Exactly what happens to your brain if you smoke weed for 30 days straight
Marijuana, often referred to as cannabis or weed, is one of the more popular recreational drugs across the world despite being classed as illegal in most countries, and many active smokers consider it to be far less harmful than its nicotine sibling.
This is because of the absence of tar and harmful nicotine within a cannabis joint, although studies have shown that it still leads to issues in the heart and lungs over a long period of time due to smoke inhalation.
Major health organizations have also pointed towards concerning side effects present within heavy weed smokers, and groundbreaking scientific research also suggests a link between the habit and the development of cancer among some individuals.
However, its short term effects are still a point of fascination among many, especially for individuals who indulge in the habit on a daily basis, and one YouTube video has revealed exactly what happens to your brain after a month of the 'devil's lettuce'.
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As shared by The Infographics Show, cannabis is innately a psychoactive drug, meaning that "it affects your nervous system, it can alter how you think, what you see, and what you hear."
It might not necessarily be as extreme when it comes to transforming the perception of your brain compared to hallucinogenics, but it still has an immediate impact that can be particularly unpleasant for first-time smokers if they don't have the right 'vehicle' – ergo brain – to handle the drug.
Even a day after you've smoked you could experience some fuzziness of memory, especially around the period that you smoked the drug, as weed directly impacts as area of the brain known as the hippocampus which helps you process new memories.
After a week though there's a good chance that you'll still be 'fine' and experience no considerable changes, although you might have put on a little bit of weight due to the impact of weed on the brain's hypothalamus, which tricks your body into thinking its hungry — a classic case of the munchies.
It can even cause pain to reduce over time after regular consumption, and to an extreme end in some more heightened medical cases where weed can calm down the tremors of a condition like Parkinson's.
This is because the brain's peripheral nerves which detect pain sensations actually contain receptors for cannabinoids, which block nerve pain and reduce the impact that you feel upon your body.
One potentially major downside, however, is the decrease in motivation that scientists are still finding hard to measure within the body and the brain as a result of weed smoking.
Studies have shown that people are less likely to press a button that prompts a reward after smoking cannabis, and this relates to your everyday life where you'll feel less drive to do the things you want or need to do when high.
There also isn't a clear or straight answer when it comes to the impact on anxiety, as while some claim the drug helped calmed their feelings of anxiety, others recounted its heightening, especially in doses that contain high levels of THC.
Studies have suggested that only between 10 and 20 per cent of weed smokers develop a dependence on the drug, but when that does occur it can be challenging to deal with as you seek the psychological changes that it gives you and require higher dosages to experience the same feeling.