Learn How Medical Marijuana Can Enhance Your Sleep?

Cannabis, also known as marijuana, pot, or weed, is one of the most therapeutic plants known to humanity.

Medical experts recommend CBDfx THC Gummies to treat a wide range of diseases, including pain, anxiety, seizures, nausea, inflammatory conditions, and even sleep disorders like insomnia.

But if you’re new to cannabis, you could be wondering just how the plant exerts its therapeutic properties. This post shall attempt to answer that question, with a particular focus on the role of medical marijuana in boosting sleep quality.

Understanding Medical Marijuana

Marijuana products fall into two distinct groups, depending on their intended use. The two categories include Medical Marijuana and Recreational Marijuana. It’s important to differentiate between these two groups before using marijuana for sleep or any other purpose.

Medical marijuana refers to cannabis products used for therapeutic purposes. On the other hand, recreational marijuana products are used to achieve a pleasurable experience. This experience usually manifests in the form of euphoria.

The fundamental difference between medical and recreational weed comes down to the kinds of compounds present in these products. As you shall find, marijuana contains hundreds of medically beneficial bioactive chemicals, which are also known as cannabinoids.

The two most widely-studied cannabinoids include cannabidiol (CBD) and tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). The main difference between these two compounds is that THC is psychoactive, whereas CBD is not. That explains why recreational cannabis products tend to be high in THC, whereas medical marijuana products are generally high in CBD.

However, it’s important to note that THC also contains numerous medical benefits, with some researchers even claiming that the substance could be more medically beneficial than the non-psychoactive CBD. So, CBD and THC might make better sleep aids if used together instead of when used separately.

But if you’re new to cannabis, it’s essential to buy high-quality weed products that are significantly high in CBD but low in THC. Note that your body will need some time to adjust slowly to the psychoactive properties of marijuana before you can increase your THC doses.

How Medical Marijuana Enhances Sleep

1. Marijuana regulates your circadian rhythms.

Regular sleep patterns, also known as circadian rhythms, are controlled by a complex cell-signaling system known as the endocannabinoid system. This system includes its own receptors known as endocannabinoid receptors and a series of beneficial chemical neurotransmitters called endocannabinoids.

Besides regulating our circadian rhythms, the endocannabinoid system also plays a role in offsetting homeostatic imbalance and boosting our overall immunity.

When you consume medical cannabis, the cannabinoids in the product enter your body through the endocannabinoid system, where they increase the levels of its endocannabinoids. This complex mechanism results in a host of benefits, including the regulation of your normal sleep-wake cycles. Cannabis edibles are also quite popular among people.

2. Marijuana relieves pain

Pain is one of the primary causes of insomnia. Indeed, it’s difficult to fall asleep or sleep for longer hours with aching muscles or tender joints. Fortunately, pain also happens to be the main problem that medical marijuana doctors often recommend weed for.

Medical cannabis relieves pain the same way it regulates your circadian rhythms, impacting your endocannabinoid system’s performance. Numerous studies investigating marijuana’s analgesic properties have confirmed that extracts from the plant, such as cannabidiol, can relieve pain by activating the body’s pain receptors spread throughout the endocannabinoid system.

Marijuana also treats pain by increasing the body’s access to its endocannabinoids responsible for pain management, such as anandamide.

3. Marijuana relieves anxiety

Besides pain, stress and anxiety are other significant insomnia triggers. In fact, anxiety disorders like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) have been associated with chronic insomnia. So, treating anxiety goes a long way in boosting sleep quality.

Medical cannabis has shown tremendous promise in relieving stress and a variety of anxiety disorders known to be common insomnia triggers, such as PTSD. Extracts from the plant relieve anxiety by increasing the body’s levels of happiness-inducing hormones like serotonin.

Research by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) established that marijuana might also help relieve Generalized Anxiety Disorder. What’s more, medical cannabis is also effective against other anxiety disorders like panic disorder, social anxiety disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

4. Marijuana can enhance the effectiveness of conventional sleep aids.

Another way medical marijuana might aid your sleep is by enhancing the overall effects of your regular sleep aids. That’s especially true if you’re already using other herbal extracts to boost your sleep.

In addition to cannabinoids, the cannabis plant also contains compounds known as terpenes. The main function of terpenes is boosting the overall therapeutic properties of cannabinoids while also giving each cannabinoid its distinctive aroma.

But terpenes are not only available in marijuana. These compounds are also found in hops, lavender, chamomile, and lots of other natural sleep-boosting herbs. So, pairing cannabis with any of these herbs may produce compounded sleep-aiding benefits.

5. Marijuana increases sleep onset time and duration.

Last but not least, using medical marijuana as a sleep aid comes with benefits in terms of enhancing sleep onset time and duration. Due to its calming effects, cannabis can make you drift off to sleep faster than you normally would.

But that’s not all. Once you fall asleep, the herb ensures that you remain asleep for longer hours. Medical marijuana reduces rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, which is the sleep phase marked by lucid dreaming. The logic is that if you don’t dream, you’ll likely have a more restful sleep.

By shortening REM sleep, medical marijuana also reduces the risks of REM sleep behavior disorder (RBD), a condition where a sleeping person dramatizes their dreams.

Medical marijuana is undoubtedly one of the most effective natural sleep aids you’ll ever find. To make the most of it, be sure to choose products that are higher in CBD than THC. Then, practice microdosing to avoid experiencing some of the side effects of marijuana, ranging from drowsiness and dry mouth to nausea, hallucinations, and bloodshot eyes. CBD also has a connection with technology.