Help For Sleepless Nights

”Help For Sleepless Nights” is a collaborative post and includes affiliate links.  Please see the disclosure page for more information.  Disclaimer – always verify medical information with your doctor or a professional.

Do you suffer from and need help for sleepless nights?  I have occasional trouble with sleep. When I say “trouble with sleep,” I mean that I stay up until 4am and only have 2 hours of sleep. This happens about once a week, sometimes more.  A couple nights, I go to sleep between 11pm to 2am and wake up anywhere from 6:30-7:15am. I attribute those nights to just bad sleeping habits and wanting to spend time on projects or Netflix binge fests! About once or twice a week I get in bed at 10 and pass out.

Some nights, I can sense when it’s going to be a long one. My mind is racing and I physically feel like my skin is a bit crawl-y for lack of a better description. I can lay my head on the pillow but feel like my eyes are wide open even though the lids are shut.

Welcome to a peek at my mind’s crazy land.

If I drink a giant glass of milk before trying to sleep, this sometimes, kind of, helps. I still don’t get a good rest though because I’ll have to get up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night. Plus, my stomach kind of feels a bit sickly from it. I also try to wind down by playing on my phone (I know it’s probably counter productive but anything to shift my focus from my overactive brain.) Obviously, this isn’t as effective as I hope it will be.

Recently, Receptra Naturals reached out to me to review their CBD products that help with rest and relaxation. “It’s difficult to find a CBD brand that’s as socially conscious and generous as Receptra.” – Forbes Top 10 CBD Oil Brands So I jumped at the opportunity!

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Are you worried about using CBD products? Don’t worry! Instead educated yourself about a natural aid that has been around for centuries…

What Is CBD?

This article from Health.com is like a short class in CBD. I’m going to make a sort of highlight reel from this article to give you a summary but please read the entire the article and educate yourself!

Plus, I’m going to obnoxiously add in this disclaimer a bunch of times in this article – “I’m not a medical expert; please consult a medical professional or scientist as these are just my opinions and I am not a scientist or medical professional or a professional of any kind.”

“CBD, short for cannabidiol, is a chemical compound from the Cannabid sativa plant, which is also known as marijuana or hemp, according to the US National Library of Medicine.”

“The cannabis plant is made up of two main players: CBD and THC. ‘CBD is the non-psychoactive portion of the plant, so what that means is you won’t have any effects like euphoria,’ says Junella Chin, DO, an osteopathic physician and a medical cannabis expert for cannabisMD. ‘You won’t feel sedated or altered in any way.'”

“It’s also crucial to buy third-party-tested CBD for quality assurance (more on this later). Because the FDA doesn’t regulate CBD, it is possible to buy a product that is more or less potent than advertised, or even contains small amounts of THC.”

“Both(marijuana and hemp) contain CBD, but there’s a much higher percentage in hemp, which also has very low (less than 0.3%) levels of THC compared to marijuana.” THC is what can cause psychotropic effects.

Hemp oil and CBD oil are two different things. Hemp oil is derived from the seeds of the hemp plant with no CBD and no THC but lots of fatty acids which are used in beauty products.

So can CBD oil get you high? The overwhelming majority of the time the answer is a resounding NO. But there are some people that have been affected. These are the same people that might be affected from over the counter pain medications.  “According to Dr. Chin, about 5% of people say they feel altered after taking CBD. ‘Usually they’re the same people who have side effects from Advil or Tylenol,” she says. You never know how your body will react to any new supplement, so when taking CBD for the first time, do so safely under supervision.’ “

What To Look For In a CBD Company

The main takeaway for me from this article was best practices when selecting the CBD company that you are interested in using. Over and over again the article refers to making sure the supplier has batch numbers and 3rd party testing done on their product. Receptra offers 3rd party testing and each product has a batch number you can check. On the products there is even a QR code you can take a picture of with your smart phone which will give you a link to the report.

Here’s the report for one of the products I have… 

Remember my disclaimer – “I’m not a medical expert; please consult a medical professional or scientist as these are just my opinions and I am not a scientist or medical professional or a professional of any kind.”

The Rest for Nighttime tincture that I was sent to try for help for sleepless nights has a THC level of 0.12% amount which is basically 0.03mg per dose.  For psychotropic affects, a person that has never used marijuana needs to consume at least 1-2.5 mg of THC which is 33-83 times more than in one dose of CBD. Because of the minimal amount in THC, this should not ever show up in a blood test unless you are a top athlete tested with extremely sensitive testing parameters. 

