High Yoga: How Smoking Cannabis Affects Your Yoga Experience
Can the effect of cannabis either ruin or enhance your spiritual experience?
Today, as the demand for better, harder-working, and more productive employees is increasing, so is stress and anxiety within the individual. It’s a common concept that if you work the hardest, stay the latest after work, and be fully indulged in your job will ultimately and inevitably lead to career success. However, this might be a slippery slope.
Being at the top of your job, most of the time might relate to higher stress and anxiety levels. We all can relate to that. The higher the responsibility, the more we worry whether we’ll make the right decision.
Combine the workload from your job and add it to your daily life struggles, which also may force your stress to come onto the service, and you get the big picture — anxiety and stress become part of your life.
That’s why our society has been trying to come up with ways to deal with all these negative emotions. Here are two common ways: some practice yoga and meditation, others smoke cannabis. Both activities have been researched a lot for the past few years, and scientists (and users, of course) say that doing yoga and smoking pot could possibly help you deal with mental health issues.
But what if you combine them? What if you smoke and do yoga simultaneously?
Let’s first explore what each practice does to your mind & body:
Practising Yoga/Meditating
This practice has been around for centuries and there’s a reason behind that: doing yoga and/or meditating could possibly help you maintain a healthy mind and body. By common knowledge, we presume that people practising this are usually calmer and more mindful, which ultimately leads to less stress and anxiety.
In a recent article, I argued about the beneficial effects of chanting “OM,’ while meditating:
In basic terms, the chant symbolizes the ultimate reality, our consciousness, and our inner-self — also referred to as Atman, which is a Sanskrit word. It’s the essence of the individual. No need to mention that this syllable is probably the most important one in Hinduism when it comes to spiritual symbols.
That’s the spiritual effect. How about on a physical level? Studies show that people who meditate tend to be able to more easily cope with their negative emotions. Also, practitioners (just like me), argue that this practice helps them in being more comfortable with their thoughts. Ultimately this all (presumably) leads to a happier and more fulfilled life.
The above-mentioned examples are just a small chunk of the whole package of benefits meditating and yoga can bring into your life. But how about cannabis?
Smoking Cannabis
Doing yoga is considered to be virtually harmless to your mind and body. Benefit is the only thing you get out of it. However, although pot could possibly have a positive impact on your life, there are some negative aspects of smoking the plant I can’t ignore. Let’s first start with the benefits, as they are surely more than the disadvantages.
By saying this, I don’t urge anyone to smoke cannabis and don’t advocate any stance regarding it.
In one of my most read articles so far on Medium, I explored the topic of whether being high makes you more creative & productive. The information and data I found on the matter were a bit vague, however, some studies indicated that smoking pot may actually increase your creativity levels. As for productivity, the studies stated either: I) it doesn’t seem to make you more productive and II) it highly depends on the person consuming it.
For each individual, the effect may be different, however, some studies indicate that cannabis may help with chronic pains and with gut inflammation-related diseases, such as Chron’s.
If taken individually (doing yoga and smoking cannabis), although the latter one may carrying some negatives, they seem to have a rather positive impact on an individual’s mind and body. But what if you combine them?
Practising Yoga AND Smoking Cannabis
Although it may sound like a natural combination, I found it hard to find any scientific-backed articles that explored the usage of cannabis while practising yoga. The information I found was mostly personal experiences by individuals around the globe. However, sometimes such data is better than the one from research papers, as you get to know how the combination of yoga and pot affects people.
Thus, I could make the following assumptions: The practice of doing yoga has long been associated with calming one’s mind of stress, anxiety, and so on. CBD — an active ingredient in the cannabis plant, is also known to have a positive effect on people suffering from anxiety. This being said, one can see a potential connection between the two.
Today, cannabis plants contain THC levels higher than ever before, which means that sensations ought to be stronger in the smoker’s mind. This, on the other hand, might enhance your yoga experience, as it too is associated with high sensations.
Having said all that, I have reached the conclusion that it highly depends on the type of weed you’re smoking and on the type of yoga/meditation you’re practising. You don’t want an increased heartbeat while just breathing; and you don’t want to fall asleep while you’re doing your morning yoga stretch routine. The sweet spot is somewhere in the middle.
Needless to say, it’s also highly individualistic. Meditating might sometimes be mind-twisting experience on its own. The same goes for smoking cannabis. That’s why maybe some people tend to avoid doing both at the same time.
If you’re further interested in mental health & psychedelics, you can follow me on medium:
Also, if you’re interested in the topics mentioned above, you can check two of my previous articles on LSD-assisted therapy and whether being high makes you more creative and productive:
