The Other Runners’ High
Disclaimer: These views of the author are no substitute for medical advice. Always take care of your health and talk to a doctor. Avoid smoking cannabis, especially if you are under the age of 25, have a heart condition, or are pregnant.
It’s true, a lot of people who exercise also use cannabis.
Breathing is the key to everything. If you can increase your lung capacity, you can take in more oxygen through the lungs and into the bloodstream; giving sore, fatiguing muscles and bones what they need. The mind is also active, as you run, you survey through the senses and unconsciously release chemicals to deal with rising inflammations.
Yes, your body is inflaming (so to speak), your immune system is responding to places by sending in firefighters. But if it were not for your endocannabinoid system, you’re body’s inflammations would become bigger and bigger, never knowing when to stop. This is usually what happens to us as we age, our blood vessels engorge, our brain finds inflammations, our joints, skin, and other age-related changes. There’s not much we can do to fight it.
There is cannabis, however. And also cannabinoids that our body produces with exercise.
Breath Easy
Let’s get this one out at the start: stop smoking cannabis. I can go into how there are chemicals whenever you burn anything that is cancer-causing. Although there is no relationship found between lung cancer and cannabis — as we clearly see with tobacco — it’s still a good idea to reduce the things that make you cough and cause phlegm that’s a problem for a runner.
The point to remember is that you want to keep your lungs at an optimal health level. We’re all getting older, right. This means thinking of cannabis in a special way before you use it for exercise.
In addition to vaping or edibles, you might want to limit your cannabis to long runs — which is practiced by some runners. Doctors also recommend this since everyone fears gaining a dependence on cannabis use. Just so you know, Health Canada estimates that only one in 11 people will end up with a dependence on cannabis use. That said, that’s much less than those who drink alcohol or smoke a cigarette.
However, taking cannabis before a run or after the run is very common, according to a Colorado University survey of over 600 people in 2018. Researchers found those who exercised and consumed cannabis were also more likely to exercise more than the recommended 150 minutes national average. They even found those who consumed cannabis had lower waistlines.
Inflammaging and Cannabis
Our body is always in a constant cycle of cells growing and dying. Our joints and muscles hit against each other every day. Sore shoulders, backs, knees, and hips seem natural when it comes to exercise. Even for a normal life, aging itself has micro-inflammations happening.
We can’t escape getting older other than from taking care of ourselves: like eating right and exercising, living a healthy lifestyle, moderate with drugs and drinking. All good ways to fight Old Man Winter, but aging happens anyways.
Here’s a diagram about what runners can feel.
But then, most problems with inflammations happen when our bodies can’t control them — out of control inflammation.
Actually, ‘inflammaging’ is when your immune system over-activates by sending in a flood of chemicals designed to neutralize and eliminate any dangerous infections or invading bacteria threats (like a cut).
Imagine a swelling going out of control, getting larger and larger. This is when the endocannabinoid system (ECS) comes in. The ECS is a system of receptors found along nerve ends and throughout the digestive system, brain, and reproductive area (among other places). The job of the ECS is to bring ‘balance’ (homeostasis) to the body.
Think of it like two forces pulling on a rope. Your ECS recognizes the immune response is to flood cells with a pro-inflammation but needs a balance. The immune response is necessary for protection and repair, but this force is to keep fighting, producing swelling and discomfort.
Inflammation is especially a problem among older people. Cannabis research is looking at auto-immune diseases like fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, and lupus, and how cannabis can offer pain relief to those with inflammations.
The Fat
Everyone talks about the ‘runners high’ without ever thinking about the fat you need to enjoy it. THC and CBD enter the body and are stored in fat. The same goes for our body’s own cannabinoids, they are stored in fat.
When we go for a hard run or intense training, we might feel winded and lightheaded. That’s the cannabis-like effect, also known as the runners high.
THC and CBD that stay in your body, as a result of you consuming it, is slowly released when you run. That’s where you get that buzz from.
Heart of the Matter
Your heart has four valves. The stronger your heart gets, the more easily it pumps blood into its enlarged areas and with less pressure to the rest of the body. Cannabis (particularly THC) has a way of lowering blood pressure and increasing blood flow to the brain.
Scientists are finding that THC acts as a vasodilator, meaning it’s anti-inflammatory properties increase the space blood can flow.
Lungs Opening Up
The research isn’t very strong on how cannabis can be used for bronchodilation, an opening of the lung’s passages to take in air, but there are some interesting findings coming in. Pinene is a terpene known for a pine smell. It’s also the part of cannabis being studied to help with increasing lung airflow. If researchers are successful, this means new medicines for those with asthma and other breathing and lung-condition.
