Step 3: Taking your CBD

Now that you have your Oil Tincture, it's time to begin using it. Below are the main factors to consider regarding this step (3):

• Dosage
• Time of day taken
• Type of administration
• Strain
• Frequency
• Experiment and take notes

Dosage - The most common term regarding dosage is "go low and slow". This is a bit of a reminder that everyone is different and you need to be cautious and start with a low amount and take your time. I like to think of dosage as the volume button on your car radio. If you turn it on but it's too low, you can hear that music is playing but not necessarily hear the song very well. If you turn it up too loud, you can hear the song, but its most certainly going to hurt your ears also most likely lacks clarity as the sound will be horribly distorted. There is usually a perfect volume or at least a perfect threshold of volume. I feel that this is all you are looking for with your dose. I consider the lowest part of your useful threshold to be a microdose. To put a number on this, each full dropper is 1ml of oil, general guidance for what is used in the retail industry is between 2.5 mg cbd (1/4 dropper with my recipe) and 20mg cbd (2 full droppers with my recipe). It's worth pointing out that roughly every 4 "drops" is about an 1/8th dropper. That means that 8 drops = 1/4 dropper and 16 drops = 1/2. With that said, I would suggest that you start out with a few "drops" and go from there. Keep in mind that a strain may feel completely different depending on the dosage you take as well and that it's important to experiment and track your results.

Time of day - I think it's very important to pay close attention to what time of the day you administer your dose. Due to the duration of the strain or half-life and onset, I feel like it's important to get the timing right. Depending on the strain used, once you find one that you like I would recommend that you should try it both in the morning/day and in the afternoon/evening on separate occasions and see which you like better. For example, some strains might come on very energizing and tail off to relaxing. It would be ideal to take this in the day and have you better prepared to sleep at night and may not work well if you tried to take it before bedtime.

Type of administration - Three main ways (that I recommend) to administer or take your tincture are sublingual, swallowing (on an empty stomach) and to put it in your food or drink. Here are the pro's and con's of each. I would suggest trying them all and personally have the most belief in the sublingual method.

• Sublingual -  designed to be applied to the skin under the tongue. Drop the oil under your tongue and hold it in place for 7-10 minutes. The active ingredients are absorbed into the skin. After the 10 minutes, it's fine to simply rinse your mouth if you don't want to swallow. Onset is generally within 30 minutes and this method offers the most predictable results as it is the most Bio-available. Most current lab clinical use this method as well.
• Swallowing - Drop your dose on the back of the tongue and swallow. Results generally take 1-2 hours to fully onset and  sometimes results can vary depending on the person. Doing this on an empty stomach is best. This is generally the accepted method for retail bottles of cbd oil.
• Coffee and tea - If you do not like the taste, then I recommend dropping your dose into your tea or coffee (or any drink) with a fat like milk. Keep in mind that since you are ingesting the CBD with food, your results may vary greatly compared to the first two methods.

Strain Choice - At the most basic level you need to know that strain choice matters a lot when creating full spectrum CBD products. I have discussed this more in Step 1. 

Frequency - There are multiple approaches to how often you take CBD. Many experts in the CBD industry strongly believe that you need to take CBD everyday for the best outcome of long term results. However, there are many people out there who also simply take it as little as once a week or a few times a month. Depending on your situation, you will need to decide what is best for you. 

Experiment and take notes - Trying and experimenting is an important part of the process. Take detailed notes and eventually you will find what works for you. When you do, I suggest sticking with that strain and repeating your process carefully for the best results.