A morning routine and ritual are mainstays in the self-help and entrepreneur space.
Proponents rave about how successful people always have a morning routine to “win the day” or to get them centered. Make your bed. Coffee. Journal. Express gratitude. Exercise. Read. Meditate.
I get it. Focus is a scarce resource these days. If you’re trying to advance towards your goals, you need to avoid brain fog, being unfocused, and being unmotivated like the plague.
I still have a daily morning routine. I’ve pared it down by quite a bit and I’ll admit, it helps me gain momentum at the beginning of the day. I still drink coffee, meditate, and write in a journal.
But there’s something I do that helps me stay more focused than any amount of meditation or journaling can.
If you’ve lifted weights for any amount of time, then you know that progressive overload is the thing you need to be pursuing. This is one of the fundamental tenets of strength. If you don’t lift heavier weights or do more work over time, you will not get stronger.
The Problem
Sounds easy enough. However, when I ask most people what they lifted on any given exercise in the last few days or weeks, they always have a hard time telling me. Not that they need to have their numbers memorized, but they don’t even have something they can reference in order to check their progress.
If you’re squatting 200 pounds for 3 sets of 5 today, you need to be using heavier weights or do more reps/sets next week or month. But if you can’t remember if you were squatting 185 or 225 last, how are you going to make intelligent decisions in the gym?
Popular media has essentially cemented the idea that smoking weed is harmless to the human body and brain. While cannabis does not seem to be as harmful as other illicit drugs, this notion is spoken almost like fact when the body of evidence is scarce.
There is emerging evidence that suggests that there are plenty of detrimental effects of consuming marijuana, including some alarming findings about potential long-term effects on the brains of younger individuals who consume cannabis. The idea that weed cannot be addictive is a lie.
Many individuals will be able to recreationally consume cannabis with minimal effect, much like alcohol. However, chronic and dependent users won’t be so lucky.
cannabis bud / marihuana plants
If you can find it in yourself to stop, I encourage you to take a break from weed for a few weeks. If you frequently use or compulsively seek cannabis, here are 3 changes you will notice when you quit smoking weed.
Improved Motivation
It is well established that dopamine is the chemical of motivation. While evidence is mixed, marijuana use alters the physiology of dopamine in a way that blunts motivation.
Here’s the quick lowdown on dopamine. Dopamine is the chemical that motivates us towards action of seeking something outside of ourselves. This motivation can be purely for survival instincts such as seeking food, sex, and safety. In the modern world, this seeking behavior can be towards advancing careers, relationships, goals, and, yes, sex. When dopamine is naturally elevated, motivation is high. When dopamine levels are depressed, motivation is low. When dopamine levels suddenly spike to unusually high levels (due to various causes such as happy and exciting moments, large rewards, and, unfortunately, drugs) there will be an inevitable crash to very low levels.
Cannabis has been shown to spike dopamine levels during use. This will lead to the inevitable crash afterwards. Weed isn’t the only substance that does this. Alcohol and illicit drugs will do the same. Chronic use of cannabis has been shown to blunt dopamine activity, meaning long term use will cause reduced dopamine release. With less dopamine comes less motivation.
I don’t believe in the caricature of the lazy stoner, but I have seen many friends go through a noticeable transformation where they become more focused, motivation, and resilient to stress when they quit smoking weed. It’s hard to say if the cessation of cannabis alone directly caused these improvements or if it was a battery of behavioral changes, but if quitting was the impetus for self-improvement, I am fine with that. It’s also possible that these positive changes were due to improvements in other factors such as improved sleep, which brings me to my next point.
Improved Sleep
I have previous addressed the effects of cannabis on sleep in this article.
Many individuals use cannabis as a sleep aid. The ironic part is that weed actually hurts sleep quality.
Two ways that weed hurts your sleep are that it suppresses REM sleep and prevents normal sleep duration.
REM sleep is associated with dreaming and is important for learning, memory, creativity, and processing emotionally turbulent events from the previous day. Cannabis users will dream much less during use, even if it seems like the dreams are more vivid. Disrupting REM sleep will negatively impact our mental acuity and well being.
Cannabis will also prevent normal sleep durations. Adults typically need 7-9 hours of sleep. Cannabis users will typically diverge to sleeping less than 6 hours or more than 10, both of which are associated with poor health outcomes.
When you quit smoking cannabis, your sleep improves. When your sleep improves, everything improves. You will notice that you have more energy throughout the day, less brain fog, less anxiety, and are more adept at dealing with stress.
Less Anxiety
This is a tough one. Many individuals use weed to help with their anxiety. The evidence is hard to sift through, but the emerging picture is becoming more clear.
THC, which is the psychoactive component of cannabis that’s associate with getting high, seems to have an anxiogenic effect, meaning it increases and worsens anxiety, especially at higher doses.
CBD on the other hand, appears to have an anxiolytic effect at all doses, meaning it helps reduce anxiety.
Given that most recreational cannabis users tend to consume marijuana for THC and its psychoactive effects, it’s likely that they are doing no favors for their anxiety. This is in stark contrast with the general established notion that weed is an effective treatment for anxiety. The truth is more complicated than that.
If you are going to use cannabis for anxiety, CBD is the only one that has shown to be effective.
When you stop smoking THC, you will be surprised at how much better your anxiety is controlled. Give yourself a few weeks to get used to this, as the act of stopping may temporarily increase anxiety due to either withdrawal or fear of anxiety.
