I was beginning to realize that with the start of work, or school many of my friends and myself we’re struggling a lot with anxiety, stress, and depression. Instead of using pharmaceuticals I was looking for other alternatives that could help with anxiety. With CBD and THC oil and products becoming legal, and popular. How could both CBD and THC oil and products help adults with anxiety? Through articles and databases, I will gather information about how CBD and THC oils, and products and how they affect the brain and people with anxiety.
With so many people having PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) and anxiety, researchers have found that with cannabis many people show reduced signs of both disorders. Not only can cannabis, THC, and CBD help with and stress or anxiety disorder; it also helps with addiction with opioids and other drugs. Jonathan L C Lee and a other scientists created this article about how cannabis can help these patients. I n this article “Cannabidiol regulation of emotion and emotional memory processing: relevance for treating anxiety-related and substance abuse disorders” by Jonathan L C Lee explains how the uses of cannabis treat the negative symptoms of anxiety, stress, substance abuse, and PTSD.
The British Journal of Pharmacology is a peer edited medical journal that explores many different research experiments, and documents them to let audiences know what new research is being done. Many symptoms of anxiety, and PTSD form off of fear with that the cannabis numbs the senses of fear in a way. Such as L C Lee stating “Cannabidiol does so by reducing fear expression acutely and by disrupting fear memory reconsolidation and enhancing fear extinction, both of which can result in a lasting reduction of learned fear.” (L C Lee) When so many people are afraid of things, not ghouls and ghost but real life things, or situations that form this anxiety. The cannabis, THC, and CBD products help subside the fear which reduces the anxiety.
In a small trial, researchers were trying to see why people were smoking cigarettes and how could they try and have people stop smoking cigarettes but also help with why they were smoking them in the first place. Norberg has written many articles about cannabis, addiction, and anxiety. Norberg wrote this article for those peers and for those who are seeking alternative methods to calm their anxiety and take away an addiction. Researchers found that cannabis was working to calm symptoms of anxiety, and they did a trial on if they can replace a person’s nicotine habits with cannabis. What researchers found was that if you placed someone’s nicotine with cannabis, they are using better coping strategies, they’re more mobile, and find their anxiety is subsided.
Being a medical article coming from the U.S. National Library of Medicine many doctors have study and helped write and conduct research on this matter. Norberg concluded that cannabis really does help with nicotine addiction and anxiety. In the summary Norberg concludes “Such an approach may consist of having clients identify and engage in healthier pleasurable activities and by teaching clients to accept the trade-off between perceived less pleasurable, but healthier activities and cannabis use. (Norberg)” Overall cannabis can make addictions to many things not just nicotine easier to stop. Also, many doctors prescribing their clients medical cannabis to help with many medical pains and problems.
Anxiety is something a lot of people misunderstand and misjudge. A group of scientists from Human Psychopharmacology did background research of how cannabis and anxiety are related. Author of the article Jose Alexandre Crippa talks about how the two are linked to inform a general audience and other scientists. In the article Cannabis and anxiety: a critical review of the evidence Crippa explains how with limited research cannabis can either relieve the anxiety or cause long lasting anxiety problems.
While most of society has issues and symptoms of anxiety researches are concerned by the long term effects it causes. Crippa entails the warning and concerns about cannabis such as, “ it is unclear if cannabis use increases the risk of developing long-lasting anxiety disorders. Many hypotheses have been proposed in an attempt to explain these relationships, including neurobiological, environmental and social influences. (Crippa)” While all doctors want a cure for anxiety and other mental illnesses they can’t always promise a cure.
Many people in society have substance issues that are linked to anxiety because their trying to “numb” their pain. In an article from The American journal of drug and alcohol abuse by Cheung JT; Cheung explains a study that was done between cannabis and substance abuse for other scientists. Cheung explains how cannabis helps the sensation of needing a substance rather then going straight to the substance.
Too may people use substances to calm anxiety symptoms. The study concluded that people who used to have an substance abuse issue was less likely to use it due to cannabis. “was most common among heavy cannabis users (used almost every day or more) (18.1%) and lowest for abstainers (8.7%). Compared to abstainers, the risk of AMD was significantly greater for infrequent cannabis users (OR = 1.43) and heavy cannabis users (OR = 2.04) but not for those in between. (Cheung)” People with substance abuse have a subsided need for that drug almost to the point where the need is not there due to cannabis.
