Is There A Right Time Of Day To Take Hemp Or CBD? We Asked Around

If you’ve been dealing with stress, having trouble sleeping, or just trying to give your immune system a leg up, you might want to consider adding hemp extract, which contains multiple calming plant compounds (including CBD isolate), into your routine.* And if you’re curious about the best time of day to try out the relaxing supplement, the answer largely depends on what you’re using it for.* Here’s what three experts have to say about finding the best timing based on your individual needs and goals.

If you’re looking to unwind before bed and improve the quality of your sleep, board-certified practitioner of family medicine Rob Rountree, M.D., recommends taking hemp about one hour before bedtime. This gives its beneficial phytocannabinoids some time to interact with your endocannabinoid system, also called the master regulatory system, and bring your body back into balance.* Functional medicine gynecologist Wendie Trubow, M.D., MBA, echoes this advice, noting, “if you’re taking it to assist with sleep or anxiety related to sleep, then nighttime before bed is best.”

Stress management is really where hemp shines, and it’s been shown to help regulate blood pressure, heart rate, and other byproducts of stress in clinical trials.*

If you tend to feel stressed right when you wake up in the morning, that’s when you should be turning to the product (as well as trying out some breathwork and gratitude practices to try to get to the root of your anxiousness).*

Physician Bindiya Gandhi, M.D., adds that if your anxiousness pervades throughout the day, you’ll want to note when it feels the strongest. Is it correlated to any particular task or time frame, like before meetings or after checking emails? That’s valuable information and it can inform how you handle those stressors. Taking hemp before those tasks isn’t a bad idea, as long as it doesn’t make you sleepy or make it difficult to focus.* It shouldn’t because by nature, hemp has a very low THC count and isn’t associated with the “high” of other cannabis products.*

The supplement can also aid in chronic pain, thanks to the way hemp quells inflammation.* “I recommend it to people who are dealing with chronic pain,” Gandhi says, “so they may need it during the day if their pain is flaring.”

All in all, supplementing isn’t one-size-fits-all, and it may take some experimenting to figure out which time of day works best for you. As Rountree notes, “It can be taken anytime” and “really depends on what the person is using it for.” You can also take hemp and CBD a few times a day, Trubow adds, “so that’s helpful for people—although two to three times is usually enough.” Remember to start slow and build up from there as needed.