Using cannabis to help you sleep: do your research first
In popular culture, pot is supposed to make you calm and sleepy, so it seems to make sense that if you’re having trouble getting to sleep, marijuana might be the way to go. As it becomes legal in more states for medical use, and even for recreational purposes, more and more people are trying cannabis for a variety of health and lifestyle related purposes. However, the research has a long way to go before catching up with all the uses becoming popular.
In the case of insomnia, there is some evidence that cannabis can help indirectly by acting on chronic pain and anxiety, two conditions that often result in sleep difficulties. However, the direct action is more difficult to pin down. The two main active compounds in cannabis — tetrahydrocannabinol (or THC, which is largely responsible for getting people high) and cannabidiol (or CBD, which does not cause a high) — seem to affect sleep in different ways. It may be that low doses of THC can help you sleep and high doses can worsen sleep, while the reverse seems to be true of CBD. This makes research difficult because it is hard to measure the different constituents in different samples.
Another important consideration is the ability of cannabis to cause dependency and addiction. If used frequently, the body becomes accustomed to the effect, and requires more and more to get the same result. Dependency can result, which interferes with sleep patterns, as withdrawal symptoms can worsen insomnia. In general, physicians with clinical experience find that those who use marijuana to get to sleep only occasionally report more satisfaction than those who try to use it every night.
Moreover, the gold standard for insomnia is still cognitive behavior therapy (CBT), or “talking” therapy, which has been shown to provide relief from sleeping problems more reliably than drugs of any kind. We recommend the online program SHUTi to help insomnia sufferers make the lifestyle changes needed for a good night’s sleep. Cannabis may be a tool in the toolbox, but it is not usually the first one to try.
Resource:
New York Times. Is cannabis good or bad for sleep?. March 7, 2023.