Marijuana can help with holiday anxiety and depression

For most people, the holiday season is a fun time of year full of turkey, celebrations, and gatherings with family and friends. Media amplification is a happy, joyful time for everyone. But for some it is a time of sadness, self-reflection, loneliness and fear. Marijuana can ease holiday anxiety and depression. During the holidays, 62% of respondents to one study reported that their stress levels were “very or somewhat” elevated during the holidays, while only 10% reported no stress during the season.

There is research that confirms that marijuana in the right dosage can help with anxiety, sadness and depression. Gummy candies are the most commonly consumed form of marijuana. Some use it in low doses to treat stress, depression and anxiety.

A study in Washington state used a data-centric approach with human subjects to demonstrate the effectiveness of marijuana in treating depression, anxiety and stress in everyday life. The study, published in the Journal of Affective Disorders, concluded that “[c]Annabis reduces perceived negative affect symptoms in the short term, but continued use may worsen underlying symptoms of depression over time.”

Using information from the marijuana app Strainprint, which helps medical users track their cannabis doses and strains, researchers were able to study how subjects consumed cannabis in the comfort of their own homes. As the study’s lead author, Carrie Cutler, told Health Europa, this approach is a departure from previous research on mental illness and cannabis.

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“Existing research on the effects of cannabis on depression, anxiety and stress is very rare and has almost exclusively been conducted using orally administered THC pills in a laboratory,” Cutler said. “What’s unique about our study is that we actually examined inhaled cannabis from medical marijuana patients who consumed it in the comfort of their own home rather than in the laboratory.”

Photo by Joanna Kosinska via Unsplash

According to their analysis, researchers found that low-THC, high-CBD marijuana was most effective at reducing depression symptoms, while high-THC/high-CBD cannabis was “best at reducing perceived stress symptoms.” Interestingly, the data also showed that women responded with greater reductions in anxiety than men after marijuana use.

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Specifically, 89.3% of all sessions experienced significant reductions in depression symptoms after smoking marijuana. However, 3.2% of sessions resulted in exacerbation of these symptoms, while 7.5% of sessions produced no change. When it comes to session tracking of anxiety and stress, these symptoms were significantly reduced in more than 90% of sessions. Whether marijuana increased anxiety and stress symptoms or played no role at all followed similar statistical patterns as the depression numbers.

“This is, to my knowledge, one of the first scientific studies to provide guidance on the types and amounts of cannabis people should seek to reduce stress, anxiety and depression,” Cutler said. “Currently, medical and recreational cannabis users rely on the advice of cannabis retailers, whose recommendations are based on anecdotal rather than scientific evidence.”

Anxiety and related disorders are among the most common mental illnesses in the United States. Antidepressants and anti-anxiety medications can be effective, but they also have significant side effects. For this reason, some people turn to alternative treatments such as cannabis. But using cannabis comes with its own risks. “Although it can be used as an alternative treatment for certain types of stress and anxiety, cannabis is not a one-size-fits-all solution and may not be suitable for everyone,” says psychiatrist Dr. Amanda Kingston.