What You On? Mindful Consumption & Canna-Journaling
You’ve heard of mindful eating, now try mindful cannabis consumption.
Mindfulness is deliberate awareness without judgment and criticism. It is about maintaining a moment-by-moment awareness of our thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, and the surrounding environment, through a gentle, nurturing lens.
Mindful eating involves observing how the food and drinks you put into your body make you feel. By paying close attention to how you feel as you eat—the texture and tastes of each mouthful, your body’s hunger, and fullness signals, how different foods affect your energy levels and mood—you can learn to savor both your food and the experience of eating. Being mindful of the food you eat can promote better digestion, and influence wiser choices about what you eat in the future. It brings you closer to holistic wellness by assisting in forming healthy habits around food and eating.
What if we were to apply the tenets of mindful eating to mindful smoking or other forms of cannabis consumption?
As we continue to center wellness, and cannabis becomes increasingly more accepted, we have the opportunity to explore the two together. After all, they are both paths to the same goal—feeling our best. In an effort to put this to the test, I started weed-logging. It’s been a healthy, calming, and observant experience. I track my notes and analyze them every week. Thus far, it has helped me find the “best” strain for my pre-workout, the right dosage to relieve my pain, and mapped my patterns of consumption.
If you’re utilizing cannabis as part of your wellness or medical routine, keeping a cannabis journal is a great way to help you maximize the power of consumption no matter if you’re new to it, canna-curious, canna-closeted, or an OG.
While certain strains and cannabinoid ratios have been proven to resonate with my personal experience, everybody is different. Whether you consume cannabis for your mind, body, soul, or all 3 - start a journal and keep track of how certain strains make you feel. Canna-journaling can be an insightful holistic wellness tool in uncovering patterns that can help you improve symptoms, identifying the correct dosage for certain settings, figuring out the most effective strain for you, and the best time of day to consume, avoiding products you don’t like, and even as an easy budgeting tool by tracking how much you spend on cannabis.
Cannabis use is a very personal experience and each strain can have varying effects on different individuals. This means there will always be trial and error when it comes to finding what you like and what works best for you. For example, products can have the same strain name but different cannabinoid and terpene profiles, and different batches of the same product produced by the same company can even have different THC or CBD levels. This is why recording the brand and product names is important for making sure you are able to replicate the fire sessions. Various delivery methods can also affect you in different ways, even if they come from the same chemovar or strain, so it’s important to note your method of ingestion.
Canna-journaling tracks your experiences, preferences, and usage to cultivate your very own cannabis database.
As you journal, you can rate your experiences from 1-10, draw pictures about how you’re feeling after a blunt of RS-11, or rank your edibles by taste/high duration. It’s your world. Just be sure to take good notes for yourself so they can help you fine-tune your routine for the best possible cannabis experience.
Here are some things worth noting as you incorporate journaling into your smoke sesh. Pick whatever you feel aligns with your “why.” If you are consistent, you can easily spot trends and useful insights. After ten entries… or one hundred, you should be able to see the common denominators of what factors contributed to a fire session — be it the dose, cannabinoid profile, terpene profile, delivery method, time of day, or any combination of those or others. You may even find that different products work for you in different situations or for treating different symptoms.
Flower
Strain name
Brand name / Dispensary / Cultivator / Price
Dosage
Time/Date
Setting
Method of ingestion (smoked? vaped? etc)
Did you exercise before or after cannabis usage? If so, what did you do?
Motivational factors for consumption
Cannabinoid content by percentage
Terpene content by percentage
Aroma / scents / undertones / flavor
Appearance (color, form, sticky, hairy, etc.)
Length of relief time
Side effects (the good, bad, and happy)
Reflect: What was the experience like? How did you feel? What, if anything, was different about this experience? Did it relieve your symptoms? For how long?
Mental breakthroughs
Additional info for Concentrates and Edibles:
Form of concentrate (kief, wax, rosin, oil, shatter, hash, etc.)
Methods of extraction, if extracted (Co2, BHO, PHO, Ethanol, distillate, etc.)
Method of ingestion (vaped? smoked? dabbed? made into edible?)
Cannabinoid content (milligrams / % of cannabinoids)
Was the edible made from cannabis infused butter, coconut oil BHO, Co2, etc.?
You hear it all the time, “listen to your body.” Everything you feel and do is a signal that you can use to make decisions about your self-care. As you journey through life, it is essential to balance your mind, body, and soul in a way that will support good health, happiness, and well-being. Journaling is an excellent tool to assist you on your conscious cannabis journey and achieving your desired effects on a consistent basis.
Tag us if you try it @trapvibezfitness
by @minnimuse
