People with anxiety experience better quality sleep on days when they use marijuana compared to days when they use alcohol or nothing at all, a new federally funded study has found. For the study, published in the journal Drug and Alcohol Review, researchers at the University of Colorado, Colorado State University, and the University of Haifa analyzed the subjective sleep quality of 347 people who reported using cannabis to treat anxiety. They wanted to understand the different ways sleep was affected by the use of marijuana, alcohol, nothing, or both on a given day.
“Compared to non-use, participants reported better sleep after cannabis-use-only and after co-use, but not after alcohol-use-only,” the authors, who received funding for the study from a National Institutes of Health grant, wrote.
The study also identified a relationship between the frequency of marijuana and alcohol use and sleep outcomes. People who used the substances more frequently reported greater sleep quality on days when they only used cannabis compared to less frequent marijuana and alcohol consumers.
While alcohol has also been found to help people fall asleep, the study supported prior findings that it does not enhance overall sleep quality, especially compared to cannabis. Interestingly, the research also signaled that the sleep effects of cannabis alone did not weaken over time for people who reported more frequent use of marijuana and alcohol, suggesting that tolerance didn’t influence sleep quality.
If you or you know of a loved one who would like to try cannabis, feel free to go to one of our stores and ask our Budtenders any questions, and they’ll be happy to answer you. There are ways to ease yourself into Cannabis use, and you don’t have to smoke it. You can eat it, vape it, rub it, and you can measure how much you take, which is called “dosing.” You can “MicroDose” using our Ole’4 tinctures or Pacific Reserve Gummies, which will ease you into it. Remember to ask your Budtender!
