How Much CBD Should I Use?

It’s a question that comes up almost every time I speak with someone who has never tried CBD before. It’s a perfectly reasonable question to ask, and it has a perfectly reasonable (though not very straightforward) answer: Everyone is different. On its face, it might seem like that much should be obvious. After all, even with over-the-counter pharmaceuticals, that holds true. A burly 240lb bodybuilder would probably need more Acetaminophen than a 120lb gymnast for a similar pain management issue. However, with CBD things are a little more complicated.

You see, the two people I described above might have a very different experience when trying to find the best CBD dosage for themselves. I’ve personally spoken to customers who were very muscular, tall, basically twice my size who could fold me into a pretzel with one hand if they wanted, and they take 10mg per day to feel great! I’ve also spoken with people who were very lean, compact, who could fold themselves into a pretzel with nothing more than their own dexterity, and they take 50mg per day to get what they’re looking for. Everyone is different. If we take a closer look at where these differences come from though, we get a clearer picture as to why CBD acts this way.

CBD interacts with a system in the body called the Endocannabinoid System (ECS). The main role of the ECS is to regulate the other systems of the body to bring them to homeostasis, or balance with one another. For this reason, the ECS is present throughout the body and has many different receptors that can regulate many different things. Because the ECS is a part of the body’s nervous system, everyone will be ‘wired’ a little bit differently. Like your fingerprint, your own ECS is unique to you, and thus your body deals with CBD a little differently than everyone else. The normal factors that play a role in dosing for common pharmaceuticals, such as height, weight, age, BMI, etc. do affect each individual’s CBD dosage, however the factors of your own ECS ‘fingerprint’ and personal body chemistry have a much greater effect than those ‘normal’ factors. It is for this reason that the milligram dosage of CBD varies so widely from person to person.

Now that we know why each person sees the best benefits from CBD at different dosages, how do you find your personal ‘optimum dose’? Well, there are of course many ways to go about it, but one of the most effective and simple methods is trial-and-error. Like everything CBD related, this should be taken as general advice, not a tried and true method guaranteed to find you the best possible results. Remember: Everyone is different. That said, this is what I tell my customers, my friends, and my own family when they want to try CBD for the first time, and many of them come back telling me they see great success. On average, the regular CBD users that I speak with tell me that they administer at a dosage of 10-30mg. You can use that information to your advantage by starting your dosing trials slightly below that range, and gradually increasing until you begin to see the effects you’re looking for. On average (feel free to play with the actual numbers), newcomers start at 5mg in a dose and increase by 1-5mg at a time every 2-3 days. You’ll want to give your body that few days to adjust to the new dosage, so it’s a good idea to go slow. One of the benefits of CBD is that it tends to work on a bell curve, meaning that taking too much yields similar results to not taking enough (ie no effects). This means that if you start low (around 5mg) and gradually increase (1-5mg increments), you should begin to see gradually increasing effects until you hit a certain point where you take more CBD but feel less of the effects. Right before you get to that point is where your personal optimal dosage will be!

So now you know one of the best ways to find the amount of CBD that will work for you! You might be wondering though, if you’ve seen the gummies, chocolates, teas, coffee, or even lotions and salves, how do you measure your dose to get the numbers I talked about? By far the easiest way to perform this method is to start off with a CBD oil or “tincture” as they are called. A tincture can be measured in milliliters of liquid, and once you know the concentration, you can translate that directly to milligrams of CBD. Since they are easily measurable, the tinctures are by far the most popular choice for our new customers. For example, our Active CBD Oil 300mg Broad Spectrum Water Soluble Tincture will contain 300mg of CBD in each 1oz bottle. Since 1oz = 30mL, this tincture contains 10mg/mL. For this reason, it’s one of our most popular tinctures since it falls right in the realm of common dosage. Starting with ½ dropper of this would be the 5mg, and every ¼ dropper you go up increases the dose by 2.5mg. To use our method of finding optimal dose, we would start with ½ a dropper for a few days, then go to ¾ dropper if we don’t see what we’re looking for. From there we would keep increasing by ¼ dropper increments until we see the results we want!

There are many ways of starting with CBD, some easier than others, so I hope this helps you to gain a better understanding of what the process looks like. In the end, it all comes down to what you feel comfortable with and what makes the most sense for you. We speak with people all the time who are brand new to the CBD realm, so our team members are a great resource if you have questions about what might work for you. Whether it’s a retail store visit, a phone call, or even just a chat here on our website, we’re always willing and happy to help you start your journey to a better life with CBD.