We’re all looking for a better night’s sleep, which is why increasingly more people are looking to medicinal marijuana for help. Lack of sleep has been shown to cause many harmful side effects, from raising cortisol levels to contributing to memory problems. It can also negatively affect your performance at your job or in school as well as lead to sexual dysfunction. But with so many consumption methods—smoking, vaping, consuming edibles or tinctures—and so many indica-dominant strains to choose from—Afghan Kush, Dutch Treat and Grape Ape, just to name a few—how do you know what works best for you?
We’ve gathered the top three questions about marijuana and sleep issues from our Answers platform, along with some suggestions for what kinds of medical marijuana helps with insomnia. Our community of experienced cannabis users, nurses and doctors came up with some great suggestions to help you figure out how cannabis can help you get a good night’s sleep.
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Q: With so many choices, what would you recommend for insomnia?
Answer: @mark It really depends first on how you like to consume your cannabis? Do you like to smoke, vaporize, take edibles or tinctures?
Once you have that decided, you should choose a pure indica variety, of a strength appropriate to your experience and tolerance. Go for an indica not a sativa as that is what will make you sleep. For example, Rest from Humboldt Apothecary is an indica tincture formulated specifically for sleeping.
The other thing to consider is that if you smoke, the effect is going to come on immediately, but then will likely wear off within 4 hours or so, at which time you may wake up. If your problem is staying asleep more than falling asleep, you might want to try an edible as the body metabolizes this over a longer period, and so you might find you stay asleep longer.
Try a low dose indica, about two hours before bed. Start with 10 mg and work your way up from there.
Hope this helps.
Q: Is CBD oil good for insomnia?
Answer: @Chronic 727 Insomnia is one of the most popular applications for medical cannabis, but like with other conditions there may be some trial and error to find the right formula. Personally I have had luck with 2 x CBD-to-1x THC ratios.
I can suggest this resource to get started with:
HelloMD’s Insomnia community has lots of posts on sleep:<br>
https://www.hellomd.com/learn/insomnia
Good luck with it.
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Q: What are the best specific edibles for anxiety and insomnia?
Answer: @drb Edibles can be tricky as they can take 1-3 hours to begin working. A product that some boast has a quicker result time such as 20 minutes is a product called Kiva Blueberry Terra Bites. The product treats insomnia via a chocolate-covered blueberry in small increments of 5 mg each bite. Recommended dosing is 1-3 bites, 1-3 hours before bed.
As always with edibles, I would recommend taking a 1/4 of the recommended dose with each new edible batch and waiting 3 hours before increasing as to avoid toxic effects such as profuse unwanted vomiting.
For anxiety, I would recommend a sublingual tincture or spray of CBD:THC ratio of >14:1. Care by design makes a CBD:THC ratio of 18:1 spray.
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Photo credit: Toa Heftiba
If you’re new to cannabis and want to learn more, take a look at our Cannabis 101 post. HelloMD can help you get your medical marijuana recommendation; it’s 100% online, private and efficient.
