Eradicate Stress: Supplement Your Endocannabinoid System

If you’re like most people in today’s world, you’re probably stressed out. Work deadlines, taking care of elderly parents or your kids, and many other pressures leave us with too much to do and too little time to do it. And if you’ve ever tried to find natural stress relief solutions, then you’ve probably heard of the stress hormone cortisol. Balanced levels of cortisol help you cope with stress. Having too high or too low a level can wreak havoc on your health.

Your adrenal glands make cortisol. This is why the adrenal glands pay the price of too much stress. This can leave you with adrenal burnout, where you made so much cortisol for such a long time that your adrenal glands got tired and couldn’t make enough of it anymore. The result? You’re exhausted and have a hard time getting up in the morning or getting through the day.

This whole process of producing enough cortisol is controlled by what’s known as your hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis—HPA axis for short. Many functional medicine providers try to balance this axis using cortisol blocker supplements and adaptogenic herbs such as maca, ashwagandha, Rhodiola, and ginseng in people whose cortisol levels are too high. Or they use botanicals like licorice root in order to help you produce healthy levels of cortisol and feel more at peace.

However, we now know that treating the HPA axis and balancing cortisol levels are only the first step. That’s because there’s another system in your body that’s just as important. And that’s called the endocannabinoid system.

What Is The Endocannabinoid System?

The endocannabinoid system is a natural system in the body that regulates mood, sleep, appetite, memory and many other aspects of health. Your body makes natural endocannabinoids on its own. But there are also phytocannabinoids that act on this same system. Cannabidiol (CBD), found in hemp oil and Cannabis sativa, is one of those phytocannabinoids. Many of CBD’s beneficial effects on the body are due to its ability to regulate the endocannabinoid system.

The Endocannabinoid System: The Key To Feeling More at Peace

When your endocannabinoid system is working properly it actually keeps your HPA axis working its best, too. The endocannabinoid system can act like a gatekeeper of the HPA axis, preventing it from becoming overactive and churning out too much cortisol. It can also prevent the HPA axis from becoming underactive.^1,2

The fact the endocannabinoid system is a gatekeeper of the HPA axis is probably one of the reasons why several studies have shown that CBD oil supports calm and relaxed feelings in subjects undergoing a simulated public speaking test.^3-5 CBD also promotes a restful night’s sleep.^6,7 This makes sense since an overactive HPA axis and high nighttime cortisol level will interfere with getting enough shut eye.

When people become stressed or fearful, they often develop bad memories of the events that caused their painful experiences. If this has happened to you, you might even try to avoid situations that you fear might be as emotionally painful as those you experienced in the past, what’s known as fear conditioning. If you’re stressed all the time, you might also start to feel depressed. A balanced endocannabinoid system and the way it interacts with the HPA axis plays a role in offsetting these two effects of stress.⁸ In fact, CBD oil—through its interaction with the endocannabinoid system—is known to reduce fear conditioning and boost mood.^9,10

Delightful Dopamine

When treating a patient who is stressed, doctors often fall into the rut of thinking only about cortisol. In fact, other hormones made by the adrenal glands such as norepinephrine and epinephrine are important, too. In addition, dopamine, a precursor to norepinephrine, is perhaps one of the most important hormones that we need to stay relaxed and happy during stress. Dopamine is our contentment hormone. Yet, its levels fall during ongoing stress. This may be part of the reason why stress is linked to depression and melancholy.

The fact that CBD interacts with dopamine receptors is evidence that the endocannabinoid system is involved in regulating mood during stress.^11,12 CBD’s ability to promote a more relaxed and happy mood during stress is likely due at least in part to its effects on dopamine receptors.

RELATED:

Addressing the Pervasive Dangers of Stress

The Pain of Stress

Being in pain and feeling stressed often go hand in hand. If you’re in pain, that in and of itself will cause you to become stressed. And ongoing stress leads to inflammation, which makes you more vulnerable to pain. CBD can impact our body’s natural inflammatory response. This is circling back to cortisol since cortisol is an anti-inflammatory hormone. CBD’s effects on the HPA axis and its ability to help the body produce healthy amounts of cortisol may be the reason why there’s a good amount of evidence it may support a healthy pain response.^13-15

Remember that stress is about the total burden. Scientists sometimes refer to this as the allostatic load. Psychological stress can lead to physical problems, and it’s good to recognize this as you seek out ways to calm your stress and feel more at peace.

References:

1. Gorzalka BB, Hill MN. Integration of endocannabinoid signaling into the neural network regulating stress-induced activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. Curr Top Behav Neurosci. 2009;1:289-306.
2. Hill MN, Patel S, Campolongo P, Tasker JG, Wotjak CT, Bains JS. Functional interactions between stress and the endocannabinoid system: from synaptic signaling to behavioral output. J Neurosci. 2010;30(45):14980-14986.
3. Appiah-Kusi E, Petros N, Wilson R, et al. Effects of short-term cannabidiol treatment on response to social stress in subjects at clinical high risk of developing psychosis. Psychopharmacology (Berl). 2020;237(4):1121-1130.
4. de Faria SM, de Morais Fabrício D, Tumas V, et al. Effects of acute cannabidiol administration on anxiety and tremors induced by a Simulated Public Speaking Test in patients with Parkinson’s disease. J Psychopharmacol. 2020;34(2):189-196.
5. Bergamaschi MM, Queiroz RH, Chagas MH, et al. Cannabidiol reduces the anxiety induced by simulated public speaking in treatment-naïve social phobia patients. Neuropsychopharmacology. 2011;36(6):1219-1226.
6. Carlini EA, Cunha JM. Hypnotic and antiepileptic effects of cannabidiol. J Clin Pharmacol. 1981;21(S1):417s-427s.
7. Shannon S, Lewis N, Lee H, Hughes S. Cannabidiol in Anxiety and Sleep: A Large Case Series. Perm J. 2019;23:18-041.
8. Riebe CJ, Wotjak CT. Endocannabinoids and stress. Stress. 2011;14(4):384-397.
9. Das RK, Kamboj SK, Ramadas M, et al. Cannabidiol enhances consolidation of explicit fear extinction in humans. Psychopharmacology (Berl). 2013;226(4):781-792.
10. García-Gutiérrez MS, Navarrete F, Gasparyan A, Austrich-Olivares A, Sala F, Manzanares J. Cannabidiol: A Potential New Alternative for the Treatment of Anxiety, Depression, and Psychotic Disorders. Biomolecules. 2020;10(11).
11. Seeman P. Cannabidiol is a partial agonist at dopamine D2High receptors, predicting its antipsychotic clinical dose. Transl Psychiatry. 2016;6(10):e920.
12. Spanagel R. Cannabinoids and the endocannabinoid system in reward processing and addiction: from mechanisms to interventions
. Dialogues Clin Neurosci. 2020;22(3):241-250.
13. Urits I, Gress K, Charipova K, et al. Use of cannabidiol (CBD) for the treatment of chronic pain. Best Pract Res Clin Anaesthesiol. 2020;34(3):463-477.
14. VanDolah HJ, Bauer BA, Mauck KF. Clinicians’ Guide to Cannabidiol and Hemp Oils. Mayo Clin Proc. 2019;94(9):1840-1851.
15. Mlost J, Bryk M, Starowicz K. Cannabidiol for Pain Treatment: Focus on Pharmacology and Mechanism of Action. Int J Mol Sci. 2020;21(22).