The Receptra batch I’m using also passed the safety test for foreign matter, heavy metals, and microbials(mold, eColi etc). The foreign matter tests checks if there is anything in the hemp sample that is non-usable. This includes large foreign particles, hair, insects, mold colonies, or any other foreign particles. The heavy metal test checks for lead(less than .005 parts per million), arsenic(less than .005 parts per million), cadium(less than .005 parts per million), and mercury(less than .005 parts per million). The microbials test checks for Aerobic Bacteria, Bile Tolerant Gram Negative Bacteria, Coliforms, E. Coli, Salmonella, and Yeast and Molds.

I like knowing that I can read a report from a 3rd party testing site for the specific batch I’m using. This gives me piece of mind. I love that it is so easy to look this up for consumers. Not sure I’ve ever seen this in mainstream medication, have you?

What Are Terepenes?

My disclaimer again? Yep!– “I’m not a medical expert; please consult a medical professional or scientist as these are just my opinions and I am not a scientist or medical professional or a professional of any kind.”

The report for Receptra also include information about the terepenes in their CBD products.

What in the world is a terepene? According to Wikipedia, terepenes are organic compounds created by plants, some conifers, and some insects. They are also the aromatic oils that give each cannabis strain its individual fragrance and taste. The report for my batch shows that the only terepene that even registers on the list is the linalool and limonene. Linalool is common in lavender and can be found in other flowers and spices. It is also an important component in the production of Vitamin E.

Ok, I am no scientist by any stretch of the imagination but I found this publication regarding the affects of linalool on Journals.sagepub.com You will have to decide for yourself whether this information is backed by what you consider evidence. From what I can find, it makes sense to me but it is difficult to weed out what is actual applicable research for this specific terepene. Either way, linalool terepene rich plants have been used for centuries in treating many ailments including anxiety.

“The effects of linalool on the central nervous system (CNS): The psychopharmacological activity of linalool in mice, showed marked dose-dependent sedative effects on the central nervous system. This includes protection against pentylenetetrazol, picrotoxin and transcorneal electroshock-induced convulsions, hypnotic and hypothermic effects [41- 45]. A study was conducted using 40 different extracts including 9 essential oils, to observe their ability to decrease the motility of test animals [46]. Results showed that linalool decreased the motor activity (more than 60%) of 6-8 week old mice after inhalation (1 h).

Several plant species rich in linalool are used as anticonvulsants by practitioners of traditional medicine in the Brazilian Amazon [42]. Thus, it is not surprising that CNS depressant activity was observed with linalool. Various mental disorders have traditionally been treated with plant-derived natural products [47]. Using the Vogel and Geller conflict tests, Umezu et al [47] tested linalool which produced significant anticonflict effects in both the Geller and Vogel tests at 400 mg/kg. Thus, although linalool alone could not completely account for the anticonflict effects of lavender oil, it nevertheless could be a major contributor to the observed effects.”

As for camphene, it is found naturally in conifer, nutmeg, ginger, rosemary, other spices, and cannabis. (Don’t confuse this with camphine which is the purified spirit of turpentine!) Camphene is a cannabis terpene carrying a pungent earthy and musky scent with piney undertones.  Early research suggest benefits for heart health, pulmonary inflamatory disease, and easing plain and inflammation.(Reference)

How Has This Helped Reduce My Sleepless Nights?

I started using the Rest for Nightime tincture about 3 weeks ago for help for sleepless nights. When I feel like I’m going to have a restless night, I use the recommended 25mg dose. I have had the best sleep of my life each time. So far I have used the CBD for Sleep product about 6 times in the last 3 weeks and it’s been wonderful!! In the morning, I don’t have any groggy feeling either and am ready for my day! 

Another benefit for me personally from using this full spectrum hemp extract + chamomile is that I’m not having so many crazy dreams that disrupt my rest and/or sleep. As long as I can remember, I have had weird, scary, odd, magical, mind-bending, and/or sometimes creepy dreams. It’s been a long time since I’ve had the dreams that leave me freaked out in the morning, but still I have bizarre dreams the last couple years that confuse the heck out of my subconscious making a restful night impossible even when I’ve slept for a couple hours. The times that I have used Receptra’s Rest for Nighttime, I’ve not had any dreams. It’s been amazing! I’m not sure if anyone else has had this happen but for me it is one of the by products. 

I highly recommend Receptra CBD products! I’ve used CBD for my sleepless nights and have used other products for my mood and anxiety issues. Receptra is a great company to work with and “has created a legacy of reliable, effective products designed to help solve serious problems for thousands of people and their loved ones, while building a company of passionate driven people.”

Learn more at Receptra and save with this 20% off CBD for Sleep use code: BETTERREST help for sleepless nights.

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