In fact, in Canada, there's more reefer shops than all the Mcdonald's Wendy's Burger Kings, Taco Bells and Starbucks is combined.

But given my own personal interest in the substance and my obsessive interest in sleep on this channel,

I've recently started asking myself, "What exactly is the pot doing to my sleep?"

I know some people swear by it as a sleep aid.

In fact, nearly 50% of users report that they're using it to help them sleep while others say it only makes things worse.

What's going on inside your body and brain when you go to sleep high or simply consume cannabis on a regular basis?

And more importantly, could you and I actually be hurting our sleep energy levels and mental capacity in the long run?

First up, let's look at the good sleep news.

One of the main benefits of THC that you may have experienced and that's supported by research is a decreased sleep onset latency.

This is just a fancy way of saying when you have THC in your system, you're likely to fall asleep faster, which is particularly useful for people who find their minds running before bed or those who suffer from insomnia.

In fact, studies specifically looking at those suffering from insomnia, found that marijuana not only helps them fall asleep faster but also allowed them to sleep longer.

As a result, this led to higher daily functioning and general improvement of well-being.

And studies looking at people suffering from depression and PTSD have found similar results as they often experience poor sleep as well.

For people who don't have specific sleep issues, research shows that a single dose of cannabis can reduce sleep onset latency, increase total sleep time and bring less sleep disruptions once asleep.

But repeated use of cannabis can actually start to cause problems, which we'll get to shortly.

There's also been some promising research into CBD, the non psychoactive component of cannabis.

First, it may interact with your body's thermal regulation by decreasing your body temperature.

To initiate sleep, your body actually needs to drop its core temperature by around 1.5 °C.

And studies have found that CBD administration seems to aid this.

Second, it may be interacting with adenosine.

Adenosine builds up in your brain through the day making you naturally tired.

Caffeine actually binds to the same receptors effectively blocking adenosine, which is why it can keep you alert.

But some research suggests that CBD may actually modulate your sensitivity to adenosine making you more tired.

And finally, CBD seems to quiet the Amygdala, which is associated with fear and emotions.

And it's been shown to reduce anxiety in some studies allowing for more restful sleep.

But scientists have found that this is all very dose dependent.

In fact, very low and very high doses of CBD may be wake promoting while the ideal sleep dosage is still being experimented with.

While this research is really promising, experts say it's still super early days to be recommending CBD as a sleeping aid, especially when in combination with THC, which brings us to the bad sleep news.

So even though THC may decrease sleep onset latency, it seems to make the overall quality of your sleep much worse.

A normal sleep cycle goes from light sleep into deep sleep and then rem sleep or rapid eye movement where you have dreams.

All of these phases are important for brain health and different cognitive abilities.

But much like alcohol, marijuana seems to have a very negative impact on rem sleep.

Not only does THC seem to delay the arrival of your first rem stage, it also significantly decreases the overall amount of rem you're getting.

You've actually probably experienced this firsthand if you consume a lot of cannabis in that, you notice you have way less dreams.

This has been further supported by eye-tracking studies.

THC decreases this movement and intensity, taking the rapid out of rem.

And studies have found this can directly impair cognitive abilities like memory and cause more grogginess and lethargy.

Chronic rem deprivation can make a person anxious and moody and with extreme deprivation can cause one to hallucinate and become paranoid.

If you've ever tried to take a break from weed or quit, you may have also noticed how wild and frequent your dreams become.

That's because your body is basically going through a rebound phase.

After having been deprived of good rem sleep for an extended period, it suddenly increases rem by a lot, leading to a lot more dreams of which, in my experience, can be kind of crazy.

A rebound phase like this is also often associated with a deficiency further emphasizing the impact THC has on rem sleep.

Speaking of rebounding, part of the reason that some people think cannabis is helping their sleep is because when they stop taking it, their sleep gets really bad.

And not just like back to their previously bad sleep but even worse.

This is a very common withdrawal symptom, especially in people with insomnia, which leads to a tough choice:

Do I quit weed to improve my sleep quality but potentially trigger insomnia where I'm sleeping less overall or do I continue to use it and maybe be getting worse quality sleep, but at least I'm sleeping at all?

The risk is some people seem to develop a tolerance for THC and as a result, often need to increase their dosage which makes the problem harder to break away from and perpetuates the negative impacts of cannabis.

In fact, sleep problems are one of the main reasons people are unable to quit marijuana because the immediate impacts become unbearable.

If you are trying to quit, just know that rebound insomnia is one of the main symptoms of cannabis withdrawal.

Regular marijuana users also consistently have more sleep disturbances through the night than non users.

And people who have used weed within the last month are also more likely to say they have a hard time falling asleep or staying asleep.

In fact, one of the biggest studies on 14,000 students found that insomnia was significantly higher in people who consumed marijuana compared to those who don't by 45%.

And these numbers were proportionate to how much weed a person was consuming.

For people who consumed weed daily, they were two times more likely to have insomnia.

Furthermore, people who use chronically, which is defined by around 20 days in the last month are 64% more likely to sleep less than six hours a night and 76% more likely to sleep longer than nine hours than people who don't consume,

which may seem like an odd stat, but research over the years has found that sleeping between 7 to 9 hours is optimal or the goldilocks zone.

And those who fall out of that range have an increased risk of heart attacks and strokes as well as the long-term progression of things like atherosclerosis, diabetes, coronary artery disease and any of the major cardiovascular diseases.

But whether these sleep issues are actually caused by cannabis or simply correlative is still a little murky in some studies.

For example, it's possible that people who have bad sleep or suffer from insomnia are more likely to turn to cannabis as a possible solution.

At the end of the day, what can you take away?

Overall, the results of cannabis use on sleep specifically THC don't look too good.

While a single dose might help you one night, repeated use can very quickly make the problem much worse, particularly hurting your rem cycles.

And while CBD does look more promising and doesn't seem to affect rem or cause dependency or rebound issues, it's still early days.

It may be more useful for those who have conditions such as depression, severe insomnia or other major sleep disturbances.

But the results are mixed, especially when you factor in an increase tolerance to marijuana over time.

For me personally, I actually took the last month off of vaping or eating edibles because I was feeling like I was more lethargic and tired.

And I can say with 100% certainty that I feel more well rested now than I have in a while.

It's not like an extreme difference. It's almost difficult to articulate, but it's been a welcome change and it doesn't mean I'm gonna quit forever.

I'll probably just use it a little more discerningly now knowing there are specific negative impacts it's having on my sleep.

Honestly, it's probably for the best to take a break from anything that you indulge in a lot.

It makes it more exciting when you go back and who knew it could also be good for your mental and physical health.

Yay.

But I'm curious about your experiences and perspectives with it.

If you want to leave a comment down below, I'd love to read it.

We actually made a whole podcast on this topic with more detailed research as well as our personal anecdotes and stories on the side note channel.

I'll leave a link down below or on the screen somewhere for you to check it out.

Thanks so much for watching your likes and subscription are appreciated as always and stay tuned for some more science ASAP peace.