For the modern American, anxiety disorders are the most common form of mental illness, affecting over 40 million adults — 18 percent of the national population.
Anxiety is characterized by panic and fear. It can have a negative impact on quality of life. Physical symptoms can include heart palpitations and dizziness. They can be frightening, debilitating or painful.
Some patients say that cannabis helped ease their symptoms and help them regain control of their lives.
Only a Spoonful Of Cannabis Coconut Oil
Joely Bálázs was an assessor of residential properties in New Brunswick (Canada) who mistakenly thought that her panic attack had been a heart attack. Balazs, now 47 years old, has suffered from anxiety over the past 23 years. At times she even considered suicide.
Balazs was in the doctor’s waiting room when her breakdown occurred. Her doctor advised her to try medical cannabis.
“The lowest it got, I just felt nothing — at least that was what I felt like most of the time,” Balazs says. “I thought… ‘I might as well start thinking of things completely differently — like I’m starting all over.'”
Balazs, who has suffered from anxiety for the last three decades, says that cannabis edibles have helped her. She began feeling better after adding a teaspoon of coconut oil infused with cannabis to her morning coffee.
She said, “Now I lived and didn’t have the desire to drive in front a Mack truck any more.” “I was truly healed. I did not kill the pain; instead, I accepted it. I pulled off the hood and looked at myself. “I really give pot credit for my success.”
The New Treatments for Anxiety by Doctors
Balazs’ anxiety is not the only case where cannabis has been found to be helpful.
Dr. Perry Solomon, chief medical officer at HelloMD — an online portal connecting medical cannabis patients to doctors — says that anxiety is one of the top three conditions patients report treating with cannabis.
In the August 2017 edition of Psychopharmacology, researchers found that cannabis use can reduce stress by reducing cortisol release (a hormone of stress) and decreasing subjective stress scores from patients.
Dr. Solomon warns against using cannabis edibles to relieve anxiety.
He says that edibles are less predictable in terms of their effects than other methods, such as smoking, vaping, or using tinctures.
The effects of edibles can take a long time to kick in and are more lasting. This makes them less useful for treating anxiety attacks. The absorption of edibles can vary depending on the other foods you have eaten, and also what time it is.
Still some chronic anxiety patients — like Kathryn Grant, one of the founders of tinctures and topicals company Forest Nymph Botanicals — report the long-lasting effects of edibles to help keep anxiety more manageable throughout the day.
Keep Doses Low & Take it Slow
Grant treats her anxiety with edibles. If she is having a severe anxiety attack, Grant will combine a CBD-rich sublingual tincture and smoking a joint. Grant says that Dream Queen and XJ13 are her favorite strains.
If you are interested in using edibles as a treatment for anxiety, Dr. Solomon or Grant suggest starting out with a low dosage and observing which strains best suit your needs.
Solomon says that everyone is unique and different, so what may work for someone else might not be the same for another.
Grant agreed with these words, encouraging everyone to experiment and to be “self-aware enough to discern what they are good for and what is not.”
Original published in print editions of Cannabis Now. LEAR MORE
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