Features

Does cannabis affect success?

Published on February 7, 2019 by Special to the oz.

By Starbuds Canada

We’ve all heard the stereotype of “the stoner” who lives in his or her mom’s basement and does nothing but watch Netflix.

How much truth is behind it?

If you think about extremely successful people in mainstream media or that you know from your own life, they aren’t exactly running around parading their cannabis use to everyone.

Cannabis has only very recently become legal, and if you ask us, it makes perfect sense that many “successful” and motivated individuals who find themselves in professional environments with responsibilities and reputations to uphold wouldn’t be sharing their use of what was then an illegal substance.

Working towards a world that loses the stigma around cannabis is one of the biggest focuses at Starbuds. To do that, we need to understand how cannabis interacts with ourselves individually.

Strain and the brain

If you’ve dabbled in cannabis for a while, you have no doubt experienced both ends of this plant’s spectrum of effects.

Sativa strains of cannabis are known to engage and stimulate the brain, activating creativity and allowing people to focus in on a task, or becoming more present at the moment, giving their undivided attention to a situation or project at hand.

At the other end of this spectrum, we have indica strains. Indica strains have strong sedating and relaxing effects. These have been used to help “turn off” the brain when people are overstimulated from busy days and ready to sit on the couch, veg out and stop thinking.

Studies show that cannabis does directly affect the area of our brain that controls emotion and motivation, more specifically our dopamine levels. Dopamine is responsible for most of the happiness you experience in life and is also responsible for the feeling of “reward” after accomplishing something. Impeding the production of dopamine can affect our motivation to do something.

This side of the debate is backed by human psychology itself and has less to do with the actual plant. The theory here is that people who are lazy under the influence of cannabis, are generally lazier people and use cannabis as a scapegoat and justification for their laziness. In other words, they now have a reason and have given themselves “permission” to relax because they’re influenced by cannabis. Successful, motivated people have behavioural similarities that lead to their success. These suggestions are displayed in many articles and “self help” blogs or books.

The Takeaway

Not to go all Tony Robbins on you, but these “success behaviors” can be chalked up to good, productive habits.

Successful motivated people know how to embody the phrase “mind over matter” and accomplish a goal or task, whether they want to or not.

We all have the power to direct our own lives and create productive, healthy habits.

If you are someone who can’t manage to be productive or motivated while intoxicated by cannabis, then we suggest you cut back or schedule appropriate times to indulge. For everyone else, we hope that we get to a point in our society that people can openly discuss their cannabis use, including those who work in professional environments.

Having educated, productive and motivated individuals who can help shed the stigma of cannabis and give the world a new perspective is something we can get behind.

Thanks to Starbuds Canada for permission to use this column. Check them out on Instagram. Read the original story here.