The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Notes -
It's really interesting to me that someone could post regularly on this board and yet still enjoy cannabis. I'm envious of your mental robustness tbh.
A strong plurality of people posting here could fairly be called "anxious overthinkers" - the board is a bilge pump for excess thought, and eg expressing any worry whatsoever about AI risk (whether the worry is grounded in real things or not) ought to be a criterion for anxiety diagnoses.
I smoked a fair amount of weed in my teens/early 20s, took plenty of other recreational drugs, and a near-universal thing I've heard from peers with a similar profile is that around age 25, they started to find weed disagreed with them. Specifically, it makes them/me really unpleasantly anxious. Weed to me now is solely a tool I would use if for some reason I wanted to give myself a panic attack. Maybe I'm a little more dramatic in my dislike than normal, but it's very normal to find weed unenjoyable from mid-20s onward.
So what's your secret? Youthful brain? No prior history of smoking? Iron resolve?
I actually would quite like to like weed again, and agree with the demerits of drink that you outlined - so if there's One Weird Trick you can share, please do so.
Exactly the same for me. Smoked more often than is healthy for several years as a teenager/early-20, for a couple of those years basically daily, and always enjoyed it. Stopped completely for a year or two and now a single puff will trigger a panic attack. Did not realize this was a common pattern. Would love to know why this happens.
Because weed builds up psychotic potentials in your subconscious. Be thankful it only results in a temporary panic for you (so far).
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I have always loved weed, though as I've gotten older the side effects have gotten more intense. Same as others already mentioned:
I typically create my own "Green Dragon" tincture. This allows precise dosing, eliminates damage to your lungs either through burning flower or vaping, it's easier to socialize with people who haven't tried weed before, and is a great excuse to make a citrus cocktail for consumption.
Like others mentioned, just taking a lower dose can be almost as fun with far fewer side effects. I'm an extremely cheap date at this point, and go through maybe a quarter ounce a year when partaking 1-2 times per week.
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Biggest piece of advice is to control the dose. It's like alcohol. If I pound six shots in a row I'm probably going to throw up and feel like shit the next day. If I drink two glasses of wine over the course of four hours I'm going to feel great and have no ill effects. Unsurprisingly weed works the same way.
If I overdo it and get anxious then I practice mindfulness. I find it's easier to do this because you know the anxiety isn't "real" so you can sort of go "I know why I'm feeling this way, I'm just going to accept it and observe it instead of fighting it." I feel practicing mindfulness in this way has helped me manage anxiety better when sober as well.
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I'm the same - I enjoyed it for a couple of years in college and then it just became a panic attack trigger. I'm always amazed that some people are able to use it as a treatment for anxiety.
Similar experience but I always thought this was due to the types of weed commonly sold changing
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I never smoked much weed as a teenager, I typically refused it even at parties unless very drunk, certainly never smoked by myself or just with a few friends, so maybe I had a puff or two 3-4 times a year between the ages of 15 and 18? Between 18 and 25 I pretty much didn’t smoke at all, so I only really started as an adult. I’ve also never smoked cigarettes or mixed tobacco and weed (which is how most British people consume it), but I’m not sure if that has any effect on this.
The only time I’ve ever experienced the anxiety spiral was on one of the few occasions I tried cocaine as a teenager. I get moderately anxious (palpitations etc) on very high caffeine doses and once or twice on ADHD medication, which I no longer take (as discussed in last week’s thread). I suppose that makes a recommendation difficult. Do you find the anxiety sets in very quickly? Does it happen after a small amount of THC or only if you get stoned?
I’m an extremely neurotic person. The last time we did one of those five factor personality quizzes on the friday fun thread I was literally 99th percent neuroticism, so I’d say I’m pretty anxious. But weed calms me down, clears out my head, makes me think of ‘nothing’ (or just what I’m doing in the moment, whether it’s watching TV or making dinner or talking). I do think it’s different to alcohol or LSD which have a much stronger happiness effect (I’ve never been a sad drunk), weed doesn’t make you happy. But it does clear my head. What’s your experience?
I stopped because after a while it started making my heart beat really fast. It always elevated my heart rate somewhat, but initially it was more like 90-120 beats per minute. Later on I would take one puff and it would immediately go to 200-250 BPM. That just doesn’t seem healthy from a cardiac standpoint.
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