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Using cannabis for insomnia - is it more powerful than, Melatonin/Chamomile/Valerian?

JohnBoy2000

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Cannabis for sleep is almost a staple part of modern counter culture.

I've read anecdotes (as we all have) of it being a remarkable hypnotic and sleep aid.

But, stacked up against a common and effective sleep aid like melatonin (or herbs like chamomile/valerian), how does it really perform?

Anyone tried both, or all?

 
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It's not really a fair comparison. I've used both for sleep. Melatonin works if your body clock is off really well. That's really what it does - makes you sleepy at night (in the absence of blue spectrum light) and not during the day. It's not really a sedative though in the sense that if you take it and walk around during the day, it's not going to work in that situation to make you drowsy.

Cannabis I found was about similar to a benzodiazepine like temazepam in terms of drowsiness. What I found it particularly useful for was suppressing my restless legs syndrome. This seemed to be an effect of the cbd because I had similar results using that alone. Cannabis was very good for not causing a hangover the following day. I used it only before bed though, if you use it at other times your mileage may vary.
 
On anything more than tiny amounts of cannabis I become strongly stimulated. And if i do fall asleep on say a single 10mg THC edible, I am liable to wake up at 3am with racing thoughts.

I wish cannabis worked for me as a sleep aid but its not so effective. Interesting that someone here compared it to benzodiazepines in terms of efficacy.
 
I wish cannabis worked for me as a sleep aid but its not so effective. Interesting that someone here compared it to benzodiazepines in terms of efficacy.
Yeah, I actually switched from Temazepam to Cannabis (heavy CBD strain) because the temazepam not only had a short duration of activity (I would wake after 5 or 6 hours unable to get back to sleep), but it also had quite a wicked hangover. It's a little bit counter-intuitive, but temazepam would leave me awake, drowsy and unable to get back to sleep. Cannabis was about as hypnotic, in my experience, as my temazepam but didn't cause me to wake so early and I had no residual effects the following day. It might be, as I noted, the improvement to the RLS that allowed me to get a full nights sleep with the cannabis, my wife has noted that my PLMS (periodic limb movement of sleep) is dramatically improved when I take the CBD, which causes fewer nighttime awakenings.
 
On anything more than tiny amounts of cannabis I become strongly stimulated. And if i do fall asleep on say a single 10mg THC edible, I am liable to wake up at 3am with racing thoughts.

I wish cannabis worked for me as a sleep aid but its not so effective. Interesting that someone here compared it to benzodiazepines in terms of efficacy.
Yeah same here, we seem to be a minority of users though
 
On anything more than tiny amounts of cannabis I become strongly stimulated. And if i do fall asleep on say a single 10mg THC edible, I am liable to wake up at 3am with racing thoughts.

I wish cannabis worked for me as a sleep aid but its not so effective. Interesting that someone here compared it to benzodiazepines in terms of efficacy.
Yes. I should have mentioned that cannabis as a sleep aid only really applies to indicas AND when the user has a certain level of tolerance.

Without tolerance cannabis immediately raises your heat rate, anxiety, and generally takes on classical psychedelic stimulation making sleep impossible.

I have "overdosed" on cannabis a few times and the stimulation and uncomfortable level of my highness certainly makes sleep impossible and resembles a bad trip when you take the hallucinations into account.

Without tolerance even small doses of smoked THC make it difficult to sleep for an hour or two.
 
Yes. I should have mentioned that cannabis as a sleep aid only really applies to indicas AND when the user has a certain level of tolerance.

Without tolerance cannabis immediately raises your heat rate, anxiety, and generally takes on classical psychedelic stimulation making sleep impossible.

I have "overdosed" on cannabis a few times and the stimulation and uncomfortable level of my highness certainly makes sleep impossible and resembles a bad trip when you take the hallucinations into account.

Without tolerance even small doses of smoked THC make it difficult to sleep for an hour or two.

Your dead on right about the tolerance. No tolerance and it gets almost psychedelic, whereas smoking every day it gets sedating after awhile.


I’ll be honest I can’t sleep without smoking all night long. I’ve done this for many years and while I’ve gotten a lot better about it I still take 2-6 hits a night, usually every time I get up to take a piss. My wife has caught onto the habit too. It just makes me sleep so much better.

I’m pretty much high 24/7, if this ain’t addiction idk what it is lol. But I function very well and it rarely gets in the way. The only time I hold off is when I’m working, there’s like a switch that flips when I know I gotta work where I don’t crave it at all.

-GC
 
I get the same way with work. I need to be high on my way there but once I'm there it's easy to get into work mode and forgot about drugs for 8 hours.
 
