Why You Should Mix CBD Oil With Your Morning Coffee

Coffee is the Most Popular Stimulant in the World

Caffeine, the active ingredient in coffee, is the most popular stimulant on earth. It’s estimated that over 2.2 billion cups of coffee are consumed every day.

Tea, another source of caffeine, is even more popular, with as many as 3 billion people drinking tea daily.

No other stimulant comes close to the popularity of caffeine.

Our obsession with productivity might be to blame for our high caffeine consumption. Caffeine helps us wake up early in the morning for work, focus more intently at work, and even allows us to work longer hours by delaying fatigue.

But caffeine is far from perfect.

Related: The Ultimate Guide to CBD Tea.

All Stimulants Have Side Effects — Even Coffee

Most people who drink coffee are familiar with side effects.

It can make us feel jittery, anxious — sometimes, we can even sense our heart skipping beats or pounding out of our chest. All of these effects actually hurt our ability to be productive — counteracting the very reason for using it.

This is where CBD oil comes in. It’s a perfect solution for eliminating these adverse side effects, allowing the caffeine to do the job we wanted it to in the first place.

1. Enhance Mental Alertness

CBD oil can further enhance the feeling of mental alertness produced by caffeine by interacting with some of the same neurotransmitters responsible for carrying out the effects.

Mental alertness is controlled by a few key neurotransmitters in the brain. One of the most important is adenosine.

As more adenosine builds up, our neurons become progressively slower at sending messages. This makes us feel sluggish and tired. It’s designed to help us wind down to fall asleep at night.

Caffeine blocks the effects of adenosine by attaching to the receptors itself — thereby preventing adenosine from doing its job [2] — keeping us awake when we would otherwise feel tired.

CBD oil offers many of its own benefits through its interaction with adenosine, but the interaction is much more complex than it is with caffeine — it’s considered a modulator of adenosine. This means that CBD oil appears to work by improving the efficiency of the adenosine receptors directly [2, 3, 5].

Other stimulating effects of CBD oil may come through its interaction with serotonin — often considered the “happy” neurotransmitter [6]. Increased serotonin activity leads to a greater sense of well-being and motivation.

More research is needed to truly understand how CBD oil can enhance caffeine-induced alertness. We’ll keep you posted as more research on this connection comes out.

2. Avoid Anxious Side Effects

One of the best-known uses of CBD oil is for treating anxiety.

CBD oil is a very good anxiety-reducer because it offers several separate mechanisms to achieve this — rather than relying on one thing.

CBD offers the following improvements for anxiety:

• Increases GABA activity — causing widespread relaxation in the nervous system
• Regulates hypothalamic function —the region in the brain that controls our stress-response
• Relaxes the muscles — easing anxiety-related tension
• Stops inflammation in the brain —neuroinflammation (inflammation in the brain) is an underlying cause for anxiety

All of these different effects combine to produce the potent anti-anxiety effects attributed to CBD.

Studies have shown that CBD oil is effective at reducing states of anxiety in various experimental models [7, 8, 9]. User reports online say CBD oil was able to alleviate the anxiety caused by caffeine as well — something we can attest to.

Suggested Reading: Comprehensive List of CBD Research.

3. Experience Longer-Acting Benefits of Both CBD Oil & Caffeine

Almost everything that enters the body needs to be processed by the liver in order to be eliminated from the body.

In order to do this, the liver uses a series of specialized enzymes (CYP enzymes) to disassemble drugs, cell byproducts, and other compounds in our bloodstream.

Caffeine and cannabidiol are similar enough in structure to require the same enzymes by the liver — CYP1A1, CYP1A2, CYP2D6, and CYP3A4.

There’s a limit to the metabolizing power of the liver. If there’s a sudden increase in compounds such as caffeine and CBD oil, the liver gets backed up. The liver can only process these compounds as fast as it can.

Just like rush hour traffic being slowed down by the sheer volume of cars — traffic to the liver for metabolism is also slowed down.

This essentially means that CBD oil and caffeine increase the duration of effects for one another.

How to Make CBD-Infused Bulletproof Coffee

Bulletproof coffee is a combination of coffee and a source of fat — usually grass-fed butter or MCT oil from coconuts.

The brew is popular by those on the ketogenic diet for inducing ketosis — a metabolic state where the body uses fats stored in the body.

You can think of sugar like jet fuel — it burns very hot but doesn’t last long.

The oils in bulletproof coffee behave like coal — they burn relatively hot but last a very long time.

Bulletproof coffee provides a slow-burning source of energy and a slow-drip of caffeine while the fats are gradually absorbed, resulting in all-day energy.

This is also a perfect vector for CBD oil — it’s an ideal way to combine these two substances. Generally, if you try to add CBD oil to a coffee, the oils will float on the top of the coffee. CBD is fat-soluble, hence it will dissolve perfectly in the butter and MCT oil in bulletproof coffee.

Learn how to make bulletproof coffee.

Can I Stack Caffeine Pills With CBD Oil?

Yes, CBD oil is an excellent addition to a caffeinated nutritional stack. Just be considerate of the dose of each. Caffeine is generally used at 100 – 400 mg per day (100 mg is roughly equivalent to 1 cup of coffee).

The dose of CBD oil can be anywhere from 10 – 150 mg per day.

Caffeine pills usually contain 100 or 200 mg each.

Vaping CBD With Your Morning Coffee

Vaping is another popular and effective way to take CBD along with your morning coffee.

It’s the modern version of the timeless cigarette and coffee combo — only much better for us.

