For those who suffer from General Anxiety Disorder or any other anxiety-based symptoms, it’s likely that cannabis has come up as a question in your life. For many people, marijuana can offer relief that can’t be found any other way, and it can be a godsend to those who have been struggling with out-of-control anxiety symptoms. However, there are a couple of reasons that this treatment might not have been brought up by you or your doctor.
Regardless of the continued legalization of medical marijuana, there is still a huge stigma around the use of the drug. Many people believe that those who use marijuana to treat their anxiety are simply using their condition as an excuse to access drugs, or worse, that they don’t actually have a condition and that they are faking symptoms to get access to drugs. In either case, that is no reason to exclude this option from your treatment plan. Whether or not those around you understand your condition or the way you choose to treat it is irrelevant. But this stigma does tend to lead to some questionable assumptions about marijuana for anxiety. Below, you’ll find a rundown of how cannabis can, and cannot, help ease your anxiety symptoms.
The Basics of Using Cannabis for Anxiety
Cannabis is a treatment option, certainly, but it affects everyone differently depending on the dosage and the strain you use, making it a tricky treatment to nail down. You also will need to get a professional’s opinion on whether or not this is a reasonable way for you to treat your anxiety or what type of product you should consider. Regardless of how you choose to move forward, you should have all of the facts so that you can make an educated decision on whether or not it will work for you. If you do so, research online dispensaries and choose a highly reviewed & reputable source to purchase your cannabis. We recommend Online Dispensary Canada as we have heard first-hand positive experiences and they have phenomenal reviews to back this up.
What to Know About Cannabis for Anxiety
There has been quite a bit of research done to understand the ways that cannabis can help with anxiety overall. Most of the final conclusions boil down to this:
- The CBD in cannabis has been shown to reduce anxiety in patients, while THC actually tends to increase anxiety.
- Chronic recreational users of marijuana can experience significant health risks and increased anxiety as they experience withdrawal from the drug.
- Those who have been diagnosed with PTS or chronic pain have reported a reduction in their anxiety symptoms when they use cannabis medicinally.
- The research is limited by small sample sizes, so there is a lot that we do not know about how cannabis can actually help with anxiety.
The basic conclusion here is that the indications are that cannabis can be used medicinally to treat anxiety symptoms. However, there are so many other factors that must be considered before recommending this treatment that medical professionals might try more established methods first.
There have been enough studies done on more conventional medication that doctors are likely more able to understand the effects and identify the side effects that patients might be experiencing. Introducing a new factor such as cannabis can cloud the symptoms and in turn, might lead to a longer period of time before your doctor realizes that this isn’t the right medication for you.
The Bottom Line About Cannabis and Anxiety
In a nutshell, cannabis can absolutely help with the symptoms of anxiety, particularly if it’s a CBD based compound. However, our understanding of the potential side effects and risk factors associated with combining marijuana and anxiety medications have not been studied enough for this to be a top tier option. However, your doctor is very likely keeping up with this treatment option(and if they aren’t you might want to consider a different doctor if possible!). There’s absolutely no reason not to broach the subject and ask your questions. This might be the perfect addition to your treatment, or it might not work for you at all! But by trying it under the supervision of your healthcare professional, you’ll be able to investigate this option safely and reap all the benefits possible.
Medical marijuana is expanding in use but we are on the very cusp of this trend, which means there are endless possibilities, but far less proven studies on its efficacy. With luck, we’ll have more answers for you down the road, but for now, cannabis is a completely viable option for managing anxiety symptoms.
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