It’s no secret that stress and anxiety are increasingly common ailments that affect countless Americans, directly harming overall quality of life. According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, anxiety is the most common mental illness in the United States, impacting 18.1% adults each year. With the current state of the world, one can only assume that percentage will increase. Additionally, with a continued cultural shift towards an emphasis on wellness, stress is the number one barrier to “being well.” Enter: CBD.
Chris Buske, owner of Wonders of Nature (WON) in Eau Claire, specializes in full-spectrum, premium hemp and CBD products. His products capture the holistically beneficial trifecta of terpenes, cannabinoids and flavonoids. Buske looks at the plant from an herbalist standpoint, emphasizing his goal is “to capture the whole plant, i.e. the full spectrum.” All of the aspects of the plant create a medicinal and beneficial entourage effect, producing a rawer and objectively better product that is truly a medicine for people in pain.
With CBD being relatively new on the market, people may have a difficult time finding a product with correlating price and quality. Buske seeks to be a local antidote to an over-crowded, quantity over quality market by prioritizing affordability. Says Buske, “If it’s not affordable to the people, it’s not medicine to them.”
Buske recently expanded from pop-ups at local businesses and the farmers market to his own retail space. He was confident in saying, “If I got the opportunity to talk to people, my business would go well.” As a retailer and a healer, he knows the importance of providing a personalized, education-driven experience for his customers. He dedicates as much time as necessary to sharing his expertise with customers and familiarizing them with the ways CBD could help them on an individual level.
Through this customer-first, healer-driven approach, Buske is confident “if people feel good about the healing experience, there will be a better outcome.” Therefore, it is important to him to push back against the stigma and shame surrounding THC in relation to marijuana. WON products include a small, microdose of THC. THC plays a critical medicinal role in psychosomatic health, which is related to symptoms of stress, and industrial hemp can contain a maximum of 0.3% THC by weight. Buske’s products contain raw materials from trusted, small family farms, most of which he has a personal relationship with or has visited in person. This ensures his ability to produce a quality product consumers can trust, from small partners he can trust.
From a plant/medicine standpoint, cannabis “chills you out,” both physically and in regards to our nervous systems. This calming factor can be incredibly helpful to those suffering from anxiety or stress symptoms. According to the Mayo Clinic, “people with anxiety disorders frequently have intense, excessive and persistent worry and fear about everyday situations.” This fear is associated with the sympathetic nervous system, which activates our fight or flight response. Cannabis, on the other hand, supports our parasympathetic nervous system, which allows us to rest, while also bolstering our autonomic functions, which are stimulated by things that bring us joy and social bonding.
While CBD or hemp products don’t pretend to be a cure for anxiety or stress, Buske says those who use it feel it offsets the negative symptoms related to stress and anxiety. A loyal customer, Eden Weil, speaks highly of WON products saying they helped her wean off the anxiety medication she had been taking for ten years. She even credits them as “helping her get her life back.”
In this time of increased stress and anxiety, turning to plant medicine like CBD could be an excellent step towards putting one back on a path toward attainable, sustainable wellness.
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