full week now. I am enjoying the flavor and think that I am getting better sleep. I am judging this based on how fast I get to sleep and my ability to stay asleep. I am also judging this based on how tired I am during the day and am noticing that I am less tired during the day. In the past, my lack of sleep would make me very tired during the day–even shortly after I got out of bed or more frequently in the afternoon. Now, I seem to be less tired during the day and can forego napping or having to take some caffeine which I don’t like to do. I have tried other sleep aids in the past and notice that they work but they don’t encourage long-term use and they leave me groggy in the morning. I have also taken melatonin supplements and never noticed a difference. Maybe I didn’t have right dosage. I have also tried a CBD tincture in past but didn’t notice a difference with that remedy either. It didn’t have melatonin in it and was very difficult to know how much liquid you were getting from tincture. I forgot the name of the CBD but it was very expensive for a small bottle of a few ounces. The gummies are very easy to chew and digest and it’s easy because it says to take two and it is very easy to measure two gummies.
$44.99
WEEK 2
Part 1
I am now into my second week of taking my Charlotte’s Web CBD 10mg raspberry hemp extract-infused sleep gummies. I have been taking them religiously every night before bed. Since my sleep routine had been good over last week, I have had a consistent 7 nights of going to bed pretty regularly. I try to take them 30 minutes before I want to get to sleep. This has been consistently 9:30pm for me. I notice that I am not spending much time with distracting thoughts in my head. This has been the most noticeable effect so far. I remember trying to relax as my eyes get heavier and then don’t remember struggling to fall asleep. This is a big and noticeable change from my normal sleep patterns. The other noticeable difference is that I am not waking up once I fall asleep. This is something I typically suffered from regularly in the past. My sleep is deeper and more sound. I still wonder if I am more groggy in the morning now that I am taking the gummies, but it’s hard to determine exactly yet. I will keep trying to monitor the grogginess effect. I wake up the exact same time every morning (at about 6:30am). I am usually getting 8 hours of sleep per night. So this is very consistent.
Part 2
I have had a week of long workdays and have worked out at the gym probably more than usual. It has been warm in Colorado this week, so we have also had the air conditioner on in the house. I usually sleep better with air conditioning on in the house. Keeping to my same sleep routine, I am trying to take the Charlotte’s Web CBD 10mg raspberry hemp extract-infused sleep gummies about 30 minutes before I go to bed. My sleep hygiene was probably not the best this week. I was getting home later, eating dinner later and getting some pretty good screen time in before I retired for bed. There seem to be so many variables to getting a good night sleep: sleep hygiene, staying hydrated, not consuming too much alcohol, not eating dinner too late, etc. that it becomes hard to isolate the one or two factors that contribute to either a good or a bad night sleep My feeling is that when I eat dinner at regular time, get enough hydration, and get to bed at a reasonable hour, my sleep is much better. When I eat a late dinner, drink too much water and don’t get to bed at a reasonable hour, my sleep is worse. I am going to make a conscious effort to improve my sleep hygiene this week.
Part 3
I guess this review is about the placebo effect. Due to a busy week with lots going on in the evenings, I have lost track as to which evenings I have taken the CBD 10mg raspberry hemp extract-infused sleep gummies. As a result, I have lost track of whether my sleep was deep or better or not. If I had to guess whether this week was better than last week, I would guess that my sleep was not as good. Perhaps it was because I took the CBD gummy jar off my bathroom counter and put it under the sink where I forgot about it. I have since replaced it back onto the counter next to the sink. I find this placement of the CBD gummy jar much easier for remembering to take them. I now take them after I brush my teeth because I don’t want to brush the gummy out of my teeth before I digest them. They are gummies however and I do find that they stuck in my teeth quite a bit. I wish that they didn’t get stuck in the teeth so much. I might start eating them before I brush my teeth. It also makes me think, should I be checking the label for how much sugar is in these gummies? Are they bad for my teeth?
$44.99
WEEK 3
Part 1
This week I need to travel with my CBD 10mg raspberry hemp extract-infused sleep gummies. It will be the first time that I have needed to travel and bring my CBD 10mg raspberry hemp extract-infused sleep gummies. I am only traveling by car for a long weekend so I can bring my entire jar of gummies, but it has made me question how I would bring my gummies if I went on a plane. I guess I would put them in a baggie or something like that. The jar which carries 60 gummies which are about the size of small sugar cube, but of course soft and chewy. The jar is about the size of a large hand cream dispenser. This makes it hard to travel with as it takes up way too much room. As it turned out, I put the jar in my bag and never unpacked it and thus did not take it for a few days. I did notice that I did not sleep very well but am attributing this to the fact that I was sleeping at altitude. I never sleep well at altitude. There are several substantiated accounts that most people don’t sleep well at altitude due to the level of oxygen. It apparently cause a light REM sleep environment.
