5+ Years Smoking - Why does it give me headaches/anxiety now?

[ezbake]

Hello all... I've been smoking since I was 12 years old and I am now 20... I am a very regular smoker, usually smoke anywhere from 1.5 to 2 grams per day - all day.

I always smoke chronic, however, I live close to the canadian border - so most of the time all I can get are beasters, the canadian commercial chronic
Sometimes I smoke better stuff

So anwyays, ive been smoking for a long time... and lately I've been noticing that I am getting headaches when coming down and experiencing anxiety. For example, if I have something on my mind stressing me out - I notice it stresses me out more when I am high.

I also get extremely confused and have a hard time concentrating and comprehending big things... a lot of my friends don't seem to have this problem, or any of these problems.

Edit: And sometimes I have trouble keeping up a conversation with people, especially if it's a stranger. I know they don't know I am high, but I still get all "weirded" out for some reason. I am a shy person, that is my personality, but I notice it a LOT more when I am high.

Does anyone else experience this type of thing?

I love smoking so I don't want to quit all together... but what would you guys suggest I do? I thought about smoking less per session, and having fewer sessions each day.

Thanks for the help!

 

[NuggyBuds]

I'm not sure if I can be of some help. But I find If I smoke too much (more than 3-4 time a day) I get headaches. So I think you should cut back on the times per day you smoke, and the amount. I find 3 bowls isn't much better than one, the high depends upon the quality not the quantity.

My wife has been experiencing the same things you describe. it's gotten so bad that she's had to quit al together, because even 1 toke would make her feel uncomfortable and paranoid, ect. I think that part of it is the environment as well as your mental state. what I suggest is, First deal with any stress before you smoke, I know it's not that easy, but cannabis should not be an escape from reality, this just leads to a build up of tension that you don't need. Second, quit for a week or so, find yourself a forest or an out of the way place that you usually do not smoke at, and go there alone with a few small joints, re-acquaint your self with the high, nature and yourself. Meditate if you can. close your eye's and focus your thoughts on your breath, feel the rush of air in and out, feel your lungs expand in and out. If your thoughts wander then let yourself focus on that for a bit, then bring your mind back to the breath. Your mind will wander a lot at first but don't get frustrated, name the thought that distracts you for example if you start to think about fear, name it to your self, say hello to fear, then come back to the breath. Try this high or sober, you'll find that things will stress you out less.

let me know how this works out for you.
peace.

 

[jojajico]

you may want to simply switch up the what you smoke, like try a haze or kush instead of chronic.

 

[idontgivenames]

as you said, you get beasters - the commercial canadian bud. most all of that shit is grown with chemicals. chem pumped bud commonly gives head aches (with me atleast, and alot of other people). as for the anxiety, it's probably just you. then again, even in a perfectly calm sober state of mind i have had herb that gives me anxiety. but usually, ive found anxiety is built up by other factors. especially the ammount of sleep i get and what i eat.

if you stay on a healthy diet and good sleep schedule and keep yourself from being bored, anxiety typically goes away on a daily basis. remember, your energy levels are crucial to how your mental state.

 

[Guest]

I know what you mean. I have been smoking off and on for 9 years or so... and about 5 years straight most every day. I do take breaks to control this. Theres a phase that people refer to as the burn out phase. Your head and tolerance just doesn't want to keep getting that high. My advice would be to take a few weeks break from the ganja; or atleast cut back extremely to the point of a bowl or less a day.

 

[Martha Stewart]

Having a few diffent strains to smoke is always a good thing.

Martha S.

 

[Guest]

i only experience this with smoking too much of certain strains. smoking strong sativas all day long everyday has given me bad anxiety at times. i find a good indica to be perfect medicinally to treat anxiety, but thats just me. i have never experienced headaches though.

 

[motaco]

your smokin too much, and too much bad weed. simple as that.

 

[ezbake]

motaco: Yeah I agree I am smoking too much, but I disagree, the weed isn't bad! LOL! It's chronic... not mid grades, just not the best chronic !

