Your nervous system is the command center of your body. In addition to thought, memory and movement, it’s responsible for interpreting sensory information, sleeping, breathing and digesting. It also plays a large role in your body’s circulations, serotonin levels and how you respond to stressful situations.
That being said, if you have a heightened nervous system, you may experience a fight or flight response. This is usually apparent by tension and feelings of being on edge. While feelings of nervousness can act as an alarm system that alerts you to danger, persistent feelings of unease can be downright unnerving.
Luckily, CBD may help to calm your nervous system. In this guide, we’ll explore the role of your nervous system and a few ways to help your body feel relaxed and at ease.
How to Calm the Nervous System
When your nervous system is dysregulated, you might feel stressed or tense. Your body may be unnecessarily kicking itself into the sympathetic nervous system’s fight or flight response — preparing you to face a threat when there is none.
Luckily, there are ways to combat these nerves and help yourself feel calm and stress-free.
1. Incorporate CBD into Your Daily Routine
Can CBD boost metabolism functions and does CBD calm the nervous system? It may! If you’re looking for a way to support a calm nervous system, consider adding CBD to your routine.
When ingested — whether you’re putting a few drops of CBD oil into your tea or snacking on a few CBD gummies — the CBD interacts with the body’s endocannabinoid system. The endocannabinoid system works directly with the nervous system to maintain homeostasis and help regulate stress.
As such, when CBD interacts with the endocannabinoid system’s receptors, your body may begin to feel more calm and relaxed.
Zebra CBD offers the most effective CBD formulas on the market to help you feel like your best self. If you’re looking to ease feelings of apprehension and uncertainty, try Zebra CBD’s Tension and Stress Tablets. Made with premium hemp extracts, soothing L-theanine and brain-boosting magnesium, they’ll have you feeling relaxed and at ease.
If you’re hoping to wind down, consider melting stress away with Zebra CBD’s Mood & Calm Gummies, which help to relieve stress and tension with a blend of plant-based CBD extracts, calming lemon balm and L-theanine — all in a delicious black raspberry lemonade flavored gummy.
When incorporating CBD into your diet, it’s important that you start with small doses, evaluate how your body feels and alter the amount of CBD depending on how your body responds. You may be wondering how long does CBD stay in your system?
While there’s no one-size-fits-all answer, CBD generally stays in your body anywhere between a few days to a few weeks, and it typically takes anywhere from 30–90 minutes to start to feel the effects of CBD. As such, be patient when getting to know your CBD product and always listen to your body.
2. Meditate and Journal at Night
While CBD may provide a foundation for calmness and relaxation, you can also add a few stress-relieving habits into your daily routine to help regulate your nervous system.
Extreme thoughts and emotions can trigger your nervous system, which can block neural networks and lead to high levels of unease. As such, taking time out of your day to release these thoughts may be beneficial to your overall well being.
While reframing a situation might not remove the stressors or issues that you’re facing, it can help you to let go of unwanted thoughts and learn coping skills to help relax your body:
- Meditation – One of the best ways to shape your thinking is through the practice of meditation. Meditation is an extremely popular tool to help center and calm your mind — it’s no wonder that it’s practiced by nearly five hundred million people globally, including 14% of American adults. Meditation may help to reduce stressful feelings, quiet a racing mind and help you focus on the sensations that your body is feeling. The best part about it? It can be done anytime, anywhere. To start with a basic meditation, set a timer for five to ten minutes and find a comfortable seat or standing position. Some prefer to meditate in a chair or cross-legged on the floor, while others prefer a standing yoga posture, like mountain pose. Focus on the sensation of your breath and the feeling of your inhales and exhales. It’s alright if your mind wanders — it’s part of the process! With consistent meditation practice, you’ll become better at calming your mind and handling unwanted thoughts.
- Journaling – Another great way to master your nerves is by journaling. By journaling regularly and giving yourself a private space to work through your feelings, you can learn what might trigger nervousness and how to best cope with it. Give yourself time to write freely without judging what you put down on the page.
Another great way to calm your nervous system? Getting sweaty! The benefits of exercise go well beyond just the physical benefits for your body (though those certainly can’t be denied).
There’s also a strong link between exercise and improved mental and emotional health.
To that end, exercise may help to boost confidence and gives you a physical outlet to help release tension and stress. It also releases endorphins, which work in tandem with happiness-boosting brain chemicals such as dopamine and serotonin, while reducing your levels of cortisol (commonly known as the “stress hormone” that causes elevated levels of tension).
Regularly working out also helps to build new neurons in the hippocampus, which might play a key role in reducing nervousness and stress.
The consistency and structure that comes with building a regular exercise routine as well as the social support of doing an exercise activity in a group setting, like attending a workout class or playing a pickup basketball game, can also help to cut down on feelings of restlessness and fear.
You don’t have to be lifting heavy weights or running marathons to get the benefits of exercise. You could try:
- Jogging
- Yoga
- Swimming
- Dancing
- Skiing
- Hiking
Additionally, if you find yourself having a difficult time finding the motivation to exercise, whether from lack of energy or physical discomfort, CBD products like CBD topicals, joint and muscle CBD tablets and CBD rub may help to relieve any apprehension around exercise.
4. Improve Your Sleep Habits
If you’re looking to reduce your nervousness and jitters, it’s also important to examine your habits and if they might be contributing to the feelings that you’re experiencing.
While you don’t need to be 100% perfect all of the time, it’s worth adjusting behaviors that might be causing your uneasiness, such as your sleep habits.
