Overcoming Your Cannabis Hangover

• If you aren’t careful with your cannabis product intake, you could experience a cannabis hangover complete with headaches, nausea, and brain fog. To prevent this, treat yourself to restful sleep, plenty of water, nutritious food, and medication when necessary.
• If you learn proper dosing, avoid mixing your marijuana with other intoxicating substances, and talk to your doctor about potential interactions with pharmaceutical drugs, you can drastically cut down your hangover risk.

Taking cannabis for anxiety is a little like opening a window and getting a big breath of fresh air. This versatile healing tool can bring peace, stability, and a sense of calm to an otherwise frazzled mind.

If you’re interested in starting your journey with marijuana, it’s best to start with respect. In other words, know the substance and how to treat it. Understand your limits and your tolerance levels. If you begin recklessly, you could set yourself up for a rough first experience or a cannabis hangover.

Cannabis hangovers can leave you feeling sick and groggy—a state counterintuitive to relaxation and recovery. Fortunately, learning how to prevent and overcome a cannabis hangover can help ensure a positive experience from start to finish.

What is a Cannabis Hangover?

A cannabis hangover is similar to an alcohol hangover. Your body—processing an overload of marijuana—sends you tumbling into a sea of unpleasant symptoms.

Luckily, cannabis hangovers aren’t particularly common—they’re certainly not the norm for most users, and the majority of your experiences with cannabis are likely to leave you fresh-faced the next morning. But that doesn’t mean you won’t experience an occasional hiccup.

Symptoms of a Cannabis Hangover

The good news? Most people find cannabis hangovers more tolerable than alcohol-induced ones. The bad news? They’re still hangovers.

Marijuana hangovers come with a battery of symptoms, potentially including:

• Lethargy or fatigue
• Brain fog
• Headaches
• Mild nausea
• Dry eyes or mouth

You could start feeling these within hours of taking a strong dose, but it’s more likely that you’ll be dealing with them the next day, especially if you consume in the evening or at night. Fortunately, marijuana hangovers rarely last more than a few hours.

Common Cannabis Hangover Causes

Studies show that cannabis hangovers are often tied to overconsumption.

This can look like:

• Taking too much marijuana in a short window of time
• Using a product with a much higher level of THC than you’re used to
• Using several products at the same time

Anecdotal evidence suggests that edibles and extracts may lead to more hangovers than smoking. It’s theorized that your body’s metabolism plays a role in hangovers, with a lower metabolism resulting in a higher chance of one. Since your body metabolizes smoke faster than edibles, smoking can also decrease the possibility of waking up hungover the next morning.

Cannabis hangovers and dehydration aren’t as tightly intertwined as you might think, either. Some papers push this narrative mistake cottonmouth—the name for how dry your mouth and tongue can get when you smoke marijuana—for not drinking enough water while you smoke. While this isn’t true, you should always start every session with enough water on hand to stay hydrated.

Handling Your Cannabis Hangover

So, you try your first dose, and something goes south. Maybe you overestimated your tolerance or underestimated the dose. Whatever the case, you wake up feeling groggy and nauseous. No doubt about it: you have a marijuana hangover.

Fortunately, there are tips and tricks you can use to ease the symptoms and get back to feeling like yourself:

• Eat well. You’re not going to want to leave the house on an empty stomach or with just a protein bar in your pocket. Have a hearty, healthy breakfast instead. Lean protein, healthy fats, and carbohydrates can help keep you full, combat nausea, and give you the energy you need to tackle the day.
• Drink water. We mentioned it before, but it’s worth mentioning twice: stay hydrated. And don’t just drink water after you’ve consumed your marijuana. You should be drinking water before, during, and after use to reduce symptoms like dry eyes, headaches, and dry mouth.
• Shower up. Nothing makes you feel like a brand-new person like stepping into the shower. If you feel worse for wear in your hangover state, take a little break to go wash up. Not only will you feel clean again, but the hot air can also help open clogged airways and relieve sinus pressure that might be adding to your headache.
• Try ginger. Nausea is one of the most persistent parts of a cannabis hangover, and ginger is one of the best ways to tackle it. You can make your own ginger tea by adding grated ginger to hot water, or you can buy and use store-bought ginger tea. Honey can also sweeten the deal and help soothe your throat.
• Use OTC medications. When in doubt, don’t be afraid to use OTC medication. You can treat persistent headaches with acetaminophen, aspirin, or ibuprofen. You can also look into anti-nausea medications and electrolyte-boosting products to stay hydrated.
• Rest, rest, rest. While you can’t call out of work for every hangover, resting as much as possible is a fast path to recovery. Snoozing will give your body the time it needs to repair itself, and you won’t have to suffer from nausea and headaches while it does.

How To Prevent Cannabis Hangovers

As you might guess, refining your dose is one of the best ways to prevent any future hangovers. The saying “low and slow” applies here. When in doubt, start at a lower dose than what you think you might need. You can always bump it up, but you can’t dial it back.

Be sure to take some time when trying new products, too. Always feel out your reaction first.

For some additional tips:

• Don’t mix cannabis with other substances. If you’re using cannabis, avoid using alcohol or caffeine at the same time.
• Take tolerance breaks. This can help you maintain your current level of tolerance and sensitivity toward cannabis products; this will reduce your chances of accidentally taking too much.
• Focus on CBD. THC is the cannabinoid that causes hangovers, so if you want to avoid them, you can lean into low- or no-THC products that focus on CBD instead.
• Talk to your doctor. Clear all medications you’re taking with a medical provider to make sure there aren’t any interactions with cannabis.

By reducing the missteps you could take and really getting to know your products and your body’s reactions to them, you can avoid waking up feeling less than your best.

Pave the Way With TeleLeaf

If you’re a new user who’s heard about the benefits of marijuana and wants to give it a try, trust TeleLeaf to pave the way. With us, the patient is the textbook. That means you write your own story of recovery from start to finish; we just give you the pen.

Through TeleLeaf, you can connect with doctors who are ready to work with you to get your cannabis card online. Once you have that in hand, you can go to a cannabis pharmacy and start your healing journey.

Reach out to TeleLeaf to take the steps you’ll need to apply for your medical marijuana card. Our vibrant community is ready to help answer any questions you may have and aid in your adjustment as you take your first steps toward healing.

Sources:

Healthline. How to Conquer a Weed Hangover
https://www.healthline.com/health/weed-hangover

Callie’s Shop. What Do You Know About a Weed Hangover?
https://shoppecallies.com/blog/what-do-you-know-about-a-weed-hangover

Healthline. How to Conquer a Weed Hangover
https://www.healthline.com/health/weed-hangover#relief-tips