High&Lonesom: I am not sure what strain I smoke but I am sure its a indica-sativa hybrid, it's beasters.

tokinafaty420: That makes a lot of sense, and I would definately describe myself as burnt out... but when I don't smoke I notice I can think much more clearly, etc... kind of sucks when you love to get high.

idontgivenames: The chemicals could be causing headaches, that sounds like a logical explanation. I wish I knew growers and could get organic . I do find the sleep I get to effect the way I feel, I usually stay up until 5am but the last couple nights I have gone to sleep by 2 or 3am and smoked less and im starting to feel more normal. I always try to eat well, but Im a 20 year old living in his first apartment so I dont have the best diet... but I don't buy complete junk food/crap, so yeah.

jojajico: I would love haze or kush, but Im not from California like you, Mostly the only bud I can get are beasters, and occasionally some better stuff - but I never know the name.

NuggyBuds: Your reply was by far the most helpful, thank you. I will try your advice, I wouldn't say I smoke a whole lot at one time - but I do smoke frequently. So I will try taking a break completely, or slowing down a lot. The environment sounds right, I live in an apartment and sometimes I hear noises... and it makes me paranoid, and that's when I get anxiety sometimes (However i do get anxiety at other times too, not only this). Because obviously I think it's a cop, but after awhile I realize I am just high and it's fine...
Dealing with the stress first sounds like a good idea, I'll see what I can do there, But what I find sometimes is it isnt just stress - it's past events that have happened that I tend to "dwell" on or continue to think about, and get worried about, stressed out about, etc, and it's something that could have happened a year or two ago? Pfft i dont get it... lol, i wish i could make it stop. But today and yesterday I've waited until around 5 pm to smoke, and I only smoked a little, and i have felt better and the anxiety seems to be a little less... but damn it is so hard not to light up a bowl lol.

 

[Guest]

Nuggy Buds advise sounds good to me. Quit for awhile, then go out to an extremely peaceful environment in nature, and smoke a bit out there.

And... I know what you mean when you dwell on things. That happened to me when I broke up with my ex-girlfriend. Everytime I smoked I just DWELLED on it. It was easier to get over the breakup without weed... I'm not sure if it had to do with the fact that I was smoking something that had sativa, could be. But I still haven't been able to compare the two highs myself.

You can try cutting way back or completely, and doing the nature thing. But if that doesn't work, then you may have to completely cut off awhile, until you sort of lose the assocation between dwelling on things and being high, ya know?

 

[Guest]

The more I learn about vitamin C, the more I realize the the low levels of it in most people is the cause of such things as the thread starters.

In my thread about vitamin C, I posed the theory that maybe the reason why people who smoke after a while come down with problems from smoking cannabis and also don't get as high from it as they once did may be due to the lack vitamin C being able to build up positive chemicals and turning down stress chemicals.

I really feel taking it in divided doses daily and when you're doing something stimulating such as taking herbs, exercising, and also after a meal, will help prevent the negative effects as well as enhance the effects of the high of the herb by lowering the levels of stress chemicals being released.

It will take most likely up to two weeks for most people who are older and have low levels of vitamin C in their system.

This may be a major cause of the rise in depression in people. They just aren't getting enough vitamin C which makes chemicals in your body as well as turn on or off certain chemicals being released. It is such an important nutrient that it is in EVERY LIVING THING. Humans are the only ones who don't make it.

In fact I just read an article that plants make vitamin C to combat the stress of ozone and this keeps it healthy. Unfortunately humans can't do this and therefore when you add to the fact that we put thing in our system daily that stimulate it whether good or bad, humans are actually hurting themselves slowly because they don't have nothing to keep things moving. When you take nutrients out through exercise sunlight, thinking, etc. basically being alive you have to replenish what was used or like a car, you will eventually breakdown. Peace.

Here's more about this subject in this thread:

http://icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=44615

 

[Guest]

Also, I wanted express that we have to remember that negative emotions and thoughts are always there when your first start to puff BUT when your flooded with chemicals that counteract stress chemicals and keep them low, you don't experience the negative thoughts with a powerful feeling.

In fact you tend to not let it bother you at least that's what happened to me when I first started to smoke. I knew the negative things were there but I felt so good from the herb that I didn't let it bother me and because of that I saw the "problem" from a different perspective and that's what made me fall in love with herb.

