Cannabis a Healthy Vegetable? Living a healthy life with weed

Is it possible to live healthy with weed? Of course it is! Weed can be a healthy vegetable in addition to a balanced and healthy lifestyle, but with a handful of side notes. We would like to inform you about these.

Living Healthy with Weed

You lead a healthy life by making sure you get enough exercise, 7-9 hours of sleep, eating a varied and healthy diet, and leaving out as many things as possible that are known to make us unhealthy. Alcohol and tobacco are well-known villains. But does weed belong in that list of unhealthy stimulants or is it a pretty healthy vegetable? Let's take a look at some of the well-researched properties of cannabis.

How does weed affect your sleep?

The looming and relaxing effect of the weed is super relaxing to fall asleep with. Many medical cannabis users, such as people who have trouble falling asleep, benefit from it, but many healthy people also use cannabis regularly to sleep. We know that alcohol has a similar effect on falling asleep. But what happens during sleep? 

An EEG (electroencephalogram) measures electrical activity in the brain. When you hook people up to an EEG machine at night, doctors and scientists can clearly see if you are getting enough rest. Roughly speaking, you need to be in deep sleep for a while at night, but also in a state of consciousness called REM sleep. REM stands for Rapid Eye Movement, named after the way we move our eyes behind closed eyelids in this special sleep phase. 

Under the influence of alcohol, you spend less time in your deep sleep. As a result, you may fall asleep faster, but the quality of your sleep rapidly deteriorates. Weed has a different effect on sleep. Like the liquid nightcap, the plant-based nightcap also has a negative effect on your nighttime brain activity. This is because you spend less time in REM sleep because of weed. REM is crucial to the creation and breakdown of brain connections. It plays a role in your short-term memory and we also know that weed makes you forgetful. Still want to hit up a joint? Preferably not before going to bed. Do not sleep under the influence of cannabis to prevent it from affecting your sleep.

• Weed before bed = less REM sleep.
• Alcohol before bed = less deep sleep.

The Weed Cravings - A Recipe for Unhealthy Eating

Because THC in weed increases your appetite to extraordinary proportions, you can deal with it in two ways. By nature, you are inclined to snack and stuff your face with junk food. THC stimulates your unhealthy appetite. The alternative is to just get healthy but tasty things in the house before you light up that joint. By taking care of it in advance, you make better decisions than when you are high as a kite. 

Instead of devouring a bag of chips, you can stock up on unsalted, unroasted nuts, for example. Good for healthy fats, vitamins, minerals and delicious too. Pecans, almonds and cashews are our favorites. And if you're tempted to order a burger or fries while you're slowly becoming one with your couch, you can also look around for a healthier alternative in advance. Sushi, a meal salad or a poke bowl are really top-notch when your arms are basically too heavy to hold your phone for a last-minute order.

Exercise and Weed

There is evidence that ingredients from marijuana are healthy for your body and that it can benefit you with exercise. But there is more research needed. Also, the way you ingest it is very important for the effect on your health. More about that later. The anti-inflammatory properties of CBD along with the analgesic effects of THC are a match made in heaven if you're into power sports. Our tip: use weed after exercise rather than before, because not everyone is as motivated to work on their health or fitness after a big fat jonko. Then you have some kind of reward in store. But that motivation differs from individual to individual. If you really enjoy exercising, a few puffs from the vaporizer can give you the push you need to put on the sneakers.

Is smoking weed healthy?

Speaking of your fitness, if you want to improve your endurance, the number one tip is to quit smoking as soon as possible. Needless to say, there are many more health benefits to that. But what is the relationship with weed as a healthy vegetable? Is smoking weed healthy? No. Nothing you smoke is healthy. You are burning plant material and often paper, the smoke of which you inhale. Tar, carbon monoxide and other harmful substances tarnish your lungs, causing permanent damage to your body. It has been conclusively proven time and again that there are serious health risks associated with smoking.

Smoking pure weed

So in the first place, it's best not to smoke at all. But smoking pure weed instead of joints in which you mix shag with weed is better for you in any case. This makes a difference in the risk of addiction because there is no nicotine in weed. With a weed pipe you also eliminate the smoking paper, which means that you really only smoke weed. However, you still have to deal with hot smoke. This is also bad for your mucous membranes, mouth and throat. The next step is to cool the smoke. That's why bongs are brilliant. By breathing in, you pull the smoke of the weed or hash through water, which cools the smoke. It is not really filtered by the water, so in that sense a bong is not healthy.

Is vaping bad for your health?