Vaping CBD may not be for everyone, but it remains a great way to get CBD into the body. It can be paired easily with a morning coffee and only takes seconds.

Vaping also makes it easier to get the dose right and is the fastest way to get effects. This makes it better for addressing anxiety on the spot.

Suggested Reading: Buyer’s Guide To The Best CBD Vape Kits & Hemp Cigarettes.

Use CBD-Infused Coffee

Many people are starting to see the benefits of mixing CBD with morning coffee, so new companies are pre-infusing CBD into their coffee grounds popping up all over the place.

This is the most convenient way of mixing CBD and coffee — it’s already done for you! All you have to do is brew your coffee as you normally would, and you’ll get CBD along with it.

The only problem with this method is that it’s tough to tell exactly what dose you’re taking with each cup unless the manufacturer explicitly lists this estimate on the bag. Even when they do, it’s only an estimate.

The best CBD coffee combines high-grade, full-spectrum hemp extract with good coffee beans. There are lots of CBD-infused coffees on the market that use decent hemp extract, but the coffee itself isn’t anything special. We prefer to drink CBD coffees from company’s that put just as much effort into the coffee they use as their hemp extract.

Best CBD Coffees We’ve Tried So Far:

$11.00 – $53.00

Buddha Beans Coffee Co.

Buddha Beans Coffee Co. Infused Coffee 2 – 12 oz Bags

4.5 / 5

Total CBD:	50 – 300 mg
Potency:	5 mg per (8 oz) Cup
Cost per mg CBD:	$0.14 – $0.29
Extract Type:	Isolate
THC Content :	0.0%

Expert Review Get a Deal

Strava

Strava CBD Coffee

5 / 5

Total CBD:	100 – 500 mg CBD
Potency:	4 – 20 mg per (8 oz) Cup
Cost per mg CBD:	$0.11 – $0.22
Extract Type:	Broad-Spectrum

Expert Review Get a Deal

$39.99

CBD Infusionz

CBD Infusionz CBD Coffee

5 / 5

Total CBD:	200 mg
Potency:	23 mg CBD per (8 oz) Cup
Cost per mg CBD:	$0.20
Extract Type:	Broad-Spectrum

Expert Review Get a Deal

Key Takeaways: Mixing CBD Oil With Coffee

There are plenty of reasons you might want to start mixing CBD oil with your morning coffee, or any consecutive coffees for that matter.

The caffeine in coffee (and other sources of caffeine) turns out to be synergistic with CBD. When taken together, they both produce a heightened level of productivity through increased alertness and concentration. They also slow the breakdown of each other, allowing them to circulate through the body for longer periods of time.

And finally, CBD oil directly counteracts many of the most frustrating side effects of caffeine — such as anxiety episodes, jitteriness, shaking, and muscle cramping.

We recommend mixing your CBD oil in with a bulletproof coffee for all-day effects. CBD-infused coffees, CBD vape pens, and CBD capsules are also excellent ways of mixing the two.

Do you take CBD with your morning coffee? 🙂☕

References

1. Cornelis, M. C., Erlund, I., Michelotti, G. A., Herder, C., Westerhuis, J. A., & Tuomilehto, J. (2018). Metabolomic response to coffee consumption: application to a three‐stage clinical trial. Journal of internal medicine, 283(6), 544-557.
2. Costenla, A. R., Cunha, R. A., & De Mendonça, A. (2010). Caffeine, adenosine receptors, and synaptic plasticity. Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, 20(s1), S25-S34.
3. Liou, G. I., Auchampach, J. A., Hillard, C. J., Zhu, G., Yousufzai, B., Mian, S., … & Khalifa, Y. (2008). Mediation of cannabidiol anti-inflammation in the retina by equilibrative nucleoside transporter and A2A adenosine receptor. Investigative ophthalmology & visual science, 49(12), 5526-5531.
4. Gonca, E., & Darıcı, F. (2015). The effect of cannabidiol on ischemia/reperfusion-induced ventricular arrhythmias: the role of adenosine A1 receptors. Journal of cardiovascular pharmacology and therapeutics, 20(1), 76-83.
5. Castillo, A., Tolón, M. R., Fernández-Ruiz, J., Romero, J., & Martinez-Orgado, J. (2010). The neuroprotective effect of cannabidiol in an in vitro model of newborn hypoxic–ischemic brain damage in mice is mediated by CB2 and adenosine receptors. Neurobiology of disease, 37(2), 434-440.
6. Nelson, K., Walsh, D., Deeter, P., & Sheehan, F. (1994). A phase II study of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol for appetite stimulation in cancer-associated anorexia. Journal of palliative care.
7. Zuardi, A. W., Cosme, R. A., Graeff, F. G., & Guimarães, F. S. (1993). Effects of ipsapirone and cannabidiol on human experimental anxiety. Journal of psychopharmacology, 7(1_suppl), 82-88.
8. Crippa, J. A. S., Derenusson, G. N., Ferrari, T. B., Wichert-Ana, L., Duran, F. L., Martin-Santos, R., … & Filho, A. S. (2011). Neural basis of anxiolytic effects of cannabidiol (CBD) in generalized social anxiety disorder: a preliminary report. Journal of Psychopharmacology, 25(1), 121-130.
9. Zuardi, A. W., Shirakawa, I., Finkelfarb, E., & Karniol, I. G. (1982). Action of cannabidiol on the anxiety and other effects produced by Δ 9-THC in normal subjects. Psychopharmacology, 76(3), 245-250.