I have always had a very strange relationship with sleep. When I don’t sleep, it is difficult to function. However, I have always viewed sleep as if I were unconscious for one-third of my life. In other words, if you are lucky enough to have lived for 75 years, then you have only been awake for 50 of them. That is not the best attitude to start off with when suffering from sleep deprivation.
As I have gotten older, I noticed that sleeping a full night had become impossible. There have been different theories about why many of us have more difficulty sleeping as we age. Some possible causes include changes in the circadian rhythm, natural melatonin production, psychiatric disorders, social changes, chronic medical issues, the effects of different medications, alcohol use, the onset of Alzheimers, dementia, anxiety, depression, caffeine consumption … just to name a few.
I experimented with different over-the-counter remedies, sleeping pills, meditation, melatonin capsules, exercise, relaxation tapes, eating dinner earlier, supplements such as kava, L-tryptophan, melatonin, and valerian and even using a massage chair. The only thing that ever really helped was prescription sleeping pills such as Lunesta and Clonazepam. However, prescription drugs have many risks and side-effects, and can be very nasty and dangerous for some people, including the likelihood of addition.
When I was younger, falling asleep and staying asleep through the entire night was never a problem. However, as the degree of sleep interruption increased, so did my anxiety. I did not look forward to another night lying down and staying awake. In my search for a natural way to fall asleep and stay asleep, I came across articles about CBD. Rather than taking a commercial CBD product from some unknown company, my experience in farming with oil extraction (shark liver oil and olive oil production) led me to experiment with growing hemp plants and extracting the cannabinoid oil. CBD and THC are just two of over 100 different compounds found in cannabis plants. CBD has shown promise for a variety of medical issues, while THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) is the chemical that causes you to get “high”.
Initial experimentation with some plant strains resulted in oil that was effective, though still having a THC component. The objective was to eliminate THC. Eventually we were able to find hemp strains, with very low to non-existent levels of THC.
After solving and eliminating the THC problem, the next step was to determine the optimum level of CBD to induce sleep. Eventually we discovered that taking between 30-90 mg at night, depending upon your weight and individual body chemistry, helped me to fall asleep and to stay asleep. By reducing my nightly anxiety level, falling asleep no longer was an issue. Waking up in the middle of the night stilled occurred, but was easy to overcome and get back to sleep. After 6 years experimenting with growing, extracting, and finding the optimum levels as a sleep aid, we decided to produce the product commercially.
