May is Mental Health Awareness month and a strong time to reflect in your mental and emotional wellness. For individuals who love weed, there are a number of the way we will honor ourselves and check in on our mental health this month, and each month moving forward.

With a lot occurring on this planet around us, it is crucial that we take overtime to work through our feelings, try recent ways to feel higher, or discover the foundation explanation for patterns we just can’t seem to flee. This might include evaluating our relationship with cannabis (yikes!) and even having deep conversations with family members.

But here’s somewhat spoiler. Sometimes, the one answer you’ll discover is that you just’re a human being with complex hormones, chemicals, and emotions. Everyone copes with life in quite a lot of alternative ways, and your job is to seek out the ways which can be healthy and manageable to your unique life.

Listed below are 4 ways folks living the cannabis lifestyle can check in on their mental health without delay:

1. Exchange social media time for self-exploration

Social media can send our brains and our emotions spiraling on the refresh of a timeline. Not to say, social media isn’t at all times probably the most cannabis-friendly place. Assess how much time you’re spending on social media and the way it makes you’re feeling. And don’t be afraid to take a break.

There are lots of hypotheses about what all our time on the web is doing to our brains, and we must keep in mind that we don’t live within the Matrix yet.

Reducing your time on social media is technique to make time to listen to your personal thoughts and feelings – an activity that’s so much easier if you don’t have a continuing stream of opinions and headlines coming at you.

Set limits in your phone that remind you to take a break after ten minutes of scrolling or go cold turkey and delete the apps completely. And no cheating by logging in in your desktop!

Use the overtime to reflect, light a joint and meditate, or read a few pages of a recent book.

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2. Seek sunlight

Now, that is one I actually hope everyone can do.

Discover a ray of sun and exist in it for at the least twenty minutes. You possibly can journal on a park bench, stare aimlessly out a window, take a spin across the block and smoke one, or simply lay on the carpet and take a catnap. What matters is that you just get yourself into the sunshine of that enormous, gaseous, burning star!

As lots of us know, sunlight helps our bodies make vitamin D and a scarcity of vitamin D can result in feelings of depression. It could appear basic, but our exposure to sunshine can have a serious impact on our mood and over time, our mental health.

Studies show that folks with more melanin have a harder time making a sufficient amount of vitamin D, which suggests that we can have to talk to our doctors about other ways (besides the sun) to get vitamin D into our systems – like a every day complement.

Regardless of how much melanin you’ve got, don’t forget the sunscreen.

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3. Live in your truth

Life is crazy each day. It comes with highs and lows, plus every part in between. Take time to acknowledge every part you’ve been through and the ways it has shaped you into the person you might be today.

Make decisions based on what’s best for you, and don’t let anyone shame you for being different. Fighting against who you truly are will tank your mental health—you should live in your truth.

When you need a mental health day from work and might achieve this, take it. If you could set more firm boundaries to realize your goals, do it. If you could tell your loved ones that you just prefer to smoke weed to assist manage stress, today is the day.

Give yourself permission to prioritize your well-being and don’t feel guilty about having a way of self-preservation (even when it feels somewhat foreign to you).

4. Explore therapy, and don’t be afraid to get real about meds

The cannabis community is filled with many differing types of individuals. There are people bursting with passion, determination, energy, and the resources they should be okay. And it’s also filled with individuals who have experienced trauma and deserve the eye of a mental health skilled to discuss it.

Sweet stoner family, please know this: sometimes weed shouldn’t be enough to see us to the opposite side of life’s biggest challenges. The plant cannot return in time and re-wire our brains or erase our trauma.

Weed is an incredible tool and a real companion when pharmaceutical medication shouldn’t be accessible – and sometimes – even along with pharmaceuticals. But also sometimes, prescription meds are essential, and there’s no shame in that. Multiple things can exist at the identical time.

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It’s possible you’ll discover a recent type of peace in smoking strains to your unique issues, talking with a mental health skilled, and getting on somewhat medication. It’s a privilege to have the time and cash to take a position in yourself this manner, and when you can, you shouldn’t feel ashamed about looking for help.

Resources like Talkspace, BetterHelp, or Hers are there to assist you to understand what types mental health assistance can be found to you. Betterhelp even provides financial aid options for individuals who need assistance with the value of their mental health care.

Just remember: you don’t need to do all of it by yourself.

Consuming cannabis will be a crucial a part of our self-care, but as humans, sometimes we’d like multiple thing to actually improve our mental health. The following pointers are only a place to begin. The remainder of your mental health journey awaits as soon as you’re able to begin.

Janessa Bailey

Janessa Bailey was born and raised within the Midwest and serves as Leafly’s culture editor. She enjoys exploring the various ways in which weed can tie into on a regular basis life and barely turns down an edible.

Janessa is the creator of Lumen and Seeds of Change.

View Janessa Bailey’s articles

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