Next level is to buy a vaporizer. By doing so, you prevent the weed from burning while still getting hot enough to vaporize THC and CBD, among other things. As a result, you eliminate the build-up of tar and carbon monoxide, and if you keep the temperature low enough you also reduce the amount of harmful substances you inhale. Understanding vaporizer temperatures is a short class, but that is valuable knowledge for greater enjoyment when vaping. Vaping is really different from smoking. Many novice vapers say that less smoke comes out of the vaporizer than they expect. That's right. No smoke comes out at all. Smoke is the result of combustion. A vaporizer produces vapoUr, which is less hard on your throat and also less hard to you. If that's important to you, you can choose a conduction vaporizer where you usually see more vapour production than with convection vaporizers. Some vaporizers also allow you to cool the inhaled air. With some units this is done by putting a longer mouthpiece or water bubbler on the vaporizer, with others it's done automatically because you first fill a balloon with vapour.

Edibles

Weed candy or edibles can be the healthiest way to still enjoy the effects of weed. However, super sweet cannabis gummies or a space cake full of goodies such as chocolate can also cause fluctuations in your blood sugar levels. These kinds of sweets are not meant to fill your stomach. One or two of these gummies will be enough to get you in a good mood and the effect of a slice of spacecake can often be compared to a very big hit of a pure joint.

Because you are not smoking or vaping, you are not straining your lungs. Your health doesn't deteriorate. The THC is converted by your liver into a stronger form called 11-hydroxy-THC. It takes longer before you get high and you remain under the influence for a longer period of time. Moreover, the high can feel more intense. Weed oil (THC oil) also falls under the edibles category because it has the same effects. Since a few drops of homemade cannabis oil can completely knock you out, you need a minimal amount to still be spaced out. We therefore think it is the healthiest way to use weed. However, the question is whether weed is healthy at all. Let's take a closer look at that.

So, is weed healthy or not?

All those tips to make life with cannabis healthier are nice, but can we definitely determine whether weed is healthy or unhealthy? It's not that black and white. In a bag of chips there are some pretty good things, even though we know that eating chips is fundamentally unhealthy. On the other hand, we have extremely healthy bananas. Eating a banana every now and then makes for healthy eating, but eat a bunch of chiquita bananas and you'll be on the toilet more often than you might like due to the laxative effect that will occur. Even water can be toxic in extremely high doses. What we want to say with those examples is that it is not simple to say that something is healthy or unhealthy. Weed does have healthy properties, but perhaps just as many unhealthy properties. Is weed comparable to an unhealthy bag of chips or a healthy banana? You can decide that for yourself based on the following objective list.

Weed healthy or unhealthy?

Weed has at least the following effects.

• Weed lowers your blood pressure and increases your heart rate.
• You can get dizzy and sluggish.
• Your appetite increases.
• You get red eyes and a dry mouth.
• Weed has a muscle relaxant effect.
• Being high makes you happy. It makes you carefree and relaxed.
• Thinking logically becomes more difficult.
• Weed reduces pain.
• Your concentration decreases on things you don't find interesting.
• Your imagination is stimulated and your creativity may increase.
• Weed can cause paranoid feelings, especially in the absence of CBD.
• At lower doses, you may become more extroverted; you engage in conversation more easily.
• You may become introverted at higher doses.
• Colours seem more intense and music sounds more beautiful.
• Using weed before bedtime makes you fall asleep faster and spend more time in deep sleep, but :
• ...you spend less time in REM sleep. As a result:
• ...weed affects your short-term memory. Once you stop using weed, you may experience more intense dreams during what is known as a REM rebound. You then spend more time in the REM sleep than usual. Do you stop for a longer period of time? Then your short term memory picks up again.

The Dutch government's Office of Medicinal Cannabis additionally states the following about medicinal cannabis:

• Weed inhibits pain, muscle spasms and muscle twitching.
• For nausea, vomiting, decreased appetite, emaciation and debilitation, weed can be helpful.
• Weed can lower long-term or chronic nerve pain.
• Weed may help with certain nervous tics.
• In some medical situations that we will not name here, cannabis is prescribed by doctors in countries where it is legal.
• CBD, one of the most common substances in marijuana, can be anti-inflammatory, nerve-protective, anti-epileptic and muscle relaxant.

Basically, there is little difference between medicinal marijuana and marijuana you grow yourself, except that medicinal marijuana prescribed by doctors is grown and controlled by official agencies. In the Netherlands, medicinal weed is grown by government controlled companies.

Living with Hemp

Weed and hemp are two different things. You can read about the difference between weed and hemp extensively in this blog. Where weed is grown for the production of cannabinoids such as THC and CBD and as many flowers or buds as possible in which these substances are most abundant, the hemp plant is a very old crop that is used for various purposes. Not only can you use a hemp plant to make CBD oil, but its fibers are also great for durable industrial applications and clothing. The seeds are also hugely nutritious.