The Benefits of Adding CBD to Your Coffee

How Does Coffee Affect the Brain?

Thanks to its caffeine content, most of us know that coffee helps wake us up. Caffeine acts as a central nervous system stimulant and serves as an adenosine receptor antagonist.

Adenosine is a naturally produced chemical that promotes sleepiness. Still, when caffeine binds to particular receptors in the brain, it blocks out adenosine, which helps us feel more awake, energized, and alert. Coffee also has neuroprotective benefits and can help protect neurotransmitters that play a role in memory, focus, and cognitive function.

How Does CBD Work In the Body?

Like caffeine, CBD also works with receptors in the brain to affect cognitive function. This is done through the endocannabinoid system.

The endocannabinoid system (ECS) is a complex messaging system that uses cannabinoid receptors, naturally-produced endocannabinoids, and enzymes to send messages throughout the central and peripheral nervous system. The ECS helps maintain balance within the body by triggering important biological functions as needed.

For instance, if the body is experiencing stress, the brain may produce endocannabinoids to bind with cannabinoid receptors (CB receptors) to help boost serotonin production and lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol to help calm the mind and relax the body.

When CBD is absorbed into the body, it may support endocannabinoids in maintaining homeostasis by blocking enzymes from breaking down endocannabinoids as quickly. Basically, whatever your ECS is doing to support balance and boost your wellness, CBD may help prolong and support its beneficial effects. By partnering with endocannabinoids in the ECS, CBD may help elevate the mood, reduce stress and tension, calm the mind, promote improved sleep quality, and ease physical discomfort throughout the body.

CBD and Coffee: Better Together?

So, why should you consider adding a few drops of CBD oil to your coffee? Let’s dive into some of the benefits of combining these seemingly opposite substances.

Boost Alertness

When adenosine neurotransmitters bind with adenosine receptors, it triggers a response in the brain that slows down the pace of our neurons, making us sleepy. While this is great for bedtime, it’s not always ideal at the start of a long day, before a big presentation, or whenever we need to concentrate and focus.

While caffeine binds directly with adenosine receptors to block adenosine from taking effect, CBD may also play a more subtle role in affecting adenosine.

Studies suggest that CBD may be a modulator of adenosine, enhancing the adenosine receptors without binding to them directly. While this modulation can help enhance the calming effects of adenosine, it can also elevate the energizing effects of caffeine that binds to these receptors as well.

When mixed, a low dose of CBD may also work synergistically with the antioxidants and caffeine in coffee to help boost the brain’s metabolism, increasing energy and alertness.

Reduce the Risk of Caffeine-Induced Jitters

Most coffee-drinkers have experienced the post-coffee jitters at one point another, either from a caffeine sensitivity or from simply drinking an extra cup or two more than usual. When this over-stimulation occurs, you may feel shaky and agitated. You may also experience some physical changes, such as increased heart rate.

The good news is that CBD may help ward off these lesser-desired potential effects of coffee. Unlike caffeine, CBD is not psychoactive and does not alter your mental state.

In fact, researchers are finding evidence that CBD’s effect on receptors in the brain may help balance out unwanted psychoactive effects of too much THC, such as nervousness and increased heart rate, and may be able to do the same for caffeine.

By supporting the soothing work of endocannabinoids and cannabinoid receptors throughout the nervous system, CBD may help mellow out the parts of the body that caffeine stimulates, reducing the risk of jitters.

Lower Stress Levels

If you’re knocking back those espressos to get your head in the game during crunch time, the last thing you need is caffeine-induced nervousness distracting you from the task at hand.

One of the main uses of CBD is reducing stress and mental anguish. CBD may help calm the mind by working with the endocannabinoid anandamide. Anandamide is known as “the bliss molecule,” thanks to its ability to promote feelings of joy and reduce the stress hormone cortisol production.

CBD may also lower stress by positively affecting serotonin and GABA receptors. Serotonin neurotransmitters are responsible for producing feelings of pleasure, while GABA activity can reduce mental stress and physical tension.

In this way, mixing CBD and coffee may give you the best of both worlds: the focus and energy caffeine provides are balanced by the calm and soothing support of CBD.

Increase Your Physical Energy

When caffeine is absorbed into the bloodstream, its effect on the nervous system can help increase adrenaline production. Adrenaline supports enhanced blood flow and helps prepare muscles for intense physical exertion.

While coffee is popular among many athletes for this exact reason, the psychoactive effects of caffeine can sometimes lead to a buzzy headspace less conducive for an intense workout or big game. However, the addition of CBD may help vanquish mental stress without interfering with the desirable adrenaline production brought on by caffeine.

CBD may also help reduce muscle tension before and after a workout by partnering with the cannabinoid receptors in cells throughout the muscles. Adding CBD to your warmup routine may help reduce the risk of injury, while using it after a workout may help support muscle recovery.

Longer Lasting Support

Once caffeine and CBD work their way through the bloodstream, they are broken down and metabolized by enzymes in the liver, after which they are flushed out of the body. You will no longer feel any of the effects brought on when these substances are still in the bloodstream.

However, taking caffeine and CBD together may help prolong the time for enzymes to break them down, leading to longer-lasting benefits.

The same liver enzymes are needed to break down both caffeine and CBD. And since there are only so many of these enzymes available at any given time, they have their work cut out for them when both substances are in the body at once.

By increasing the time it takes for enzymes to break down and flush out each substance, you may experience both the alertness-boosting effects of the caffeine and full-body relaxation bought on by the CBD for longer than you would when taking either on their own.

How to Make Your Own CBD-Infused Coffee

Ready to experience the benefits of CBD coffee for yourself? Adding CBD oil to your morning cup is an easy and accessible way to enjoy this wellness-boosting drink.

Here’s what you’ll need:

  • Your favorite coffee beans or a pre-made cup of your favorite coffee.
  • A small amount of HEROES.com CBD oil.
  • Recommended: A fat-based topping such as cream, milk, or non-dairy milk, butter, or whipped cream.

Make your coffee your preferred way: iced or hot, light or dark roast, whatever gets you going each morning. Then it’s time to add in the CBD.

We recommend mixing a few drops of your CBD oil with a fat-based substance before adding it to the coffee. Because CBD is fat-soluble and not water-soluble, it has a higher bioavailability (meaning your body will absorb more of it) when taken with fats.

Since coffee doesn’t have any fat content, your CBD oil won’t dissolve well into a black cup of coffee and will instead stay separated and float at the top of your cup.

Stirring your CBD oil directly into your creamer, milk, or any other fat-based topping before mixing it into the coffee will allow the CBD to easily blend into your drink and become easily absorbed into the body.

How Much CBD Coffee Should I Drink Per Day?

It is considered safe to consume up to 400 mg of caffeine a day, which is typically around four cups of coffee, and it is common to use anywhere between 5 and 20 mg of CBD oil per cup of coffee.

A typical daily dose of CBD is between 5mg to 150 mg. Start slow and increase your dose, little by little, until you feel the effects to see what amount of CBD is right for you.

When choosing an exact amount of CBD coffee to consume, let your own body be your guide. For some, only a few drops of CBD provide the desired effects, while others may need a larger amount.

The same goes for coffee: some people may easily enjoy three to four cups a day, while others may be more likely to feel antsy after just one. We recommend starting with one cup to see how that feels.