Could CBD help to reduce anxiety and phobias?

Phobias are some of the most common forms of anxiety disorders. We ask if CBD could help reduce some of the symptoms.

Phobias can include more common fears such as heights, spiders, flying or more unusual ones such as  beards, chickens, clouds. Their response can be intensely debilitating, not to mention hard to treat.

Phobias, in their truest form, are more than fear, instead, they can develop to such an extent that people start to organise their lives around avoiding the subject of their fear. They can be classed as a type of anxiety disorder. 

Research shows CBD may be an easily accessible and chemical-free option.

What causes anxiety and phobias?

The brain’s amygdala is known as our fear centre, is designed to process emotional and fear signals across the brain. The right-side amygdala is tied to expectations of fearful emotions and responses while the left is tied to expectations of pleasant emotions.

People who suffer from phobias have been shown on MRI to display increased activity of the amygdala when exposed to phobia-inducing stimuli.

Symptoms of phobias vary, but will generally include elements such as fast heartbeat, dry mouth, sweating or trembling – similar to those caused by anxiety.

Phobia based anxiety 

Phobias can cause a general feeling of anxiety in sufferers, which CBD is well known to potentially ease. 

That’s because the compound is thought to interact with the receptors in the brain, potentially sending signals to the neurotransmitter, serotonin, although there is still a lot of research needed in this area to understand how the two interact.

Furthermore, a study examining the effect of CBD on people with Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD), which could be said to be a phobia of social settings, found that it may help to reduce related anxiety.

Participants in the study were given 400 mg of CBD or a placebo. The researchers reported that those in the group given the CBD recorded lower levels of anxiety.

CBD for phobias

When it comes to phobias, a team of psychiatric researchers from Utrecht University, the Netherlands, say cannabidiol can ‘enhance’ the natural endocannabinoid system – a physiological system that regulates the body’s responses to stress – and help overcome phobias, particularly when used together with exposure therapy, where a patient is gradually exposed to the source of their anxiety.

Lead author Dr Johanna Baas said: “Phobic anxiety disorders are among the most prevalent psychiatric disorders and are burdensome in terms of loss of quality of life and work productivity.

“Evidence-based treatments are relatively successful in the majority of patients, especially exposure therapy. However, a substantial subset of patients fails to achieve, or stay in, remission.

“Preclinical and genetic research have yielded evidence that the cannabinoid system is involved in the extinction of fear, presumed to underlie the beneficial effects of exposure therapy in phobic disorders.

“A cannabinoid constituent that may enhance endocannabinoid signalling is cannabidiol (CBD), a non-psychoactive component of cannabis. Hence, the addition of CBD to exposure therapy is expected to strengthen effects of treatment.”

How to take CBD for phobias

There is a multitude of ways to take CBD, depending on the situation and the user’s personal preference.

Some, such as edibles, have a long-lasting, slow-release effect, making them ideal for those who may need to confront their phobia over a long period of time, such as a long-haul flight.

Others, such as tinctures you drop under your tongue, have a quicker, more short-term effect, perfect for phobia-sufferers who need an instant boost when confronting their fears, such as a meeting on the top floor of a ten-storey office block.

With CBD often hailed as a treatment for anxiety, it is no surprise then that its calming properties can also be used to treat phobias and the symptoms they cause.