Cannabis and Meditation: Practice to Elevate the Mind

We all could use some more introspection. Modern life requires us to be continuously engaged with our surroundings and obsessed with our futures. Meditation techniques are helpful to clear one's mind and spend time in consideration of critical thoughts. While it's clear that meditation is hugely beneficial, it can be a hard practice to jump into, unless you smoke a bunch of weed.

The History of Meditation and Weed

Cannabis has been used to alter and focus the mind on meditation for hundreds of years. Using "sacred herbs" to help put yourself in an altered state of mind is nothing new and the first practitioners of mindful cannabis use were seeking higher forms of enlightenment. In Tibetan culture integrating plants was typical to spirituality and cannabis was used to help facilitate meditation.

Keep in mind I'm not suggesting that smoking a joint will turn you into a Zen monk. But it will help shift your state of mind, and that is absolutely what meditation is intended to do. When your mindset changes, your outlook on your life can change too, and that is what many people need to make confident decisions.

Cannabis Mediation Can Be as Simple as Getting Stoned and Doing Nothing

So how should you go about smoking weed and meditating? We suggest sticking with a doobie or a hand pipe to keep your high mellow and steady. Find a chill place that is cozy and quiet. There are tons of guided meditation videos online and even apps that you can download that will take you through many types of meditative experiences from simple refreshing mental breaks all the way to deep mental journeys.

Benefits of Meditating While High

Humans are incredible at learning from their mistakes and planning. The trick to taking advantage of these fantastic skills is taking the time to perform them. Practice does make perfect. When a person uses cannabis, they often have a mental change in perspective about their environment. A person may notice something familiar that wasn't before or be reminded to a time that they had previously forgotten. This reflection happens because the effects of cannabis help us draw relations between things that we typically don't.
Body Relaxation
One of the other ways cannabis can help to accomplish a meditative state is the effects it can have relaxing the body. You have to be comfortable physically to meditate. When you find a specific cannabis strain that promotes a full body high, it can help you more easily find a state of ease. Once you achieve a comfortable place for your body, you can begin a meditation practice. It's a good idea to already have something you want to mentally focus on during your meditative session. The most common point of focus is on one's breathing, but it can also be a sound or a word or phrase repeated.

Deep Breathing

States of mind and our breathing are closely associated. When we are nervous or panicked our breath escalates to increase the amount of oxygen to our brain so we can make decisions and perceive our environment quickly. When a person is relaxed their breathing slows and regulates and that helps them stay calm. The practice of meditation asks us to be conscious of our breath and focus on it to help clear our mind and bring us into the present moment.

Heightened Awareness

When you take away outside stimulation while on cannabis your mind searches for stimulus. With no music, video games, or the great outdoors to distract you while you're stoned, your mind will wander into itself and start to turn up some exciting things. This mental slideshow of thoughts and memories that comes at a fast and unpredictable pace can be overwhelming but also satisfying like opening a treasure chest of unreferenced ideas that need to get out.

Improving Your Mental Health

Meditating on your present moment and your actions help improve your health by giving you a different outlook on your life. When you combine the act of quietly sitting and thinking about your mind and body with the enhancing abilities of cannabis, you get an enhanced session of meditation that can be informative and relaxing.