Is Using Cannabis Good For Social Anxiety & Confidence? - Dr. Aziz, Confidence Coach

Hey, Dr. Aziz here. Smoking cannabis or vaporizing cannabis or eating cannabis or injecting cannabis, whatever you want to do with it, is it good? Does it have I got an email recently, someone said, hey, does it have a place in growth or is it all just about comfort? And so I'm going to answer a few questions about cannabis. Obviously it's a huge topic, so this is not a comprehensive. This is just some quick thoughts about seen in my own life, my own relationships with it, as well as just working with lots of clients who all have different experiences with cannabis and other substances. For the sake of this video, I'm going to leave it to just cannabis, not lumping all substances together because they're all extremely different. So there are a couple ways that people use cannabis. The short answer is I think it can have a place in your growth. It's not like in order to grow and overcome social anxiety and become more confident that you have to stop using it entirely. Having said that though, I found that there are a couple ways people use cannabis. One is the most rare, which is as a self awareness building tool. So that means they smoke or vape or something and then they go out into nature, go for a walk or they rock climb or run or journal or meditate, maybe spend time with a friend and have a good conversation. That in that case confidence can be enhancing your awareness. It can increase your self awareness, especially with meditation or other things that can help you go deeper and can be a valuable tool. Now most people don't use it that way. Maybe even some people say they're going to use it that way and then we end up doing what? Munchies. I want to eat as much pleasurable stuff for my tongue and throat as possible, right? It's like what tastes good in here and feels good going down here past my heart, so soothes me, forget about what it does to my stomach and my waistline. You know, get high and just zone out, watch movies, play video games, other stuff like that that is not helping you grow. Obviously that's used as a coping mechanism, as a way to reduce intensity of uncomfortable feelings, usually anxiety. So in that case I would say that it is hindering growth because it's not giving you the ability to learn other tools to handle and cope with the anxiety. Now I was just speaking with someone recently who said, yeah, but you know, my ex husband has such bad social anxiety that he needs to smoke pot all day every day just to function, to go to the supermarket, you know, in which case he's using it like A medicine. And is that bad? I was like, well here's the thing. Whether it's an anti, you know, ssri, antidepressant for anxiety or cannabis or any other medicine, if we're in a place where we just can't even function, help is good, right? I'm not against medicines and the use of medicines. It's just that when we can't function and pain is high, our motivation to do shit and fix it is high. And I think that's really good. That was what transformed my life. All the clients that I work with that have extreme life transforming gains are the ones who are coming in with like, I can't live another day, another week, another year like this. And so they're motivated and they're willing to do whatever it takes, just like I was. And as a result they transform. So pain being high, desire for solution, being high is not a problem. The problem is if our pain is high and then we find something that deadens it quite a bit. Now all of a sudden our drive to find a solution, what, what happens to that? Well, that goes down too. And so her ex husband maybe he's like, okay, I'm going to use this because it helps me. But then you use it for a day or a week or a month and all of a sudden you're like, eh, this kind of works fine. The side effects aren't so bad. I don't really notice the grogginess and the lack of motivation and other stuff like that that can come from chronic cannabis use. So that's something to be aware of. Obviously using it as an escape, be aware of that, watch out for that. Even if you're using it for personal growth and self awareness, you don't really need it for that. It can be helpful for that. But there's better ways to get that. You know, check out Wim Hof and doing like breathing techniques to get into an altered state. Just go for a long run, work out, you know, just freaking do a juice cleanse, do stuff that's gonna be like net positive and has no negative effects. Because cannabis people like to deny it and say, oh, it has no negative effects whatsoever. But look, just study, study. You don't need scientific studies. I mean you can look at those and you can get a general swath of the. If there's really negative effects, which there usually aren't from cannabis, right? I mean maybe chronic heavy use, you can experience some rebound anxiety or depression if you stop using it. But for the most part you're not like horribly Hungover from cannabis, there's no terrible toxic effects. So the research only goes so far. You got to study. With any research, at the end of the day, it's like your own. You must study yourself, become more and more self aware. So after you smoke pot, what is your experience like the next day, if you smoke it three, four, five days in a row, or vape it or whatever, what is your experience after that? Now, what I found in me, and I've seen it in clients as well, is the next day there can be a subtle increase for a desire for pleasure. It's probably because of the, you know, the dopamine increasing effects of the cannabis. So I am going to want to eat something sweeter, I'm going to want to do something a little more pleasurable. I'm going to be a little less inclined to discomfort and work and effort and a little more inclined to comfort and ease and safety. And I think that builds up over time. And that's what I've seen in people that are chronic cannabis users is their threshold for how much discomfort they can handle is lower. So what that means is, look, anything that you want to do in your life, you're going to have to be uncomfortable if it's worth it, right? So taking on something more physical, growth, strength in your body with your diet, growing in your career, learning something new, building your social confidence, it all requires what, an ability to be uncomfortable. And so cannabis can undermine that. That's just what I've seen. Obviously you might have a different experience with this. I'm not saying it's that way for everyone, but I think when people, they get attached to it, it feels good, it helps them feel better. I've seen that in my own life. You know, I had a habit. I mean, I was younger in college, I would use it at least twice a week and I was less than most of my friends, but I was like, you know, in computer science and then wanting to like do well in my early years of college and then. But in more recent years, I'd say in the last year or two, I would probably do it maybe once a week, maybe once every other week and I would just notice these effects and I would be like, ah, it's whatever, it's worth it, I have a good time and it's helpful. But in, I don't know, maybe the last couple months, I've just said, you know what? I'm just like, why? What if I just don't use it at all? So my own current experience is not using it at all. And it's an interesting experiment. I seem to notice that it's nice not to have any subtle energy drains. Those are my experiences. What are yours? I'm not the final word, I'm not the authority on cannabis. This is just some stuff that happen. How does it relate to confidence and social anxiety? That's the thing that I'm an expert on. And this is just what I've seen in my practice working with thousands of people now at this point. So what's your experience though? Helpful, not helpful. Helpful at first and then a crutch like my ideas. Hate them. Comment below and also subscribe and hit that notifications bell. When you subscribe, there's a little bell that you can click so you see the videos. Because as you can tell doing a lot more videos these days. Alright guys, talk to you soon.