Cannabis May Make Insomnia Worse, Not Better
Marijuana helps many people fall asleep, but this short-term benefit does not always translate into long-term use. New research supports the idea that you can’t sleep well if you use cannabis every day .
Research from the University of Michigan found that people who used marijuana every day were more likely to suffer from insomnia . People who used it from time to time had a lower incidence of insomnia, as did people who did not take this medication at all.
Previous research has shown that people also have trouble sleeping if they used marijuana and then stopped; there is a withdrawal period from several days to weeks when sleep suffers. This suggests that there may be a sweet spot where inadvertent use can help you fall asleep without causing withdrawal symptoms or tolerances that are detrimental to your sleep.
But this study was not looking for an optimal use case, so we cannot be sure. And we also cannot be sure if these results apply to the general population. The participants were young people who, for example, can drink a little, but do not use other drugs. People were also excluded from the study if they were taking any other sleep medication. The study also specifically looked at smoking marijuana, not food or other forms, and made no attempt to separate the effects of different strains or CBD versus THC content.
“While there are still many questions to be answered, existing research suggests that the effects of cannabis on sleep can be influenced by many factors, including individual differences, cannabis concentration and frequency of use,” Deidre Conroy writes in The Conversation .