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Beating the brain fog - the curse of a daily smoker

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L3inad

Bluelighter
Joined
May 9, 2009
Messages
434
Location
Melbourne
While its a well known side effect of cannabis abuse, that annoying cloudedness that seems to affect a good percentage of regular smokers, there doesn't seem to be much if any information on how to counter this.

The obvious (and so far only answer, for myself) is to take a break.

Personally I find that after ~2 days I start to regain some form of cognitive clarity and after a full week of abstinence were back to 100%.

Comforting as it may be to be able to negate all side effects from long term drug abuse with just a week long break, tbh I'd prefer to not have to take the break in the first place :p

Being an academic, from time to time I'll have to go on breaks in order to succeed in my studies. Which isn't really an issue, however I find the green stuff to be a godsend in regulating my eating/sleeping patterns.

It counters any form of Ritalin comedown, allows me to sleep and eat WHEN I desire which is nothing short of a miracle imho.

So, the big question. What if any methods do others employ to counter the side effects of cannabis abuse?

Nootropics possibly?

Supplements?

Mental exercises?

While I highly doubt there is anything that can fully negate the need for breaks, I'd like to think there are still ways to reduce the frequency and length required to regain brain function.

So I'm putting this one to AusDD, knowing full well there's a good chunk of daily smokers trawling about here. Most of which seem to be on the brainier side of things.

Mods, if deemed to be better suited in CD move away :) But I think a better answer may be obtained here. (couldn't find anything on this specifically in CD, but I didn't look as far as the archives so could well be answered already)

EDIT:: My main issue is with memory, or lack there of. I deal with the rest of it just fine but it shits me not being able to remember what I did last weekend, let alone what I ate for breakfast =P
 
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In my experience dude, you can pretty much smoke cannabis daily without it affecting your memory too badly so long as you keep smoking to evenings/nights and sleep properly. If you go about your whole day stoned it is bound to affect your memory.

You mention your on ritalin which may make your problems worse, for some reason I find regular stimulant usage on top of being a bonghead really exacerbates most, if not all, of the negative symptoms caused by choof. Personally I have found even when smoking 2 grams or more of weed daily it doesn't really make me overly anxious or paranoid unless I start abusing stims, and stims definately make the memory problems worse.

I am not saying people should smoke choof everyday or that it is in any way a good idea, just that in my experience it is still possible to do so whilst avoiding a lot of the bad effects from bud.

I don't know anything about taking supplements and shit, really if you feel like your not 100% due to your cannabis use then cutting back or stopping for a while is a better solution than any supplement.
 
drug_mentor said:
In my experience dude, you can pretty much smoke cannabis daily without it affecting your memory too badly so long as you keep smoking to evenings/nights and sleep properly. If you go about your whole day stoned it is bound to affect your memory.
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Bang on with that one ^

Keeping it to just evenings does reduce side effects drastically. Also found that not going to bed stoned seems to reduce some of the clouding the next day.

The Ritalin and the weed seem to balance out rather well and make me an overall happy, functional and in control person. Seems to make little difference to myself in terms of increasing cognitive dysfunction.

Very true about the cutting back part, and as said previously, I'm aware that it inevitably will have to happen on occasion, and by all means should. Even when not experiencing problematic side effects.

BUT. My intention starting this thread was to try and start discussion on ways to help reduce side effects which could possibly enable myself (who rather enjoys the balance it gives him) and others, to go for longer periods without having to take breaks.

That said, I'm currently on a break now (weed and Ritalin) and as much as I'm enjoying this clarity I'd rather not enforce this upon myself as often as I currently have to :p

I'm especially interested to know if anyone has had any experience/success in tackling these issues with nootropics?
 
Hhhmmm just some suggestions, I don't know whether they're particularly applicable to memory issues from smoking but they're certainly good for all-around mental health:

1 ) Get enough sleep: 7-8 hours a night if possible,
2 ) Exercise regularly: resitance & endurance training,
3 ) Eat a healthy and varied diet: lots of fruit & Vegetables, healthy fats/oils, the right ration of protein/carbs/fats,
4 ) Drink water, a lot of it,
5 ) Supplement as needed with a multivitamin, fish oil (or flax seed oil if a vego),
6 ) If you're especially keen consider nootropics like piracetam (take with a choline supplement), or other supplements like ginko, ginseng, etc.
7 ) Minimise how much alcohol you drink.
8 ) As you mentioned, mental exercises. Even if you just read daily, do a crossword or sudoku, etc if you have a spare 15 minutes, learn another language. anything so long as you're keeping your brain engaged and challenging yourself :)
 
out of curiosity, and if you don't mind sharing

how often do you smoke? 7 days a week? wake and bake style? or just evenings?

and how often do you take breaks?

just curious, cos i'm about to finish a (almost) 4 week break,
 
Dude, may I recommend Nicabate patches? Because a lot of people who are hooked on marijuana, are also hooked on tobacco!
 
well i tend to smoke more weed to get rid of the brain fog but then i have to smoke more weed to get rid of the last weeds fog and then i


seriously though, although i could smoke it daily I just take enough just to get a threshold effect. a light buzz. It seems the heavy the dose the greater the fog.
 
