What Benefits Can CBD Offer Athletes?
Within the ever-growing CBD market, athletes have become an increased focus. This makes sense when you think about the various touted benefits of CBD like better sleep, pain relief, lower inflammation, and faster recovery. These are special areas of interest in individuals who push their bodies hard. Businesses are targeting athletes with a higher-potency version of regular CBD products, and various ways of delivering CBD.
And, as the CBD and cannabis industries evolve, both former and current professional athletes are starting to become some of the more influential voices in helping to change people's perception surrounding the products.
Benefits of CBD to Athletes
CBD isn't as controversial as marijuana, since it doesn't contain THC, but it still has many of the same benefits. Athletes are beginning to see the opportunities in the industry of CBD as well, and according to Brightfield Group, it's well on its way to making it to $22 billion by 2022.
CBD provides a number of health benefits, but it doesn't induce a high. Because of this, individuals (including athletes) are turning to CBD products to help ease symptoms from physical issues like inflammation and pain as well as mental issues like depression and anxiety.
An athlete's life entails:
- Tough competition
- Rigorous training
- Optimally functioning body and mind
Athletes all over the world are working hard to prepare their bodies for their respective sports, but frequently they encounter roadblocks like chronic pain, injuries, and different mental hindrances.
CBD is showing promise as an addition to an athlete's regimen, since it's been proven to offer multiple therapeutic applications, particularly useful for them. Some of the benefits CBD provides athletes are:
- Anxiety Relief
Anxiety can lead to difficulties in life among the general population, but it's especially detrimental to athletes, according to a systematic review by the British Journal of Sports Medicine. Anxiety has a negative impact on various things such as:
- Decision-making skills
- Attention
- Self-confidence
These are all very important for athletic performance.
Athletes might experience anxiety because of the pressures to perform well, career uncertainty, fear of performing poorly, or fear of sustaining an injury. If anxiety is left untreated, it can reduce an athlete's performance, and even make them want to quit their sport.
Fortunately, CBD can help athletes decrease their anxiety. It interacts with various receptors in the that mitigates anxiety and fear, and has shown to help inhibit the fear response. When an athlete takes CBD, it helps to suppress the amount of anxiety they experience, which might improve their overall performance indirectly.
- Better Sleep
Athletes perform better when they're well-rested. During sleep, your body regenerates itself, so you wake up feeling refreshed with the energy required for taking on physical challenges. When you don't sleep well, you experience low performance and fatigue. CBD can help you obtain this needed sleep.
- Reduce Pain and Inflammation
One of the biggest obstacles athletes face is trying to stay competitive, despite the inflammation or pain from injury. While there isn't any research that observes CBD among athletes, there is a lot of research that supports its usefulness in easing symptoms for humans and rats with chronic pain.
In a 2016 study, published by the National Institutes of Health, CBD gel was applied by researchers to the joints of arthritic rats. After only four days, their joint swelling went down, and the rats could move their paws more freely. They also showed less pain.
- Safer Option than NSAIDs and Opioids
You purchase non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) over-the-counter to relieve pain and inflammation. Ibuprofen (Advil) and naproxen sodium (Aleve) are well-known NSAIDs. Unfortunately, almost nine percent of individuals who take these medications exceed the daily maximum dose, including athletes who often abuse them, thinking they will enhance their performance.
They often take them before games to prevent possible inflammation and pain before it occurs. But, using them this way puts them at a higher risk of cardiovascular and gastrointestinal side effects, like peptic ulcers.
Replacing medications like these with CBD oil could be a safer alternative for athletes. CBD oil is also substantially safer than opioids, which are highly addictive and habit-forming.
There are a variety of other benefits of CBD for athletes, including better athletic performance, better recovery, and help with injuries. CBD is starting to become an accepted lifestyle supplement, like fish oil and collagen. You can find CBD in anything form topical ointments to protein bars. As time moves on, and CBD becomes more mainstream, there will be more seamless ways of taking CBD.
Try a CBD-Infused Pillow for Pain Relief and Better Performance
One particular new delivery method of CBD is through sleeping on a CBD-infused pillow. CBD-infused pillows provide athletes, and anyone else, the release of microdoses of CBD into the body. Athletes can now experience pain and inflammation relief and better performance in their games, simply by sleeping on a pillow infused with CBD. Try yours today, and receive a free trial.