Part 2
This review is about the positive effects that I feel that I am enjoying with regards to full night sleep. I have been using CBD gummies…for a few weeks now and took them on a few days of vacation with me. The vacation was filled with later evenings than usual and earlier mornings. In addition, my buddy gave me Breathe Right strips telling me that he thinks he gets better sleep when using them. I tried the Breathe Right strips one night and felt like my sleep was the same as it had been since taking the CBD..I realized then that I was really enjoying the benefits of the gummies as the addition of the Breathe Right strips did not improved the already effective sleep nights that I was experiencing with the CBD gummies…I might try to not use the CBD…for a few nights and monitor my sleep using my Fitbit and then going back on the CBD…and again monitoring with my Fitbit. I am really interested in empirically proving that the CBD gummies …are really changing my sleep patterns. I would like to prove empirical results before I commit to buying a 30-day supply of CBD for $80. It is expensive, but would be worth it if it were really improving my sleep patterns. I will write about the results of my Fitbit experiment in the next review.
Part 3
This week I need to travel again with my CBD 10mg raspberry hemp extract-infused sleep gummies. I like to bring the CBD gummies in a clear plastic bag with a few other things I need to take–aspirin, heart medicine, etc. They travel well, as the CBD gummies don’t melt or stick together very much. They stay fairly consistent in terms of their form even if the temperature is hot. My travels take me to the mountains where the altitude sometimes makes sleeping difficult. I find that sleeping at altitude increases the time it takes me to get to sleep and then also produces a very light sleep. I have read that altitude affects your REM cycle and produces a much more light REM cycle which results in frequent episodes of wakefulness. I am really hoping that my CBD 10mg raspberry hemp extract-infused sleep gummies will work at altitude just as well as they seem to be working at lower altitudes. I am spending 4 days and 3 nights at altitude so it should give me a good sample size. I will report back with my observations.
$44.99
WEEK 4
Part 1
This week I traveled again with my CBD 10mg raspberry hemp extract-infused sleep gummies. I like to bring them in a clear plastic bag with a few other things I need to take–aspirin, heart medicine, etc. They travel well as the gummies don’t melt or stick together very much. They stay fairly consistent in terms of their form even if the temperature is hot. My travels took me to the mountains where the altitude sometimes makes sleeping difficult. I find that sleeping at altitude increases the time it takes me to get to sleep and then also produces a very light sleep. I had read that altitude affects your REM cycle and produces a much more light REM cycle which results in frequent episodes of wakefulness. I was really hoping that my CBD 10mg raspberry hemp extract-infused sleep gummies would work at altitude just as well as they seem to be working at lower altitudes. I am happy to report that after spending 4 days and 3 nights at altitude my sleep was very sound after taking the gummies. The gummies must be allowing me to cycle into REM more deeply as I did not experience any of the normal altitude wakefulness that I usually experience.
Part 2
I am almost out of my CBD 10mg raspberry hemp extract-infused sleep gummies. I will need to replenish my supply of them. I am not sure where to go to buy them so I will try the Charlotte’s Web website. At this point, I am afraid to try any other CBD gummies for sleep as I have become so familiar with this particular type. I wonder if any of the other CBD sleep gummies would be the same. Do I need Melatonin? Is the hemp extract infused necessary? I don’t know. What I do know is that these CBD 10mg raspberry hemp extract-infused sleep gummies seem to be working for my sleep. I feel an appropriate amount of drowsiness about one-half hour after taking them and then I am able to get to sleep faster as well. I seem to accept the drowsiness and surrender to the sleep easier when I have taken the gummies. I sometimes notice that when I wake up I am a bit drowsy. So I don’t know if I need to take the gummies earlier in the evening. It seems like the sleep effect last for several hours. I don’t think that it lasts for more than 8 hours but sometimes it feels like it does. None of the packaging explains how long effect should last. Maybe that is something that the packaging should include.
Part 3
I have finished my first package of CBD 10mg raspberry hemp extract-infused sleep gummies. There were 60 gummies in the package and I took them as directed 2 per evening. I finished them in about 40 days, so I guess I didn’t take them every night. I wonder if there is an accumulative thing happening where you need to take them every night for them to be really effective. I obviously missed some nights but am not sure that I noticed the difference. I didn’t keep a diary of my usage but if I had maybe I would have recorded a noticed difference between night that I did take the gummies and nights that I did not. There is no question that the nights that I do remember having good sleep are the nights that I did take the CBD 10mg raspberry hemp extract-infused sleep gummies. I am normally not a good sleeper so I notice when I do have a good sleep. I am a big fan of this product but am not 100% sure that the good sleep effects are caused by the CBD or the melatonin. I should probably experiment with this. I also want to research to see if supplementing melatonin regularly is a good thing from a health standpoint. It is a regularly occurring chemical in your body so I don’t know if you need o be adding more or even if that is safe. I would rate this product a 3.5 out of 5 for its effectiveness. I think that I will buy more but for me at the price its a “nice to have”.
$44.99