As I got older, I was still puffing but not eating the way I should and when I was, not doing things a certain way. An example of this would be when I worked out. I thought just exercising and eating food would give me the results I wanted BUT I found out years later that you have to eat certain things, in a certain ratio, and at a certain time to get the desired results. Now it's second nature to me to do these things.

When you smoke, the reason the negative thoughts are being experienced more now than before is because you have more stress chemicals in your body and this means that when a negative thought comes up, you will deal with it as if you were in a stressful situation and your body gets reved up for this.

If these chemicals are low, you can think these things yet they will not get the body to feel a need to start the process of fight or flight. You will have more control of the situation. Peace.

 

[ezbake]

lotty: Thank you for the reply, I also read your thread. It's very interesting and has some good information, I have a bottle of OJ I opened today by coincedence - so I will be drinking that a couple times a day. I also have some vitamins I will be taking that have vitamin C in them.

Nuggy Buds advise sounds good to me. Quit for awhile, then go out to an extremely peaceful environment in nature, and smoke a bit out there.

And... I know what you mean when you dwell on things. That happened to me when I broke up with my ex-girlfriend. Everytime I smoked I just DWELLED on it. It was easier to get over the breakup without weed... I'm not sure if it had to do with the fact that I was smoking something that had sativa, could be. But I still haven't been able to compare the two highs myself.

You can try cutting way back or completely, and doing the nature thing. But if that doesn't work, then you may have to completely cut off awhile, until you sort of lose the assocation between dwelling on things and being high, ya know?

That is the type of thing I mean, I have a past break up but I don't really dwell on that... anymore. It's just anything and everything, basically my mind wanders and every once in awhile I will stumble on something I havnt remembered for years, and for some reason have a minor anxiety/stress panic or whatever. But lotty's posts have some interesting views, how smoking weed releases stress hormones and vitamin C can combat this... so im gonna try cutting back on smoking and taking in more vitamin C. So far I have smoked twice today (it's 7 PM), the first time I only took 1 hit from my bro's, the 2nd time I smoked a couple bowls with a friend. So that is pretty good for me. Hopefully I can resist it until 1 more toke for bedtime.
lol

 

[glock23]

I had the same exact problem when smoking beasters. I used to get weirded out talking to people I didn't know, and I couldn't look 'em in the eye. Long term smoking does tend to lead to this kinda condition for some people.

You should cut down a lot and you'll be fine. Take a week off and I guarantee you'll be less paranoid. In fact, I bet you'll be cranky and aggressive. I now usually only smoke a small bowl every day or every other day. Smoked 1/2 a blunt of pure, organic sativa yesterday and I was flying!

 

[Guest]

lotty - how much do you smoke a day? i'm curious. how long has this vitamin C thing been working for you?

Oh, and another thing. For the Original Poster, you may try cutting down on caffeine. Caffeine stimulates your body to release stress hormones... I don't really drink caffeine anymore! There are people on these boards who , after cutting out caffeine, don't get so much anxiety anymore when smoking.

 

[Guest]

The average I smoke a day, when I have good supply, is maybe .5-1 gram but this is in a water pipe or a titanium pipe I have called the raydiator which give off a lot of smoke.

I came up with the vitamin C method in 2004 because I wanted to find a way to enhance the effects of weed and as I kept doing research I started putting two and two together and realized vitamin C is needed for damn near every process in the body.

I never really experienced a panic attack before I learned about vitamin C and preventing negative effects from stimulants BUT I still used my sense to put everything together BUT I did have one panic attack after I learned about vitamin C and it WAS NOT PLEASANT.

It happened at a time when I wasn't eating right and also going through a little stress that week and I had a fresh package from canada so I wanted to try it out and at first it was cool but within 5-15 minutes I started thinking all these negative things. I saw the things that I saw everyday as negative. I do not want to experience that again.

I know it had to be about my vitamin c levels, glucose levels and high levels of stress hormones because I got two potent strains TWO times after that and I didn't feel none of these things BUT at that time I was back on track and juicing my fruits and vegetables in high amounts which gave me high levels of vitamin C while at the same time having other phytochemicals that lowers the release of stress hormones and these two times I got a chance to experience canadian herb and potent homegrown WITHOUT ANY PROBLEMS.