A bad night’s sleep can mean more than just next-day grogginess — it can also be the sneaky culprit behind your nerves or changes in skin complexion. That’s because sleep deprivation can cause heightened levels of stress-inducing cortisol. But, does CBD oil tighten skin or improve complexion? While CBD oils are typically consumed orally, they can also be applied to your face at night and incorporated into your sleep routine.
Looking to fix your sleep routine? Try a few of these tricks to catch some zzz’s:
- Regulate your sleep schedule – Go to sleep at a consistent time each night, aiming for seven to nine hours of sleep.
- Avoid technology – Sleep with your phone in another room and try to wind down tech usage a half-hour before bedtime.
- Build a fun nighttime routine – Do a soothing face mask, read a new book, indulge in a warm cup of tea or try one of Zebra CBD’s Sleep Support CBD + CBN Gummies for a restful blend of premium CBD, CBN (the “sleepy cannabinoid”) and melatonin.
Most of us are attached to our phones — but did you know it might be increasing your feelings of restlessness? Try taking a break from your phone and social media to do some of these stress-busting activities:
- Read a book
- Go for a walk
- Call a friend
- Practice an instrument
- Work on an art project
- Cook a delicious meal
- Plant in your garden
What Makes Up the Nervous System?
The uneasy feelings that you experience aren’t just in your head — they’re part of an interconnected, complex web of processes known as the nervous system.
Think of the nervous system as the conductor of your body’s internal orchestra — it relays messages from head to toe and directs all of your body’s rhythms, from breathing to circulation to movement. Your nervous system not only powers your body but also makes up who you are, how you think and what you feel.
Your nervous system isn’t just relegated to one organ or one system. It stretches throughout your entire body and has several different components that work in concert to allow you to move, think, digest, breathe and feel.
The nervous system has two main subsystems: the peripheral nervous system and the central nervous system.
What Is the Peripheral Nervous System?
The peripheral nervous system serves as your body’s messaging network, relaying information from your brain to the rest of the body. The peripheral nervous system is further broken down into two main parts:
- Somatic nervous system – Carries messages to and from the brain. The somatic nervous system is in charge of voluntary movement (which is carried out through messages sent by motor neurons) and sensory information. This includes the things or sensations that you see, taste, smell, touch or hear (which is carried in messages sent by sensory neurons).
- Autonomic nervous system – Controls involuntary actions that you’re typically unaware of or don’t have to consciously think about — think breathing, digestion or your heartbeat. The autonomic nervous system consists of two further subsystems:
- The sympathetic nervous system, which controls your body’s fight or flight response that allows you to quickly respond to threats by elevating your heart rate, boosting muscular blood circulation and dilating your pupils.
- The parasympathetic nervous system, which helps to calm the body and return it back to its usual state after the fight or flight response has been activated by the sympathetic nervous system.
The actual physical structure of the peripheral nervous system is made up of bundles of nerve fibers that stretch throughout your body, connecting the central nervous system with the body’s organs and systems.
These nerves are either spinal nerves, which send messages to and relay signals from the spinal cord, or cranial nerves, which send messages to and from the brain.
What Does the Central Nervous System Do?
The central nervous system is what makes you you. It takes in all of the sensory input that your body receives through nerves in the eyes, tongue, ears, nose and skin and interprets it into what you’re smelling, hearing, tasting, seeing or touching.
It’s where thoughts and feelings are created and memories are stored. It’s also where voluntary movement signals are sent to the somatic nervous system, allowing you to move your hands and feet at will.
The central nervous system consists of three main components that work together to allow for movement, cognition and sensation:
- Brain – Your brain is in charge of your body’s functioning as well as thought, feeling and memory. The brain is divided up into two hemispheres: the right hemisphere and the left hemisphere. It’s also divided up into lobes: occipital lobes that decode visual information; parietal lobes that take in sensory input; temporal lobes, which allow you to hear as well as store memories; and frontal lobes, which give you higher cognition and the ability to use language. All of the lobes of your brain work together to make you the person that you are.
- Spinal cord – Your spinal cord consists of thirty-one spinal nerves (divided into cervical nerves, thoracic nerves, lumbar nerves, sacral nerves and the coccygeal nerve) that allow for movement and sensation. It also relays messages to the brain and controls some reflexes without needing your brain’s input, such as when the doctor taps your knee during a physical exam and your leg pops up.
- Neurons – These are the cells that make up the central nervous system. There are over eighty-six billion of them in just the brain. Neurons are made up of axons, dendrites and a cell body. There are three different types of neurons: efferent neurons that send messages from the brain to the peripheral nervous system, afferent neurons that carry signals from the sensory organs to the brain and interneurons that serve as a bridge connecting efferent neurons and afferent neurons to the rest of the central nervous system.
Soothe Your Nervous System With Zebra CBD
CBD, including CBD oil roll-on, thought work, exercise and healthy habits may help to naturally calm your nervous system and naturally mitigate feelings of unease. CBD oil, with its calming scent, can naturally contribute to soothing your senses and promoting relaxation.
If you’re looking for an easy, plant-based way to calm your nerves and feel like your best self again, there’s no better option than Zebra CBD’s line of premium hemp extracts, all made in the USA.
Don’t wait — browse our CBD products and tackle your stress head-on today!
Sources:
WebMD. What Is Your Nervous System? https://www.webmd.com/brain/what-is-nervous-system
Verywell Mind. Peripheral Nervous System. https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-the-peripheral-nervous-system-2795465
Verywell Mind. Central Nervous System. https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-the-central-nervous-system-2794981
The Good Body. Meditation Statistics. https://www.thegoodbody.com/meditation-statistics/
Medical News Today. How To Tell if Stress is Affecting Your Sleep. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/322994#stress-and-sleep
