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Does CBD help anxiety?

The evidence is limited. A few small studies at 300 to 600 mg found short-term effects, but pooled trial results are not statistically significant.

Facts checked 13 November 20263 min readHow we research

The evidence is limited and inconsistent. A few small studies found that a single large dose of CBD reduced anxiety in a stressful test, but when researchers pooled the placebo-controlled trials of pure or enriched CBD, the overall effect was not statistically significant.1 We grade it as limited evidence.

What do the positive studies show?

  • Public speaking test, 2011. Twenty-four people with social anxiety disorder took a single 600 mg dose of CBD or a placebo before a simulated speech. Anxiety during the speech was lower with CBD.2
  • Dose comparison. In another speaking-test study, a 300 mg dose reduced anxiety compared with placebo. Lower and higher doses did not.3
  • Four weeks in teenagers. A double-blind trial in Japan gave 37 people aged 18 to 19 with social anxiety disorder either 300 mg of CBD or placebo each day for four weeks. Anxiety scores fell more with CBD.4
  • Australian youth study, 2022. Thirty-one people aged 12 to 25 with treatment-resistant anxiety took up to 800 mg a day for 12 weeks. Self-rated anxiety fell by about 43 per cent. There was no placebo group, and the authors said a placebo effect could not be ruled out.5

What do the larger reviews show?

  • A 2024 systematic review found that 9 of 15 trials (60 per cent) showed no benefit from a single dose of CBD on anxiety.6
  • A 2025 meta-analysis of 21 placebo-controlled trials, which also covered PTSD, OCD and Tourette syndrome, found the pooled effect of pure or enriched CBD was not statistically significant. A smaller subgroup of pure CBD studies did show a moderate, statistically significant effect. Only one of the 21 trials studied generalised anxiety disorder.1
  • A 2026 analysis in The Lancet Psychiatry covered 54 trials of all cannabinoids, not CBD alone. It found no significant effect on anxiety and concluded that routine use for mental disorders “is currently rarely justified”.7

Does a low dose work?

Nobody has shown that it does. The positive results came from 300 to 600 mg taken once, 300 mg a day for four weeks, or up to 800 mg a day. We found no good trial of CBD for anxiety at 150 mg a day or less. See does low-dose CBD work?

What do Australian doctors say?

The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists says there is insufficient evidence to support medicinal cannabis as a treatment for anxiety and other mental disorders, and has raised concern about overprescribing.8

What should you know before considering it?

  • Anxiety responds strongly to placebo, which is why uncontrolled results and personal stories are weak evidence.
  • CBD can interact with other medicines. See can you take CBD with antidepressants?
  • Treatments with stronger evidence exist. A GP can explain them.

A prescriber decides whether CBD is appropriate and sets the dose.

Read the full guide: CBD for anxiety.

Footnotes

  1. Meta-analysis of placebo-controlled trials of CBD for anxiety. Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research, 2025. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40956670/ ↩ ↩2

  2. Bergamaschi MM and others. Cannabidiol reduces the anxiety induced by simulated public speaking in treatment-naive social phobia patients, 2011. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21307846/ ↩

  3. Cannabidiol presents an inverted U-shaped dose-response curve in a simulated public speaking test. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6781714/ ↩

  4. Masataka N. Anxiolytic effects of repeated cannabidiol treatment in teenagers with social anxiety disorders. Frontiers in Psychology, 2019. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02466/full ↩

  5. Berger M and others. Cannabidiol for treatment-resistant anxiety disorders in young people: an open-label trial. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 2022. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35921510/ ↩

  6. Systematic review of randomised controlled trials of CBD for anxiety, 2024. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11595441/ ↩

  7. Wilson and others. Cannabinoids for mental disorders: systematic review and meta-analysis. The Lancet Psychiatry, 2026. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41856154/ ↩

  8. Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists. Updated clinical memorandum: therapeutic use of medicinal cannabis, March 2024. https://ranzcp.org/news-analysis/updated-clinical-memorandum-therapeutic-use-of-medicinal-cannabis ↩

This page is general information, not medical or legal advice. Laws and evidence change; we show the date we last checked the facts at the top of every page. Talk to your doctor or pharmacist before starting, stopping or changing any medicine.

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