The Spring Equinox greets us on Monday, March 20, 2023, marking one of just two times during the year when day and night are of equal length — a perfect balance, if you will.
But our bodies often see changes in our environment as a subconscious threat and stressor.
When we’re feeling stressed, it’s our endocannabinoid system (ECS) that sends signals to our heart, lungs, muscles, immune system, and everything else to make sure we’re ready to fight, flight, or fawn as needed to survive.
After the threat has passed, it’s the ECS’s job to bring all our systems back into balance again. Needless to say, this is a big responsibility!
During stressful seasons of life, our ECS can become exhausted
Our body makes endocannabinoids of its own to support our ECS — but when we’re in a chronic state of stress, sometimes it just can’t keep up. When this happens, we can supplement with phytocannabinoids from the cannabis plant.
So how can we use cannabis to help us feel balanced during a change?
1. Choose products that have both THC and CBD to support your ECS without getting you “too high to function.”
THC is a great cannabinoid for easing pain, increasing appetite, and lifting mood — but in high quantities by itself, it can cause short-term memory loss that can make it hard to carry out our day-to-day tasks. When we use CBD with THC, we experience less intoxicating effects and more balance. To learn more, click here to check out our video on THC and CBD ratios!
Fun fact: Historically, there was a natural balance of cannabinoids found in cannabis plants — but prohibition encouraged the breeding of very high THC levels and nearly nothing else. Now, higher CBD varietals may be hard to find, but their chemovars more closely resemble that of the “original” cannabis plant!
2. Find your Minimum Effective Dose (MED) through microdosing
When it comes to using cannabis for balance, we want to supplement our endocannabinoid deficiency — but taking more than we need can actually cause more harm than good. To learn more about MED, click here for our article and video!
3. Support deep sleep with a heaping dose of CBD
Changes in our environment can throw off our circadian rhythms — AKA our “biological clock.” Interacting with over 15 different receptor families across your body, CBD is the ultimate balancing cannabinoid. When taken at night, CBD will interact with your endocrine system to increase levels of melatonin to help you fall and stay asleep (Eminent Consulting).
Looking for more information on how to use cannabis without getting “too high”? Click here to check out our How to NOT get High with Cannabis series!
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