In today’s era, many of the people suffer from stress, anxiety and depression due to hypertension and as a result of negative consequences of life events. If you are suffering from anxiety in your day-to-day life and researched its cures, then you must have heard that many people assume that marijuana can help in preventing anxiety. According to a survey conducted in 2017, eighty-one percent Americans consider marijuana beneficial for health-related issues and half of the participants believe that it is good for stress relief.
As reported by participants of survey, the most common benefits of using marijuana are as follows:
- It enhances calmness
- It increases the degree of relaxation
- It improves sleep patterns
- It revives peaceful state of mind
As per findings concluded from the survey, use of marijuana can help in coping with the following conditions:
- Social anxiety
- Sleep disruption
- Stress
- Mental Trauma
- Phobia
- Panic state
It has been deduced from the previous research that marijuana helps in reducing anxiety, stress and depression in both genders (i.e. males and females) but females perceived significantly higher results of using cannabis to combat anxiety as compared to males.
There exist two fundamental ingredients derived from cannabis plants known as “CBD and THC”. It is necessary to get familiar with them while talking about this important issue.
- THC – It is the psychoactive compound in marijuana which is responsible for the “high” feelings or psychoactive impacts on mind and body.
- CBD – It is the non-psychoactive compound in marijuana that is responsible for curative and healing purposes.
Plenty of people prefer the use of CBD over THC because CBD doesn’t result in the euphoric impacts that THC causes, so it has comparatively less side effects.
Although marijuana is a way to cope with mental issues and can provide relief as directed by medical prescription but there also exist potential downsides of utilizing it. The most prominent side effects are mentioned below:
- It speeds up heart rate
- It enhances sweatiness
- It gives rise to looping thoughts
- It reduces concentration and leads to weakens memory
- It activates instant mood swings and irritation mode
- It drives mind towards illusive thoughts
- It reduces motivation
As it is a well-known phrase that “Excess of everything is bad”. Same rule applies in the case of marijuana use as well. Marijuana addiction and dependence on it is quite possible but it results in harmful consequences. People mostly face a hard time in figuring out a safe line between right use and misuse of cannabis in their daily routines.
Precautionary Measures
There are important considerations while going for a marijuana use to deal with stress, anxiety and depression. The medical prescriptions regarding dosage of cannabis should be followed attentively if you want to reduce potential risks associated with it and don’t want to get affected by its serious side-effects.
- Consider CBD over THC. If you’re using marijuana for the first time, then initiate with a product that possesses only CBD or a much higher concentration of CBD as compared to THC. Keep in mind that higher concentration of THC can lead you towards worse levels of anxiety.
- Adopt it gradually (i.e. from a lowest dose to onwards as per requirement). At initial level, take a low dose and take an appropriate time to understand and satisfy its effects before increasing dosage.
- Acquire marijuana from a medical cannabis dispensary. In this way, you can get necessary guidelines and counselling from medical staff regarding its use. Products purchased from dispensaries ensure that you are provided with the suitable type of marijuana as per your requirements and it guarantees legitimacy of products.
- Consult with your therapist. If you’re working with a therapist, make sure to get in touch with them quite often, too and communicate everything to them regarding marijuana dosage. They can guide you and assist you in evaluating how effective it’s working for your issues and also instruct additional necessary measures to take according to the situation.
Besides marijuana, there are plenty of alternative non-medical approaches for self-care in order to deal with stress, anxiety and depression as well such as yoga, breathing exercises and strategies to increase mindfulness. You should invest some time to configure the best approach out of all that works well in your case to maintain your peace of mind and gives you a sense of contentment.
Conclusion
Marijuana use, specifically its derived compound “CBD” and low ratio of “THC”, can provide advantages but temporarily not permanently in order to reduce anxiety, stress and depression symptoms. If you want to go for using marijuana, you must take into account that it does result in negative consequences such as increased anxiety in some cases as well. There exists no other way to get to know about its effect on symptoms as every individual possesses different bearing capacity and sensitivity levels so try to use it while considering important precautionary measures.
