Medical Marijuana For Anxiety: The Complete Guide
Many patients with anxiety disorders often ask us about medical marijuana for anxiety. If this is you, this guide will help you understand using medical marijuana as a solution.
This article goes in-depth on medical marijuana for anxiety. For a quick answer on whether medical marijuana is a potential solution to your anxiety, here’s our one line summary!
Medical marijuana is often an amazing solution for anxiety disorders when the patient has the right product and right dosage for them.
Living With Anxiety
First of all, living with anxiety is hard. When all you want to do is scream and let it out but the anxiety won’t let you. Whether you received a recent diagnosis or battled it for years, we know how it feels. It can feel as if your world has been flipped upside down. Like other mental illnesses, these anxiety disorders are often misunderstood. Patients who suffer are typically told to simply calm down. If you know someone struggling with an anxiety disorder, avoid doing this.
Finding the Right Anxiety Treatment
Finding the right anxiety treatment can feel almost as difficult as living with anxiety itself. Because every condition is different, one anxiety medication may treat one patient but increase the anxiety in another patient.
So, what can you do? Well first, don’t forget the simple medicine. Talk and be open with friends, family, and your practicing mental health physician. Sometimes it can make all the difference. But if you still need something more powerful to combat the anxiety attacks, you’ll have to find the right treatment.
How to Find the Right Anxiety Treatment
First: Identify your type of anxiety. Talk to a certified physician.
Second: Identify your treatment options. Understand there are alternatives to the traditional forms of anxiety medication from big pharmaceutical companies, such as medical marijuana.
Third: Be ready to make a few attempts before you find the right treatment for you. Stay positive! You will find the right solution!
Step 1: Identify your Type of Anxiety Disorder
- Generalized anxiety disorder (OCD)
- Social anxiety disorder
- Panic disorder
- Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
- Specific phobias
Step 2: Understanding Traditional Anxiety Medication
Anxiety disorders can cause a range of symptoms and severities. From nervousness to debilitating panic attacks to depression, anxiety can take on a number of different forms.
Doctors typically prescribe Benzodiazepines and SSRIs. The truth is thousands of people die from overdosing on these medications per year. Moreover, patients report severe side effects such as addiction, physical reactions, and severe mood swings. Anxiety suffers are looking to solve their anxiety problems, not increase their problems. This is when most people turn to alternative medicine, which works for most people, such as medical marijuana.
Understanding Medical Marijuana for Anxiety
The good news is many patients often experience an immediate relief when using medical marijuana for anxiety. After a long search for the right treatment, many find their home with medical marijuana. However, there are cases where patients experience varied results.
So, how can you get the most out of your treatment?
It’s simple really! You have to find the right product and dosage for your condition. Do so by speaking with your doctor and our extremely knowledgable budtender staff.
Medical Marijuana Dosage for Anxiety
Most patients find relief using medical marijuana. Many report pleasant feelings for the first time in ages. This always makes us so happy to hear at NEA.
However, if a patient uses the wrong product for them or a strong dosage with no tolerance to the medication, it can produce the opposite effect. This is exactly what we want to avoid.
Smoking Medical Marijuana for Anxiety
If you are smoking or vaporizing the medical marijuana, consider only taking one or two small inhalations. This is often enough to feel a pleasant, subdued effect of the marijuana, while still being fully in control. From here, make an informed decision about your level of comfort and if you want to consume more. In most cases, this is what we recommend to anxiety patients. It’s much better to start slow than have consume too much too fast.
Oral Medical Marijuana for Anxiety
Our advice is to use edibles or tinctures with caution if you suffer from anxiety.
Ingested medical marijuana takes an hour or longer to feel the effects. Therefore, it’s often hard to find your precise dose.
Our recommendation: start with a very small dosage whenever trying a new edible product.
Note, some anxiety patients choose to avoid ingestible products all together. But like smoking, edibles can definitely be effective if the dosage is controlled and in your comfort zone.
Conclusion: Medical Marijuana and Anxiety
For many patients, medical marijuana has proven an extremely helpful solution for anxiety. At NEA, we cultivate specific medical marijuana strains to combat anxiety.
While it may take a few different products and dosages to get to the right level for you, there definitely is hope!
Be aware every patient is different. It is important to speak with your doctor about your specific symptoms.
For all other questions, our budtenders are extremely knowledgeable about our strains and their effects and we are always happy to help.