Give Yourself A Chance To Improve
I should state that I have nothing against cannabis use. I view it in similar light to alcohol as a recreational substance and find it ridiculous that it’s still a Schedule 1 drug. More research needs to be done on cannabis so we can fully understand its medical applications and effects of recreational use.
However, if you find yourself compulsively using or seeking cannabis on a frequent basis, I am going to encourage you to take a break and see what it can do for your physical and mental health. You will notice that you sleep better, are more focused, have less brain fog, and are more resilient to stress.
Further Reading
NIDA. How does marijuana produce its effects?. National Institute on Drug Abuse website. https://nida.nih.gov/publications/research-reports/marijuana/how-does-marijuana-produce-its-effects. April 13, 2021 Accessed July 25, 2023.
Bloomfield MAP, Morgan CJA, Egerton A, Kapur S, Curran HV, Howes OD. Dopaminergic Function in Cannabis Users and Its Relationship to Cannabis-Induced Psychotic Symptoms. Biological Psychiatry. 2014;75(6):470-478. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2013.05.027
Pacheco-Colón I, Limia JM, Gonzalez R. Nonacute effects of cannabis use on motivation and reward sensitivity in humans: A systematic review. Psychol Addict Behav. 2018;32(5):497-507. doi:10.1037/adb0000380
Wardle MC, Pabon E, Webber TA, Harriet de Wit. Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol reduces willingness to exert effort in women. 2022;239(5):1487-1497. doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s00213-021-06032-1
Lawn W, Freeman TP, Pope RA, et al. Acute and chronic effects of cannabinoids on effort-related decision-making and reward learning: an evaluation of the cannabis ‘amotivational’ hypotheses. Psychopharmacology (Berl). 2016;233(19-20):3537-3552. doi:10.1007/s00213-016-4383-x
Martz ME, Trucco EM, Cope LM, et al. Association of Marijuana Use With Blunted Nucleus Accumbens Response to Reward Anticipation. JAMA Psychiatry. 2016;73(8):838-844. doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2016.1161
Bowles N, Herzig M, Shea S. Recent legalization of cannabis use: effects on sleep, health, and workplace safety. Nature and Science of Sleep. 2017;Volume 9:249-251. doi:https://doi.org/10.2147/nss.s152231
Gates PJ, Albertella L, Copeland J. The effects of cannabinoid administration on sleep: a systematic review of human studies. Sleep Med Rev. 2014;18(6):477-487. doi:10.1016/j.smrv.2014.02.005
M Carr and others, 0159 Reduced REM Sleep Percent in Frequent Cannabis Versus Non-Cannabis Users, Sleep, Volume 43, Issue Supplement_1, April 2020, Pages A62–A63, https://doi.org/10.1093/sleep/zsaa056.157
Sharpe L, Sinclair J, Kramer A, de Manincor M, Sarris J. Cannabis, a cause for anxiety? A critical appraisal of the anxiogenic and anxiolytic properties. J Transl Med. 2020;18(1):374. Published 2020 Oct 2. doi:10.1186/s12967-020-02518-2
People often use cannabis as a sleep aid, saying that it allows them to fall asleep faster. Until recently, we didn’t have a good understanding of how weed affects sleep. However, emerging evidence shows that using cannabis as a sleep aid could be detrimental to sleep.
Former pot heads always tell me about how much better their sleep is after they abstain from weed for at least 2 weeks or quit completely. They also say that their brain fog disappears, their anxiety is better, and their memory improves significantly. Funny enough, all of these can be tied to the improvement in sleep quality.
Chronic use of cannabis has two distinct effects on your sleep.
With winter fast approaching, the weather is getting colder and wetter. The sun is in the sky for less and less time, and with that, there are some problems that we can anticipate will happen.
Lack of sunlight causes a wide variety of problems. Our circadian rhythm is synchronized to the rising and setting of the sun. When we do not get enough exposure to the sun, it can throw off our natural sleep-wake cycle, affect our mood, and overall health.
Modern society has gifted us with many miraculous advancements. We can instantly send messages across the world, access an unprecedented amount of information (and misinformation), and darkness is no longer a large part of our natural selection.
However, this modernity has robbed us of a vital part of our health…
Testosterone is known as the chief male hormone. It’s usually associated with “being a man”, muscle gain, and general… manliness?
I often struggle to talk about testosterone in conventional ways and in terms of machismo because my interest and concern usually has to do with optimizing health and performance. While some woke-minded folks may say that testosterone is fueling machismo and ruining society, low levels of testosterone is associated with a plethora of health problems ranging from poor sexual health, decreased lean body mass (and an increase in fat), low energy levels, and even cognitive issues.
One of the great things about strength training and lifting is the amount of variation that you can find in exercise, programming, philosophy, and culture. Things almost never get stale and people fall in love with this world all of the time. However, in all of that variation, a mediocre idea or two will inevitably sneak in. Or thousands, as seen daily on Instagram.
Such is the case with this one shoulder exercise. It is considered a bodybuilding staple and has torn the lifting community apart since physical therapists and strength coaches alike have discussed (or fought about) the potential harm and misgivings of the movement.
Look at any fitness magazine, blog, Instagram influencer, and you will be inundated with dozens of new “discoveries” that claim to be the next best thing, promising to bolster your health and “optimizing” your wellness with gimmicks and hacks.
It might be a new diet trend, soft tissue gun, apparel, supplement, or god forbid, another shake weight.
Remember that the old cliche is true: if it seems too good to be true, it probably is. There is no way to replace a foundation of good habits and behaviors with gimmicks.
If you don’t do this ONE thing, you can say goodbye to a majority of the gains from all of your efforts…
