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by goldmouth
2880 days ago
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This is true for alcohol but I'm not sure about cannabis. In California, a heavy indica is a recommended by doctors for sleep. My understanding is that it only affects R.E.M. sleeep. Anecdotally, I track my sleep and when I smoked a heavy indica before bed I would consistently get at high 80 to 90% sleep quality. I'm on a couple of month tolerance break and have a hard time breaking 80% sleep quality. |
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I recently came accross Babson et al. 2017 Cannabis, Cannabinoids, and Sleep: a Review of the Literature:
http://www.med.upenn.edu/cbti/assets/user-content/documents/...
There hasn't been that much research (and most is on synthetic cb1 and cb2 agonists, not cannabis, and is short term). cb1 and cb2 receptors have different effects, and the dose (especially CBD) and length of use may both make a large difference. IIRC (and maybe not from this particular review) there is evidence that the same receptors may have opposite effects in different parts of the brain. cb1 receptors have a major role in circadian rhythm.
Some studies have shown increased slow wave sleep at least at first, but long term use and withdrawal may have the same issues as GABA-A agonists. Your current issues may be withdrawal effects or due to it helping or both.
Interestingly, the common anesthetic propofol inhibits an enzyme (FAAH) that breaks down the endocannabinoid anandamide. It might work well to combine endocannabinoid enhancers with other sleep aids (maybe melatonin), however research on those seems aimed at pain relief and hasn't worked out so there don't seem to be any good ones generally available. Pfizer did a Stage 1 sleep trial of the FAAH1 inhibitor PF-04457845 (by itself), but only to make sure it was passing the blood brain barrier. They didn't publish the results but it sounds like they found at least slightly reduced REM sleep (I'm not sure if there was increased deep sleep).
Some people have tried oleamide for sleep and it is a cb1 receptor agonist (among many other things including some kind of GABA effect). It sounds like it naturally accumulates during sleep deprevation. Looking online I have mostly found people reporting no effect, although I did see one person with primary insomnia who found it very helpful when cannabis wasn't. One person reported feeling tired and dizy all the time after a few weeks of use (resolving when they stopped) and the person who found it helpful said it felt like it wasn't a good thing to take every day. It is worth noting that it may have a fairly significant and direct dopamine system effect (vs indirect effect of cannabis) and that is one of the most fragile parts of the brain.