On anything more than tiny amounts of cannabis I become strongly stimulated. And if i do fall asleep on say a single 10mg THC edible, I am liable to wake up at 3am with racing thoughts.

I wish cannabis worked for me as a sleep aid but its not so effective. Interesting that someone here compared it to benzodiazepines in terms of efficacy.
Same
 
I've had the opposite effect. With less tolerance it used to be very sedating, but now, if I feel anything its slightly stimulating
 
I’ll be honest I can’t sleep without smoking all night long. I’ve done this for many years and while I’ve gotten a lot better about it I still take 2-6 hits a night, usually every time I get up to take a piss.
While I don't smoke all night I do wake up to pee sometimes around 3:00Am and take two more tokes maybe reas for 10 minutes borough under the blankets and drift back off. Sadly when synthetics were around I would do that with JWH-018 for a year in 2010. But went back to cannabis as it becomes more available and acceptable.

One thing I will say, th is whole notion of dreaming I can say that I do dream using cannabis for sleep. I may not remember them as clearly as waking up from dreams without smoking but I do dream. In fact if I get jolted awake I can completely remember what I was just dreaming.

So for what it is worth, the notion that cannabis effects sleep may be true to some but I really do not think we know anything about that yet. I do get REM sleep after smoking. I also get the good deep sleep. Cananabis has to be safer than taking a pill like Dalmane everynight. But every so often we see news articles that cannabis stops REM sleep and we are not getting the good sleep. Nonsense. At least for me.
 
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Melatonin doesn't work for me, it is in general a very mild sleep-aid. On the other hand weed / CBD or other cannabinoids can be very good as sleep aids.
 
Melatonin doesn't work for me, it is in general a very mild sleep-aid. On the other hand weed / CBD or other cannabinoids can be very good as sleep aids.
Try a different ROA. I'm 100% serious.
 
Melatonin is the most under-rated neuroendocrine hormone.
Yes, it doesnt work to induce sleep or mantain sleep compared to benzodiazepines, but this hormone has effects that go beyond sleep, which are not talked about.

It is a true anti-aging compound, in every sense of the word, it's the most potent antioxidant known to man, superior in antioxidant activie than than the powerful class of drugs called mitochondria anti-oxidants, which work by accumulating into the mitochondria site which is where free radicals and reactive oxydative species (ROS) are generated.
I'm talking more specifically about SKQ1, MitoQ, MitoTempo, MitoE, JP4-039, XJB-5-131, SS31, pan NOX inhibitors like APX-115. (Qo10 actually increases free radical production, specially in cell cultures derived from old people)

Melatonin besides being superior to these compounds, it also never transforms into a pro-oxidant after reacting with free-radicals (of any kind). Something Vitamin C or α-Tocopherol lack because they are actually pro-oxidants not antioxidants, so dont eat too much vegerables they arent good for you. These classic antioxidants deplete the glutathione stores, an endogenous antioxidant enzym which keeps ROS low. Melatonin besides of not transforming into a pro-oxidant, it also stimulates the increase of endogenous antioxidant enzyms natural to the cells, to young levels.

And the metabolites that are created from melatonin reacting with free radicals are actually as potent or more portent than melatonin itself. This observation has was defined as the free radical scavenging cascade reaction of the melatonin family.
From this point of view, melatonin can be considered a suicidal or terminal antioxidant which distinguishes it from the opportunistic antioxidants.

Some considerations should be given, the formulation of the drug must be extended-release, with a dosage of 2mg-5mg range, in case you don't want wake up with serum levels of melatonin, its up to you tho.

Well I know this is a tangent to this post topic, but i wanted to melatoninpilling you guys.
 
I dunno the science on it, but I vape weed from early afternoon until I fall asleep about 10 or 11pm and as a woman in her fifties I've never slept better. My similarly menopausal acquaintances tend to be envious of my sleeping ability. Until about two years ago I was as insomniac as they are. Last night I slept almost ten hours straight through from 9pm.
The two whom I would call friends tried weed for sleeping recently too, but they found their brains just wouldn't turn on again for days after, even though back in the day all three of us were heavily into practically everything, they say it's different now.
In other words, even within the same person, effects vary hugely, so you're just going to have to try both and decide for yourself.
I tried melatonin and felt nothing at all, but I didn't persist over time with it, perhaps that is necessary.
 
Try a different ROA. I'm 100% serious.

I am intrigued. Which ROA are you talking about? I have 400mcg melatonin tablets weighing 150 mg each, so it wouldn't be hard snorting one. Does sleep inducing effect increase with the dosage increase? that's usually not the case with oral route.
 
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