People try CBD for insomnia hoping it will get them to sleep faster, and the honest answer is that the human evidence is thin, mixed and drawn mostly from small studies. CBD is not a sleeping pill and it is not a treatment for insomnia. Some people report falling asleep with less effort when they take it in the evening. Others notice nothing at all.<\/p>\n
This article is for anyone who has been lying awake and is weighing CBD up. It covers what insomnia actually is, why the type you have matters, what the research on sleep onset found, and when to stop experimenting and speak to your GP. For how cannabinoids relate to the sleep cycle generally, our guide to\u00a0CBD and sleep<\/a>\u00a0sets out the mechanism in full.<\/p>\n Insomnia is not simply a bad night, and it is not the same as choosing to stay up late. The clinical definition has a specific shape: difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep, despite having adequate opportunity to sleep, that causes a problem during the day. That last part matters. If you sleep six hours and feel fine, you do not have insomnia. If you spend eight hours in bed, sleep five of them and feel wrecked, you might. Sleep researchers separate it along two axes, and knowing where you sit on both is more useful than any supplement decision.<\/p>\n This distinction changes what is worth trying. A rough fortnight is a very different situation from six months, and the second one deserves a proper assessment rather than another supplement.<\/p>\n Most CBD interest sits with the first type. If your problem is waking at three every night rather than getting to sleep, a cannabinoid is unlikely to be the answer and the cause is worth investigating.<\/p>\n The appeal is mostly about what people want to avoid. Prescription sleep medication brings next-day grogginess and, in some cases, tolerance. Over-the-counter antihistamine sleep aids leave many people feeling heavy the following morning. CBD is available without a prescription, is not intoxicating, and has not been shown to produce dependence in the way sedative hypnotics can. It is also worth separating from cannabis generally: THC is the compound with psychoactive properties, and CBD is non-intoxicating, so people who take it during the day do not typically describe feeling sedated.<\/p>\n The other reason is that a lot of sleep-onset insomnia is not really a sleep problem. It is an arousal problem that shows up at bedtime. As Leslie Korn, PhD, has put it, “Stress triggers a cascade of physical reactions that affect immune function, our hormones, cognitive function, and our internal clock, known as our circadian rhythm.” CBD is not classified as an adaptogen, though it is often compared to one, because people describe taking the edge off rather than being knocked out.<\/p>\n There is research here, but it is a long way from settled. One of the earliest human studies appeared in the Journal of Clinical Pharmacology in 1981. It gave 160 mg of CBD to a small group of people with insomnia and reported longer self-reported sleep duration than placebo. It is cited constantly, and it involved fewer than 20 participants at an amount far above what most commercial products contain.<\/p>\n The study quoted most often now is a 2019 case series in The Permanente Journal, in which 72 adults with anxiety and poor sleep took 25 mg of CBD and completed assessments after a month. Sleep scores rose in 66% of them. It was retrospective, had no placebo group, and ran at a single clinic alongside ongoing clinical care, so the change cannot be attributed to CBD with any confidence.<\/p>\n Read across the field and a few patterns stand out:<\/p>\n The reasonable summary is that a mechanism is plausible, some people report something, and the evidence does not support promising anyone a result.<\/p>\n These three get compared constantly and they are not the same kind of thing. Melatonin is a hormone your body already makes, and in the UK it is a prescription-only medicine rather than something on a shop shelf. CBD and CBN are plant cannabinoids sold as food supplements.<\/p>\nWhat insomnia actually is<\/h2>\n
Acute versus chronic insomnia<\/h3>\n
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Sleep-onset versus sleep-maintenance insomnia<\/h3>\n
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Why people try CBD for insomnia<\/h2>\n
What the research says about CBD and sleep onset<\/h2>\n
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CBD, CBN and melatonin compared<\/h2>\n