The activity of your endocannabinoid system is a reflection of the highly variable biochemical uniqueness that exists between you, me and the next person. Thats why a one size fits all approach to using CBD will produce different results for everyone.
What Doses Research Uses
Scientific research typically applies standardised doses to people grouped by medical condition.
This isn’t ideal, as no one experiences a shared condition in the same way someone else does.
For example, there’s no specific dose for managing specific symptoms, like pain or anxiety, because they are highly subjective experiences.
Having said that, the studies that do currently exist are a good rule of thumb to gauge the ballpark figures for:
- A minimum therapeutic effect
- Establishing tolerable upper limits (safe doses)
But, as you’ll soon see, there are much better ways to find your own specific therapeutic window.
CBD hasn’t yet been allocated an official recommended daily allowance, mainly because it’s a phytochemical, not a vitamin or mineral.
As a starting point, we always recommend to start low and work your way up. A run of the mill dose could be ~ 25 mg, but you may choose to start at 5 mg and work your way up. The FSA in the UK has recommended an upper limit of 70mg/day.
Body Weight: Is It A Useful Guide?
This method is much like using BMI to assess body composition – it seems like a practical approach to dosing, but is far from perfect.
Just like BMI, going by weight alone fails to account for genetic differences in your ECS and metabolism that influences the effects CBD may have.
Even if you share the same body weight as someone, you could have a totally different effect from CBD.
Your response may vary based on your unique body composition and:
- Endocannabinoid tone (synthesis, degradation and signalling of Endocannabinoids)
- Metabolic activity of liver enzymes (CYP) which metabolise cannabinoids
- Nutritional Status (omega 3:6 consumption notably)
- Stress (impacts EC tone)
- Sleep (also impacts EC tone)
Is There A Better Way?
If doses based on body weight or those used in research aren’t right for you, there’s always another way to go.
This involves finding your optimal dose; the window between the smallest dose which produces a meaningful effect, and the point where your response starts to plateau. This you could call the upper limit of the therapeutic window.
Finding your window helps avoid wasting your precious CBD and prevents overshooting a therapeutic sweet spot.
CBD has no official Tolerable Upper Limit (maximum safe dose), but is generally well tolerated. Thats why its a good idea to have some idea from the literature just to be safe.
You may have heard the saying start low and go slow. This refers to the method you can use to find your optimal dose. Start with a low dose, say 2-5mg. If this doesn’t provide any meaningful relief for you, increase your dose until you find it does. You’ve now found your minimum viable dose.
You may choose to explore higher doses for greater relief beyond your minimum viable dose. This way you can explore if more is necessarily better for you, or just ends up wasting your oil. This is a valuable experiment you can conduct on yourself to truly understand how your oil is working for you.
Ways To Take CBD
One of the most popular ways to ingest CBD is by using an oil. These typically come with a glass pipette which administers CBD with a carrier oil in small droplets. Oils are a great way to consume CBD as you can increase and decrease the dose with precision.
You may have noticed that CBD can be referred to as a percentage as well as in milligrams (mg). Confusing, right?
Whilst knowing the percentage is handy to assess the general potency you are getting, measuring doses in mg is more practical. This way you can also go by doses used in research as well, as CBD is mostly referred to in mg.
To most accurately dose CBD, knowing how much CBD in mg/drop can help you find your sweet spot with plenty of room for exploration.
All Mighty Green Oral Drops have mg/drop listed in the dosing instructions, both on our website and on the packaging.
A 10ml bottle provides around 200 drops. So, for a:
- 200mg oil thats 1mg/drop
- 500mg oil thats 2.5mg/drop
- 1000mg oil thats 5mg/drop
- 2000mg oil thats 10mg/drop
Be Smart, Track Your Dose and Response
Once you have established how much mg CBD exists per drop, you can start to track how you respond to different doses, and establish whether its best to:
- Dose in response to symptoms
- Dose periodically throughout the day
- Dose with food
- Dose Morning or Night
There’s no one right way to use CBD as it works very subjectively. After a little experimentation, you can find how much, when and with what CBD works best for you.
Use a tracking diary or sheet to remember what doses you have used, at what time and the experience you notice for that particular dose – EG pain relief 6/10.
You may also like to document a little bit about whats going on in your day to see how that affects how you respond to your CBD dose – EG you had a particularly stressful day, which made it harder for your pain to subside. You may find you need a slightly higher dose on more stressful days.
References
Cunha, J. M. et al. (1980) ‘Chronic Administration of Cannabidiol to Healthy Volunteers and Epileptic Patients’, Pharmacology, 21(3), pp. 175–185. doi: 10.1159/000137430.
Zuardi, A. et al. (2010) ‘Cannabidiol was ineffective for manic episode of bipolar affective disorder’, Journal of Psychopharmacology, 24(1), pp. 135–137. doi: 10.1177/0269881108096521.