15 Factors that Can Impact Your Cannabis Experience

Jointly Can Help You Optimize How You Use Cannabis

Have you ever noticed that the same cannabis product can produce different effects (or side effects) from one day to the next? Or that a weed strain that consistently makes you focused and creative has a totally different effect on your friend?

How is it possible that the same product has such varied effects? And what factors can you track and control so that you can enjoy a consistent and reliable cannabis experience every time?

Experts in cannabis wellness believe that there are at least 15 physiological, environmental and behavioral factors that can impact your cannabis experience. Jointly is a new cannabis wellness app that enables you to track these 15 factors so that you can optimize how you consume cannabis, reduce adverse side effects, and achieve your wellness goals with cannabis or CBD.

And it works: Jointly users who have created at least 10 reports are improving their results by an average of 38%.

The 15 Factors That Can Impact Your Cannabis Experience

1. Your wellness goals
2. The type of product you are using
3. The specific brand and product/strain
4. Your method of consumption
5. Your dose
6. The time you wait between doses
7. How hydrated you are
8. How full you are
9. Whether you exercise before, during or after cannabis
10. How much sleep you got last night
11. The quality of your diet
12. Whether you ate any companion foods
13. Your environment/physical surroundings
14. The people you are with
15. Your unique endocannabinoid system

To understand why all these different factors might impact your cannabis experience, it is important to understand the role that the endocannabinoid system (ECS) plays in the human body and how cannabis interacts with this system.

The ECS is made up of the CB1 (cannabinoid receptor 1) and CB2 receptors and the endogenous cannabinoids that bind to them. The CB1 receptors are found in the brain, nervous system, peripheral organs and tissue, while the CB2 receptors are found primarily on immune cells, although they are also found on bone, spleen and liver cells. The ECS modulates a wide range of biological functions like mood, sleep, pain perception, glucose metabolism, the hormones produced in the gut, cognitive function and more.

THC mimics your body’s endogenous cannabinoids and binds to the CB1 and CB2 receptors, affecting many of the biological functions that the ECS modulates. CBD has low affinity for the CB receptors, but increases concentrations of your body’s endocannabinoid levels. As a result, the scientific literature indicates that for some purposes like healing bone fractures, it is better to consume CBD for an extended period of time to harness the cumulative effects of CBD on your body’s endocannabinoid levels.

Due to the complex role the ECS plays in the body, cannabinoids can produce a wide range of effects and side effects. For example, cannabis affects insulin and hunger hormone levels and cannabis can improve brain health in seniors. Low doses of THC can relieve stress or anxiety, but high doses may cause anxiety in some people. That is why dose is one of the most important factors to dial in when optimizing how you consume cannabis.

Whenever you try a new product, it is best to start with a small dose to establish the potency and then add more as needed. If you find the minimum dose you need to create the effect you want, you save money and decrease your risk of adverse side effects.

Why Do Different Types of Cannabis Products Feel Different?

While CBD and THC are the most studied cannabinoids, cannabis contains over 500 chemical compounds, including lesser-known cannabinoids, flavonoids and terpenes, many of which exert biological effects. For example, terpenes can affect neurotransmitter levels. Different products and strains have varying levels of these compounds—and thus can produce distinct effects or side effects.

Additionally, different ingestion methods (eating cannabis versus smoking it) can produce measurably different objective markers, like levels of THC in the blood. Jointly can help you determine which ingestion methods and product types are best suited for your wellness goals.

Why Does Marijuana Affect People Differently?

While cannabis products contain a range of chemical compounds, your body is also in flux. Some of these fluctuations are regular like the circadian rhythm, which is “an ongoing neurochemical ebb and flow from morning to night.”

If you consume the same cannabis product in the morning versus at night, your neurochemical and hormonal state is different, and cannabis or CBD might produce different effects or side effects. If you figure out how this factor affects your cannabis experience, you can use this data to adjust how you consume cannabis and improve your results.

Other biological fluctuations can be caused by our immediate environment. For example, if you are in a stressful social situation, your cortisol levels may rise. If you consume cannabis in that stressful situation, you might experience negative side effects like anxiety.

Or you may find the opposite: that consuming cannabis in a stressful social situation makes you feel more relaxed and social. Diet, exercise, companion foods, how hydrated you are—all these factors alter your biological state and could potentially change the way cannabis affects you.

If you dial in these factors, you can harness the power of cannabis to improve your well-being.

How to Optimize Your Cannabis Consumption

Everyone is different. We have different biology, work schedules, life stresses, dietary habits and sleep hygiene. The best way to find out which factors impact you is to set goals for your cannabis use, record your cannabis consumption on Jointly, rate product based on how well they help you achieve your goals, and track the 15 factors that can impact your experience.

Through this process, you will gain meaningful data that you can use to adjust how you consume cannabis so that you can enjoy your ideal experience every time. Over time, your average product ratings should go up as you optimize how you consume cannabis and CBD. Use the Results Tracker to make sure your results are improving over time.

Purposeful cannabis consumption is a journey to live better, naturally. Jointly is here to make your cannabis wellness journey a whole lot easier. Download the Jointly app today and start accomplishing your wellness goals with cannabis and CBD!