More and more people are using cannabis for sleep. A 2020 study found this to be one of the most serious problems. Common reasons people are using medical marijuana sleepfoundation.orgApproximately 70% of youth who use cannabis report using it to help them fall asleep.
For those who rely on a pleasant high to wake up, the logic behind this usage feels intuitive. After consuming edible or smoked cannabis, many people feel a sense of calm and tranquility, which helps them depart into dreamland. You will toss and turn less.
But there are reasons to be wary of these anecdotal reports, and even yours. Own Sleep and cannabis experience.
“If you smoke a lot of marijuana or drink a lot of alcohol, you’ll pass out pretty quickly,” says W. Christopher Winter, a neurologist and host of the show. Unplug and sleep Podcast. “So for a lot of people, that’s the indicator they’re looking for. If you fall asleep quickly, you’ve slept well. If it takes you a long time to fall asleep, you didn’t sleep well.” .”
Rather, people should consider, “Does this substance or chemical improve the quality or quality of sleep?” Winter says.
When it comes to beer and whiskey, we know the answer is no. Peter Grinspoon, a lecturer at Harvard Medical School and author of “Alcohol,” said: “Alcohol is a fascinating cautionary tale about how it appears to help you sleep, but actually makes it worse.” ” he says. See through the smoke.
But when it comes to cannabis, it’s actually quite difficult to answer the question, “Does it give you a better night’s sleep?” Research is limited and the answer is, well, as vague as Willie Nelson’s dressing room.
One paper A paper published in the BMJ journal in 2022 looked at a survey of 21,729 people and found that adults who used marijuana on 20 or more days in the past month slept less than 6 hours on average than the rest of the group. They found that they were 64 percent more likely to be. . Counterintuitively, members of this group were 76% more likely to sleep nine hours or more in a night. It’s hard to glean anything concrete from these numbers, other than the fact that cannabis probably isn’t a reliable way to get eight hours of sleep. And for the group that got much more sleep than that, it’s worth noting that more sleep isn’t necessarily better.extra sleep was taken related Your health may deteriorate.
another study A paper published in January 2021 in the journal Addictive Behaviors examined survey data from 152 moderate cannabis users, comparing their frequency of recent use and their use of either THC (cannabis’ main psychoactive compound) or CBD. (the active ingredient in cannabis) was found to have a high concentration. The cause of the high) “has little to do with the outcome of sleep.”
This type of research-based research is not as reliable as randomized controlled trials (people who decide to use cannabis as a sleep aid may have other factors affecting their sleep). However, high-quality research examining the relationship between cannabis use and sleep is limited. But what does exist is similarly lukewarm about the promise of cannabis as a sleep aid.
One of the most robust so far is a meta-analysis. published In 2022, Sleep reviewed 39 randomized controlled trials involving a total of 5,100 patients. The majority of these trials, 33 of them, enrolled patients with chronic pain, including chronic cancer pain. Overall, only a small number of patients in the study, about 8 percent, found sleep benefits from cannabis use. “That means you would need to treat about 12 people with a sleep disorder with cannabis and a placebo to get a result that says, ‘Yes, I’m sleeping a little bit better,'” said Jason W., one of the study authors.・Mr. Busse says: He is also the Associate Director of the Michael G. DeGroot Medical Cannabis Research Center at McMaster University.
However, Busse emphasizes that even that result should be taken with a grain of salt. First, his research primarily focused on data from chronic pain patients. Cannabis is thought to have analgesic properties, so it may have even more benefits for sleep in this population. (That said, people who suffer from this type of pain also have more severe sleep problems and may derive less benefit from cannabis than the general population.)
Busse and his colleagues also found that despite all the hype surrounding the substance, there are some downsides to cannabis use. Most noticeable was the increased risk of dizziness for users. This became more likely to occur across participants over time. Busse said the study found that cannabis users were 29% more likely to experience dizziness.
Some experts are optimistic that further research will demonstrate the clear benefits of consuming cannabis for sleep. “I’ve been treating people for 20 years and have had a lot of success with cannabis treatment for insomnia,” Grinspoon says.
“Thousands of people say it works, and it probably does,” says Benicio N. Frye, a psychiatrist at McMaster University and a colleague of Busse’s. “I think it helps, but I don’t know how much.” Frey led a 60-participant pilot study examining the effects of cannabis on sleep in people with a history of depression. ing.
Frey said one problem with the research so far is that very little data compares smoking to edibles or droplets, or about dosage levels or the role that CBD and THC may play. Point out that this is not the case. Here’s the answer to “Does cannabis help you sleep?” Perhaps certain doses, given in certain ways, may improve sleep quality in people with certain conditions. It’s not about whether cannabis is a good solution for the average person. “In terms of understanding, we need to be more granular,” Frey explains.
Additionally, the studies included in Busse’s analysis did not examine how cannabis use affects sleep over the long term. The median follow-up period in this study was only 35 days. The long-term effects of cannabis as a sleep aid should also be studied, as people who use cannabis for sleep may become more dependent on cannabis over time.
“If it becomes a habitual pattern, you may find it hard to sleep without it,” says Busse. In other words, marijuana’s ability to help you sleep may become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
But in this respect, cannabis may not be all that different from many other sleeping pills. “When you think about sleeping pills, probably the biggest factor in their effectiveness is belief,” Winter says. He is skeptical of the effectiveness of cannabis for sleep (as is the effectiveness of most sleeping pills). “If you believe that a drug you take by mouth every night will help you sleep and improve your performance the next day, it will affect you more than the drug actually does.”
If you’re trying cannabis for sleep, Grinspoon recommends making the mistake of taking too little to begin with and using mostly CBD. Grinspoon believes cannabis poses a lower risk than common sleeping pills such as Benadryl, benzodiazepines and Ambien, which have been linked to dementia.
Grinspoon also says: Discuss the fact that you’re using cannabis for sleep with your doctor, even if it’s a little uncomfortable. This can help you better track whether cannabis is helping you sleep and see if it’s interfering with other medications you’re taking. If these conversations don’t occur, people will be left navigating the internet and frequently visiting sites that tend to exaggerate the benefits of medical cannabis treatment.
This is precisely why researchers like Busse think cannabis treatment needs more attention and funding. “Let’s do some good research on it so we can communicate realistic expectations for patients about both benefits and harms,” he says. “And let’s start making this part of the discussions that patients have with their health care providers. Then we’ll have less of a need to go out to the western part of the internet and have people figure things out on the internet.” Own. “