Vaping vs. Smoking Cannabis
Cutting to the chase, listen up: vaping is safer for the body than smoking cannabis. Vaping — because you can control the temperature — lets you have a higher percent absorption of cannabinoids (THC and CBD) in your body than with smoking. Vaping will also save you more money since you will need less to experience the same effects with a vaporizer than smoking.
Edibles and tinctures are other options. With edibles, it takes too long before you notice anything. And tinctures, like edibles, have a tendency not to work because of how it’s digested through the liver than the lungs with inhaling.
Of course, the key takeaway isn’t that you need to use cannabis to exercise. It’s that cannabis isn’t as bad as you think along with exercise.
Can you have too much cannabis?
It’s up to you to decide.
I’m not a medical user, so it doesn’t matter if I use CBD or not. Ever since CBD came into the light and everyone says it has no toxic effects, people have been using CBD oils and flowers without worry of how much.
The United Nations in 2019 declared that CBD was a harmless drug and that no excessively high amounts need to be worried about. That’s good news for those who want to advance the use of cannabis as a medicine.
Believe it or not, there is a danger. Well, more of a problem in the thinking.
Too Much THC
The Guardian published an excellent article on what happens when you take too much in infused-edibles.
Most of us can agree that ‘greening out’ isn’t any fun. Greening out is a term used to describe a feeling of nausea and headache that comes with consuming too much THC. Sometimes people can even vomit something they just ate.
So yeah, too much THC can happen.
Too Much CBD
When it comes to CBD, we tell ourselves that it’s non-psychoactive. This is somewhat true since CBD does affect our psychoactive but in a calming way, it just doesn’t change our perception and keeps the euphoric-buzz within limits. We know that CBD is the balance with THC, lowering THC’s ‘high.’
Several studies show a THC fallacy exists. People think high THC means a better high. Instead, a high THC appears to affect people as much as medium-THC, when it comes to the perception of the experience. One study found people with a balanced CBD to THC ratio felt more full-filled (a better ‘high’). In other words, a little CBD with THC is reported to work better together for the body.
Make no mistake, if you take too much CBD, you’re wasting your money and you could be making your THC high not as good as you think.
How About Trying Microdosing
There is only one expert on microdosing and his name is Dustin Sulak, a doctor in Maine. Once you learn about microdosing, you’ll be an expert too. However, I point to Sulak because he really is the pioneer and foremost specialist who came up with a method for contolling dosage.
One of the biggest problems that doctors and patients have is not knowing the proper amount to take. You have to remember, not everyone wants to get high. Also, the wrong match in cannabis strains to a health problem, and you could end up feeling sleep in the mornings more than you want.
To learn a step-by-step guide on how to do microdosing, I highly recommend visiting Sulak’s website to watch one of several informative videos.
Take a Tolerance Break
Taking a tolerance break (T-break) is probably one of the harder things to ask a cannabis user to do, who uses cannabis frequently. Studies have shown that all a person needs is 48-hours for the cells in the body to re-balance after consuming cannabis. Cannabis particles can stay in the body fat for up to 90 days. Sometimes taking a T-break is about changing a habit, even if it’s not giving it up entirely. The hard part is finding something else to do.
My advice is to exercise. I also recommend finding anything to distract you, like going for a walk or watching more movies. Ideally, if you can do longer than 48-hours, your body has a chance to push your systems to an even higher operational level without cannabis.
There’s no easy path with taking a tolerance break. It’s more of a journey, but one nonetheless that must be done on occasion.
People who opt to take a tolerance break may come to realize their dreams become more vivid, which is a consequence of your body’s natural sleep chemicals returning to a pattern.
I wish I could tell you here how to take a tolerance breaks, but all I can tell you for certain is that you can. The best thing about taking a tolerance break is when you return to cannabis and the effects are more pronounced. The reason we take tolerance breaks is to increase the potency of its effects. For me, it’s the creative ideas and inspired new motivation that keeps me seeking tolerance breaks and exercising.
This is part of a related series. Here is what you will learn:
Ultimate Guide to Remote Work, and a Bit of Cannabis
About the author
Milton Wani lives in Montreal and works at Consult & Grow, a cannabis consulting firm with expertise in GMP-compliant building design and completing the licensing application process for those who want to enter the cannabis industry. Milton has a masters in public administration and business degree. He wrote a bestseller Retail Cannabis Handbook and is currently completing his second book, High Performance: Cannabis and Health.
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Milton works with Coverleaf, a cannabis clinic based in Montreal. If you live in Canada, you can access medical cannabis through a video-conference with a doctor. If you have questions about medical cannabis, contact Coverleaf at info@coverleaf.ca.
Milton can be reached at https://www.linkedin.com/in/miltonwani/