MY new method on using vitamin C to make the herb's efect more potent yet still relaxing, just came to me this friday. If my thoery is right this will add to my arsenal of methods to make cannabis and alcohol potent.

Speaking of alcohol, I tried a method of adding live lemon juice to a shot or two of vodka and man it got me feeling good. I normally wouldn't feel like that off of the same amount of vodka considering that my protein and vitamin C levels were the same. The only thing that was different was the addition of the lemon juice. Peace.

 

[The Slickster]

Of course we cannot dismiss that of a brain chemical imbalance with a possible comorbid condition. Some people with genetically induced health problems only become afflicted at a certain age, usually 20-23. If this is the case, and you have to take medication to survive, do not lose hope, as once you are stabilized, you can then go back to smoking. You may or may not have to stop for a while to allow for a condition to fully mature and be dealt with momentarily. Hope it is easily just a case of the jitters, cause then you will be a lucky basterd. Usually people smoke who are young or old, because they need it to correct an imbalance. Good luck friend.

 

[kryptonchron]

First off quality not quantity. I dont care what strain they are growing all commercially grown bud is bound to fuck up your melon with all the chemical ferts they use.

Next is one that took me a while to figure out, but is soooo worth it. Take a break dude. You got the burn out. There is nothing better then that first big bong rip after a month or two break from the bud. I personally take about 3 months out of the year off. I find that this helps with tolerance, finances, and health. Just my $0.02. Take it or leave it bro. Hope you figure something out though. Headaches blow...and not in a good way.

As for the anxiety...I'd say smoke one, but obviously that is not the answer here. I am not sure on that one. I rarely have anxiety. I find that running or working out though is the best cure for a stressed out melon.

 

[Guest]

Kryptonchron, I'm glad you mention exercise to cure anxiety because it lowers stress hormones being released also.

So as you can see, these negative effects come from too much stress hormones being released, which uses up glucose levels, which will explain why most people want something sweet after smoking.

Here's a study showing exercise lower cortisol levels:

http://eurpub.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/16/2/179

Effects of physical exercise on depression, neuroendocrine stress hormones and physiological fitness in adolescent females with depressive symptoms

Background: Regular physical exercise may improve a variety of physiological and psychological factors in depressive persons. However, there is little experimental evidence to support this assumption for adolescent populations. We conducted a randomized controlled trial to investigate the effect of physical exercise on depressive state, the excretions of stress hormones and physiological fitness variables in adolescent females with depressive symptoms. Methods: Forty-nine female volunteers (aged 18–20 years; mean 18.8 ± 0.7 years) with mild-to-moderate depressive symptoms, as measured by the Centre for Epidemiologic Studies Depression (CES-D) scale, were randomly assigned to either an exercise regimen or usual daily activities for 8 weeks. The subjects were then crossed over to the alternate regimen for an additional 8-week period. The exercise program consisted of five 50-min sessions per week of a group jogging training at a mild intensity. The variables measured were CES-D rating scale, urinary cortisol and epinephrine levels, and cardiorespiratory factors at rest and during exercise endurance test. Results: After the sessions of exercise the CES-D total depressive score showed a significant decrease, whereas no effect was observed after the period of usual daily activities (ANOVA). Twenty-four hour excretions of cortisol and epinephrine in urine were reduced due to the exercise regimen. The training group had a significantly reduced resting heart rate and increased peak oxygen uptake and lung capacity. Conclusions: The findings of this study suggest that a group jogging exercise may be effective in improving depressive state, hormonal response to stress and physiological fitness of adolescent females with depressive symptoms.

 

[Guest]

Unless your are laying around letting your life crash! I wouldnt worry. The problem would be if you felt like this when you werent high. A person that uses marijuana regularly, should not quit cold turkey!(Which I recomend you do, just for bit. You got to be at your best and most confident out in the world when dealing with people...dont let nothing get in the way of that!) If you are going to quit ween yourself of alittle at a time. If you feel like that after say a month after cutting down for a month( thats 2 months if your following) you should mabey talk to someone. Mabey get on something. You can take medication for this and still smoke I do! Not to say that you ll need medication. But you should see how you feel with THC completely out of your system...just not all at once!

Good luck, Willie