The article makes no mention of the effects of THC consumption on sleep. Anecdotally, there are people who smoke weed every day and still sleep well at night.
If you quit weed, how will you measure whether there is any increase in REM sleep?
If you quit weed, how will you measure whether there is any increase in REM sleep?
1. Remembering some dreams in the morning. Especially that I dreamt right before waking up.
2. Calmer mood, less jittery, harder to irritate.
3. Easier to maintain focus on things that are not fun, easier to resist distractions.
How I tell the level of cannabinoids/alcohol in the body fell enough to allow good sleep with both deep and REM phases: - The first night you sleep with a proper REM phase you get a REM sleep rebound. It's characterized by lot of vivid, intense, often rare dreams. Easy to notice after a period in which you pretty much don't remember any dreams. Happens because there is much pressure in the body to catch up for lost REM sleep, but rebounds are not enough to catch up.
The sad and deeply diabolical thing about cannabis is that it's half time in body is quite long (though adapted bodies metabolize it faster), so smoking/consuming chronicly (defined in Huberman Lab as 2 times per week or more often) is enough to pretty much completely rob you of REM sleep. You can't remember any dreams and even worse, you loose your everyday free emotional therapist that is REM sleep. If you add some other negative experiences or just a difficult period in life, you're in for depression or at least sad/tired/boring days. And what you might escape into in these days? Often more weed.
x: anecdotal, most likely influenced by huberman lab's episodes on marijuana and on sleep. They describe what roles both deep sleep and REM sleep perform. Episode on weed is a must - listen for people consuming cannabis in any form, even sporadically, because lot of things around cannabis are counter intuitive (f.ex. that it doesn't help with sleep). If you thing problems with sleep affect you or that your sleep quality suffers because of drug (including alcohol) use, consider listening to these Huberman Lab episodes or talking to a specialist if that's available to you.
I go with 2 months cycle with THC. On and then off. Toward the end of the ON period I can’t stand weed anymore and I’m often grumpy as fuck.
Then I rediscover it 2 month later and it’s great. Yah. Not great.
Going to listen to that now.
Good luck on your continued journey.
G.Maté's "In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts" was very helpful for me, in moving past some childhood trauma.
> Anecdotally, there are people who smoke weed every day and still sleep well at night.
First, as far as I know, smoking weed would only affect your sleep if you consumed it a couple of hours or so before sleep (exact numbers vary per person, but you get the idea). If someone consumed some weed during lunch, I would expect theit nighttime sleep to be pretty much unaffected.
Second, what do you mean by "sleep well"? They might fall asleep faster and stay asleep throughout the night. But how good was their sleep quality in reality? We are talking in terms of measuring REM cycle length and such.
From anecdotal experience, I also thought that my sleep shortly after consuming was "good", as I would fall asleep easier. However, I can confirm that it wasn't high quality sleep at all for me, my REM cycle was very short, and I definitely noticed extra groginess after waking up (along with the rest of the things mentioned in sibling comments, like lack of dreams and such). Doing some more A/B testing on my sleep in regards to consumption of weed pretty much made it clear that it makes my sleep quality worse, but makes it easier to fall asleep.
Of course I was not able to notice this when I was younger. Only now at 32 and a family these measurements are starting to actually be noticeable.
If you look at the app and see that it says "better sleep" before starting the day and then notice that you had a good mood or felt better after that could be a placebo effect.
You could check that by not looking at the app until after your day is done and you have noted if you had a good mood or felt better. If the app and your day's mood still correlate then it probably is something real.
On the other hand checking if it is real risks making it no longer work, and a good mood is a good mood even if it was caused by a placebo. I'm not sure I'd check.
The placebo effect doesn't go away if you know it's a placebo: if it's worked in the past because you thought it did, it will continue to work if you think it will. https://xkcd.com/1526/
Especially if you're wondering all day if you're in a good mood or not.
It might not even be placebo! Perhaps the combination of (well rested) + (optimistic) means you have a good day, and the experiment changes those conditions enough that you get different results. Heck, you might end up having better days more often. You never know if you don't try.
"To address this question, Feinberg, et al. (1975) compared the sleep patterns of experienced marijuana users on tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and a placebo. Feinberg, et al. (1975) reported reduced eye movement activity and less REM sleep in the THC condition. They also reported a REM rebound effect, which is more REM activity, on withdrawal from THC. So, there exists some scientific evidence that marijuana interferes with REM sleep." [1]
[1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-teenage-mind/200...
“Somebody dosed four people for a couple weeks, 50 years ago, and wrote about it. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/164314/ “
Studies don’t tell you facts about your own experience, especially weak studies. Studies only tell you about statistical patterns in whatever population they represent. Here, the study is so poor that it doesn’t actually say anything reliable at all. Check your references, folks!
I'm not even sure how to respond to this. Personal experience not based in science is something that should never be regarded as factual or can be broadly attributed to others biological effects. This is just one study. There have been others, but enjoy your experience.
Sleep well, or "sleep enough hours"/"don't have insomnia"?
Because sleeping well and REM sleep can't be deduced from the latter, it needs to be measured.
Not even self-reporting is enough - because chronic bad sleep becomes the baseline, so people used it to just consider their mental clarity/energy levels when they wake up normal (like a person with shortsightedness, who doesn't know he has it -- they're then suprised when they finally get glasses and see that, no, it wasn't normal actually).
I also have great vivid dreams when high so, yeah I'd also be interested to see some more information too.
Perhaps prior to downvote access, a user should be educated and quizzed.
Or if you're sufficiently intoxicated to cause a problem, it doesn't matter if weed is legal, you are still in trouble.
Correct. In the U.S., you can report to a police officer that, "yeah man, I'm high out my mind. Stoned as fuck, bro." As long as you aren't driving or causing a disturbance, they legally can't do anything other than search your person for the substance.
WARNING: I DO NOT RECOMMEND DOING THIS
There have been cases in UAE and especially Singapore[0] where travelers are drug tested on arrival and the presence of banned substances in blood or other bodily fluids is against the law.
[0] - https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/saliva-test-drugs-...