Welcome to the third in the series of “We Ask Our Experts”. In this series of posts, we focus on our customers and our friends in the business community. The concept is to pose a series of quick questions to known experts in the various industry verticals.
Today’s post is all about wellness as we speak with Ken Kinneen from Unwind CBD.
What do you do & What drove you to set up Unwind CBD?
I was a website developer for the last 6 years. I was always interested in the CBD industry but just last Christmas I had the opportunity to purchase this website. At the time it was a general CBD store just selling other people’s products. I saw the impact CBD was having on people’s lives and decided to stop freelancing and focus solely on this business. We worked with customers to find the products they want, involve them in our tests and in the end we now have our own full range of products.
Which of your products would you most recommend?
Your body absorbs different amounts of CBD depending on the way you consume it. The most efficient way is vaping, it’s almost 3x more effective than edibles and you feel the effects in as little as 10 minutes, so we’d recommend that first. Oil is the next best and finally edibles (gummies). Your digestive system takes away a lot of the CBD before it can get into your blood, so we recommended gummies only as an add on or for people who struggle with the other methods. Although the convenience of it means it’s our most popular product.
What is unique about your brand of wellness?
The majority of our customers ( and most CBD users ) are suffering from sleep & anxiety issues, and these issues are being amplified in our current time. Instead of just selling the product and letting the user figure out the rest, we try to help them further with education on how to sleep better, how to worry less. We use practical tips that in combination with our products generally provide great results. We are also trying to break the stigma of CBD by using clean branding and simple language. We are a wellness brand and not a head shop!
What is the number one thing you wish people knew about your company?
I think the most important thing to understand about Unwind, is that you shouldn’t feel alone or helpless if you suffer from these issues. You also shouldn’t feel like a patient when using our products. It should be a fun, positive experience. I think this is why our gummies are so popular. I think we will see a shift in the behaviour towards these previously hidden emotions in where people are more open in trying to unwind.
What is your advice for people struggling with lockdown?
I think with some simple rules you can thrive in lockdown. If you are having issues sleeping, the standard tips online work very well if you can follow them. No phone in bed, no screens an hour before bed, etc. A lot of people are also suffering from anxiety (which then leads to sleep issues).
I think there are 3 very important things to help with this :
1) Stay social. Schedule regular time with friends or family to skype, or play a game online. Use this time to talk about what you’ve been worrying about, and also listen to what they worry about. If you don’t want to tell someone, then write it down instead. Getting it out is important.
2) Exercise. I believe this is one of the top causes of anxiety, we need regular exercise that makes your heartbeat. It’s a basic need of our body to function correctly and it plays a massive role in mood regulation. ( Did you know that feeling after you exercise of calmness is your body naturally producing CBD?).
3) Be productive. This is easier to say then do, but if you are sitting around doing nothing, and then feeling bad for it, it causes a cycle. You feel bad for not doing anything and you don’t do anything because you feel bad. Learning something new or taking a new hobby can really help, but limit it so it stays fun. Scheduling can help too. If you schedule a 1-hour call twice a week, and a 2 hours of hobby/learning twice a week, your week will start to feel a lot busier.
How can your treatment/products help with stress relief?
CBD is known to cause a lot of stress relief in people. It in turn reduces anxiety and helps people sleep as their mind isn’t racing as much. I think it’s just as important to follow the rules above though, you can probably get the result you want without CBD with these rules, but if you do those with CBD too it works very well. We have people of all ages using our products, it’s even being used to soothe autistic children who are finding it very stressful at home.
How have you personally been practising wellness during the lockdown?
I’ve luckily been quite busy with this lockdown. I try to follow my own rules above. I exercise regularly, I get as much social contact as I can and stay as busy as I can and it’s been working quite well. I am thankful my situation is good and I do worry for the older and more lonely people.
What is the most positive thing to have happened for Unwind CBD in the last year?
I think every good review is the most important thing. When I purchased this website I was in the boat of “does this really work”. I thought it may be placebo, but I was okay with that because if it helped it helped. As time went on and we accumulated over 100 reviews I started to see the real impact this had on some people’s lives. We have a customer with an autistic child and the difference he sees is amazing, for someone non-verbal who can’t understand what CBD is there is a transformation in his behaviour. There are also people suffering from sleep issues their whole life, who now sleep fine. There are of course people it doesn’t work for too, but the percentage has been surprisingly low. This motivates me to improve the product constantly and to try and make sure it reaches the right people.
How do you see things continuing to change – do you have any expansion plans for 2021?
I think people will start to realise that anxiety issues can be helped. I believe the market will get bigger as more people are willing to try something to relax them. The world now is a very high paced, high-stress environment and that’s not what we were made for.
We have lots of expansion plans this year. We expect to launch into two more countries and completely revamp our product line based on customer feedback. We also want to better organise our education into a central place where people can easily go in search of natural ways to reduce anxiety and help sleep.
If you have any specific questions regarding Unwind CBD and how it can help you please let us know and we’ll pose these questions on your behalf. Alternatively please feel free to reach out Unwind CBD directly:
