We’re all doing what we need to survive in these weird, stressful times. And for Martha Stewart, who recently launched her own line of cannabidiol (CBD) products, that appears to be eating CBD gummies—a lot of them.
The right dose of CBD “depends on who you are,” Stewart said in a new interview with the New York Times. “I pop 20 of them and just feel OK, but some of my friends do two and feel high, I don’t know why,” she continued. “It’s not high like a marijuana high. It’s a CBD high, like, relaxed.” She went on to eat four gummies in the course of the one-hour interview, the article states. The Martha Stewart CBD line includes these fruit-flavored “wellness gummies” as well as unflavored soft-gel capsules and citrus-flavored oil drops.
Stewart also credits CBD products with keeping her skin looking good and helping her sleep during quarantine, she said. “I just put a couple droppers of the blood orange or Meyer lemon [oil] under my tongue.”
CBD is a compound found in cannabis and hemp, but it doesn’t produce a classic “high” sensation the way that tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) does. So taking a whole bunch of CBD gummies isn’t likely to send you down an oh-my-God-I’m-way-too-high anxiety spiral the way that eating, say, too many weed brownies would. But if 20 CBD gummies still sounds like a lot, you would not be wrong.
According to the packaging, a serving of Stewart’s gummies is only one per day. However, Stewart’s gummies, like most on the market, contain a pretty small amount of CBD (10 milligrams). And research suggests it take a lot more than that to feel any calming sensation or any effects on anxiety.
For instance, in a small study published in Neuropsychopharmacology in 2011, people with social anxiety who received CBD before a public-speaking task reported experiencing lower levels of anxiety symptoms during the task than those who received a placebo. But the dose of CBD was a whopping 600 milligrams (in capsules) in this study, which means you probably aren’t going to experience the same effects from a single gummy containing just 10 milligrams. So, hey, maybe Stewart’s onto something with her 20 gummies in a day.
However, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a great idea for everyone to go ahead and eat a bunch of CBD gummies every day. The effects that one person feels may be very different from the effects another person gets, as Stewart notes. And remember that CBD isn’t the only thing in these gummies, so you’ll be ingesting a large amount whatever else is in there too.
In some cases, CBD products can be mislabeled and may actually contain THC, which could cause some unpleasant effects that you weren’t expecting. So it’s important to always buy CBD from a reputable source (preferably one that gives you details about the dosing and exactly what form of CBD the product contains).
And as with any supplement—including CBD—it’s important to at least chat with your doctor before making it a regular part of your regimen. They can tell you if taking that supplement could have any side effects to be aware of or if it could interact with any other medications you’re taking, which CBD may do, MedlinePlus says. Still, for most people, taking a CBD gummy here and there isn’t likely to be harmful, SELF explained previously. And if you feel like it works for you, you’re in good company.