A former weed addict has shared everything that happens to your body after you give up the drug.
There are different ways your body can react when you stop taking marijuana and one former addict has lifted the lid on their own experience.
According to a poll by Gallup, 16% of adults in the US admit to regularly using cannabis, which translates to around 49 million people.
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Meanwhile, 100 million have reported to have at least tried it once.
Timothy Fong, who is a professor of psychiatry who helps lead the UCLA Cannabis Research Initiative, told Mic that ‘it can be debilitating, and can create a lot of physical and emotional suffering’, at first.
This is known as cannabis withdrawal syndrome, and can be activated not only by quitting weed altogether, but also by significantly reducing your daily intake.
So, when you smoke cannabis regularly, the amount of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), which is the main compound responsible for its high, rises significantly in your bloodstream.
When you stop or drastically reduce your use of it, there is a chemical imbalance and your body tries its best to readjust, gradually restoring levels to their natural state.
Fong explained: “When you’re in a state of withdrawal… your body is working hard to get to normal function. It’s such a stress on the body.”
Symptoms of cannabis withdrawal
• Anxiety
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• Depression
• Irritability
• Lowered appetite
• Difficulty sleeping
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• Restlessness
• Uncomfortable physical symptoms
Yu-Fung Lin, who is an associate professor at the University of California, Davis, noted that this ‘typically this happens in chronic or heavy cannabis users’.
While Fong said that ‘if you do high potency [that is, high-THC] products several times per day, that’s probably going to set you up for a higher likelihood of withdrawal’.
Benefits of quitting weed
When it comes to the benefits of quitting, Fong insists that ;the moment you stop using it on a regular basis, your body starts reverting back to what it used be before you started smoking weed’.
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Respiratory health improves, especially lung capability, which eliminates coughing and wheezing, and makes breathing easier.
Cardiovascular health also gets a boost, with most individuals also experiencing better concentration and focus.
It comes after a content creator who smoked cannabis regularly as a teenager has shared what happened after giving it up for six months.
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Taking to his YouTube channel Dorian Develops, he said: “After being sober for a while, I’m noticing that my anxiety and depression was definitely elevated by smoking weed every day, it wasn’t reduced.
“Now I don’t feel as winded anymore, I feel like I have way more endurance in my lungs. I feel like I can breathe easier, I don’t wheeze anymore.”
He added: “[You] have more energy and you just have more mental clarity and focus.
“It’s a lot easier for you to want to set goals and be ambitious and do bigger things when you’re not in that weed brain fog state all the time.
“Being able to be organised and be productive is something that has improved so much in the last six months, especially in the last three.”