L3inad said:
It counters any form of Ritalin comedown, allows me to sleep and eat WHEN I desire which is nothing short of a miracle imho.
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2c worth: Point understood (from the whole post, regarding memory problems).

You mentioned Ritalin comedowns, which seems to point to a 'stimulants vs cannabis' type of scenario. If you are putting the hammer down in the daytime with stimulants, and then trying to decelerate at night with marijuana, maybe an idea might be to try to smooth out the ride. Less up, less down.

Nootropics are very useful, in my experience (of Piracetam) but I did not use them for a long term. More as a tool to get things done by certain deadlines.

I could only advise you to continue to remind yourself of where your goals are, and always strive for them. If you find there are blank spots, then experiment with your 'external influences' to see which ones have positive/negative effects.

BT :)
 
As noted above, my exeperience of not having any fog is the same.


1.) I only vapourise at night (bongs with spin seemed to make it worse)

2.) I ride to work 3 days a week and do weights another 3 (this is the most important, especially the cardio, really clears your head out)

3.) good sleep

4.) don't eat shit munchies... going for the doritos and coke after getting high doesnt help. Rice thins with vegemite and cheese go!

Use cannabis responsibly and it will have very little affect in your daily life. Since i cut my useage down 75% by switching to a vape its been great, 1gram a week, can still enjoy getting high but hardly crave it (no spin! yiew) and my chest is much much clearer, so much, ill never put my mouth on a bong again in my life. I can't stress how good a vape is, you really do get more out of it.
 
acidprime said:
Use cannabis responsibly and it will have very little affect in your daily life. Since i cut my useage down 75% by switching to a vape its been great, 1gram a week, can still enjoy getting high but hardly crave it (no spin! yiew) and my chest is much much clearer, so much, ill never put my mouth on a bong again in my life. I can't stress how good a vape is, you really do get more out of it.
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I totally agree. I absolutely recommend buying a quality vapouriser with an accurate digital display. My only regret is that I didn't do it 18 years ago.
 
^ yep, the purpose is to heat the plant matter to a certain temperature so as to vapourise the actives without actually burning said matter. So you are breathing in vapour rather than smoke and hence inhaling less carcinogens and doing less damage. I've never tried one though, I've heard they can be a pain to clean but are otherwise worth it.
 
I clean mine once a month. I used to clean my bong daily.

Two of my mates greened out like 15 year olds at a bucks party this weekend after a claiming a joint from another guy didn't get them stoned. They both said they had an put of body experience as well. It was killer weed.
 
slidewayz said:
out of curiosity, and if you don't mind sharing

how often do you smoke? 7 days a week? wake and bake style? or just evenings?

and how often do you take breaks?

just curious, cos i'm about to finish a (almost) 4 week break,
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Evenings, I tend to do all my activities for the day. Then get baked and eat some food =)

I take breaks as required, no real set formulae. Just when I notice I'm getting clouded its time to take it easy for a week.

A 4 week break is huge IMHO.

Thats great that you've done it, I'm sure you'll be thanking yourself in the coming months.

thanks for the tips BT.

I'm not complaining, as my current regime is and has been working well for quite some time. However I'm always after better more efficient ways to manage my daily life.

I'm interested to hear of your experience with piracetam. Were you using it in conjunction with a cannabis habit? If so, what discernible difference did it make in terms of reducing side effects and general mental clarity?

Also I echo all sentiments about healthy lifestyle being possibly the biggest factor, good diet, good sleep and some form of exercise makes all the difference in terms of both mental and physical well being.
 
L3inad said:
Evenings, I tend to do all my activities for the day. Then get baked and eat some food =)
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Sounds like my routine lol

You guys that have vaporisers are they volcano vapes or the cheaper ones. It's probably something which is worth getting(my lungs hate me these days) though I've heard only the volcanos are really worth it and they're pretty hard to come by in aus and expensive...
 
drazzilB said:
You guys that have vaporisers are they volcano vapes or the cheaper ones. It's probably something which is worth getting(my lungs hate me these days) though I've heard only the volcanos are really worth it and they're pretty hard to come by in aus and expensive...
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I have a digital Volcano. My only regret is that I didn't buy it a long time ago. There is an Australian site that sells Volcanoes, the site owner used to be a member on here but his posts vanished. I assume he is legit but just had issues with advertising here.

Regarding price; you get what you pay for.
 
L3inad said:
I'm interested to hear of your experience with piracetam. Were you using it in conjunction with a cannabis habit? If so, what discernible difference did it make in terms of reducing side effects and general mental clarity?
Click to expand...

At the time I wrote this post: the predominant effects experienced were due to the piracetam, but that is to say that the cannabis effects were part of the status quo.

BT :)
 
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