CBD (cannabidiol)

At a glance

Compared with other treatments

Better than a dummy pill in two small trials: one single dose before a speech test, and one 4-week trial in Japanese teenagers.

What it takes

Not approved for social anxiety. Shop CBD products vary a lot in dose and purity.

What it is

CBD (cannabidiol) is one of the substances in the cannabis plant. Unlike THC, it does not make you high. It is sold in many countries as oils, gummies and capsules. The rules differ a lot between countries.

CBD is not approved as a medicine for social anxiety anywhere we know of. In the US, the Food and Drug Administration has approved one CBD medicine, Epidiolex, and only for some rare forms of epilepsy. It warns that CBD products sold to treat diseases are unapproved drugs.

Why people try it

Many people want something natural, without the side effects of prescription drugs. Some people on Reddit say cannabis is the only time they feel like themselves around others. That is a real experience. But cannabis with THC and pure CBD are different things, and the trials tested CBD.

What the trials found

• One dose before a speech. In a Brazilian lab study, 24 people with social anxiety took a single 600 mg dose of CBD or a dummy pill (a placebo), then did a public speaking test. The CBD group felt less anxious during the speech. Each group had 12 people.
• Four weeks in teenagers. In a Japanese trial of 37 teenagers with social anxiety, 4 weeks of CBD reduced fear of being judged and social anxiety scores more than placebo. The trial was small and early.
• A large trial with no public results. A US company, EmpowerPharm, ran a trial of 239 people that finished in December 2023. The company announced in 2024 that CBD helped a subgroup with moderate to severe social anxiety. It did not publish the numbers. ClinicalTrials.gov had no posted results when we checked on 9 November 2026.
• A US government-funded trial, also waiting. A trial of 60 people at NYU Langone in New York finished in December 2025. No results were posted when we checked.

Small early trials often look better than later, larger ones. The same pattern happened with fasedienol and D-cycloserine. Until the two bigger trials report, we cannot say whether CBD helps.

What the bigger trials could tell us

The two unpublished trials are larger than the published ones. The EmpowerPharm trial gave 300 or 600 mg a day and measured social anxiety over 10 weeks. The NYU trial gave CBD for 3 weeks and measured anxiety during a speech test and in brain scans. If they found a clear benefit, CBD would move up. If they found little or nothing, that would be important too, because many people already buy CBD for anxiety. Either way, the results should be public. See trials waiting for results.

If you are thinking of trying CBD

• Talk to your doctor first, especially if you take other medicines. The FDA lists harmful interactions with other drugs as a known risk of CBD.
• Don’t stop a prescribed medicine to try CBD. Talk to your doctor before changing anything.
• Know that shop products are not approved medicines. They are not checked the way prescription medicines are.
• The trial doses were high. The published trials used 300 mg a day or a single 600 mg dose.

Side effects

The FDA lists these risks of CBD: liver damage, harmful interactions with other drugs, and extreme sleepiness. The two small social anxiety trials were too short and too small to say much about safety.

What helps now

Cognitive therapy for social anxiety and SSRIs have many trials behind them. If you use alcohol or cannabis to get through social situations, alcohol and social anxiety explains why that can backfire. If you feel low or unsafe, see crisis lines.