Does Marijuana Disrupt Your Sleep? | Matt Walker & Andrew Huberman

00:00:00.000 | (silence)

00:00:02.160 | Does marijuana disrupt sleep?

00:00:06.460 | - Yeah, it does.

00:00:08.060 | And there's a pretty good amount of data on,

00:00:11.580 | so we can break sort of cannabis down

00:00:14.220 | into two of its key ingredients.

00:00:16.860 | We've got THC, tetrahydrocannabinol, and we've got CBD.

00:00:21.700 | And CBD is sort of the less,

00:00:25.820 | what we think of as the non-psychoactive component.

00:00:28.860 | In other words, when you take CBD, you don't get high.

00:00:32.340 | If you take THC, you can get high.

00:00:35.260 | That's the psychoactive part of the equation.

00:00:38.260 | - Are both considered sedatives in the technical sense?

00:00:41.620 | - No, they're not.

00:00:43.820 | Neither of them have that class right now.

00:00:48.140 | THC seems to speed up the time with which you fall asleep.

00:00:55.500 | But again, if you look at the electrical brainwave signature

00:00:59.380 | of your falling asleep with and without that THC,

00:01:02.780 | it's not going to be an ideal fit.

00:01:05.220 | So you could argue it's non-natural,

00:01:07.700 | but many people use THC for that fact

00:01:10.140 | because they find it difficult to fall asleep.

00:01:12.820 | And it can speed the onset of at least non-consciousness,

00:01:16.660 | I guess is the best way of describing it.

00:01:18.740 | But there are problems with THC and there are twofold.

00:01:23.100 | The first is that it too, but through different mechanisms,

00:01:26.300 | seems to block REM sleep.

00:01:28.140 | And that's why a lot of people when they're using

00:01:30.140 | will tell me, look, you know, I definitely,

00:01:32.980 | I was dreaming, I don't remember, you know,

00:01:34.900 | many of my dreams.

00:01:35.900 | And then when they stop using THC,

00:01:39.340 | they'll say, I was having, you know,

00:01:40.900 | just crazy, crazy dreams.

00:01:43.060 | And the reason is because there is a rebound mechanism.

00:01:46.580 | REM sleep is very clever.

00:01:48.020 | And alcohol is the same way in this sense.

00:01:50.300 | It's the same homeostatic mechanism.

00:01:52.220 | Some people will tell me, look,

00:01:53.860 | if I have a bit of a wild Friday night with some alcohol,

00:01:57.340 | you know, maybe I'll sleep late into the next morning

00:01:59.980 | and I'll just have these really intense dreams.

00:02:03.340 | So, and I thought I wasn't having any REM sleep.

00:02:06.020 | Well, the way it works is that it's during

00:02:07.940 | in the middle of the night, really,

00:02:10.260 | when alcohol blocks your REM sleep.

00:02:13.460 | And your brain is smart.

00:02:15.140 | It understands how much REM sleep you should have had,

00:02:18.100 | how much REM sleep you have not

00:02:19.860 | because the alcohol has been in the system.

00:02:21.900 | And finally, in those early morning hours,

00:02:23.980 | when you're getting through to sort of, you know,

00:02:25.580 | six, seven, 8 a.m. - REM like crazy.

00:02:27.380 | - All of a sudden, your brain not only goes back

00:02:29.660 | to having the same amount of REM it would have had,

00:02:32.460 | it does that, plus it tries to get back

00:02:35.060 | all of the REM sleep that it's lost.

00:02:36.980 | Does it get back all of the REM sleep?

00:02:38.780 | No, it doesn't.

00:02:39.740 | It never gets back all of the REM sleep, but it tries.

00:02:42.940 | And so you have these really intense periods of REM sleep.

00:02:45.980 | Hence, you have really intense, bizarre dreams.

00:02:49.180 | And that's what happens also with THC.

00:02:51.780 | You build up this pressure for REM sleep,

00:02:55.260 | this debt for REM sleep.

00:02:57.140 | Will you ever pay it back?

00:02:59.420 | It doesn't seem as though you get back

00:03:00.860 | everything that you lost,

00:03:02.500 | but will you get back some of it?

00:03:04.020 | Yes, the brain will start to devour more

00:03:06.460 | because it's been starved of REM sleep for so long.

00:03:10.740 | But one of the bigger problems with THC

00:03:13.420 | that we worry about is withdrawal dependency.

00:03:17.060 | So as you start to use THC for sleep,

00:03:20.380 | there can be a dependency tolerance.

00:03:24.100 | So you start to need more to get the same sleep benefit.

00:03:27.980 | And when you stop using,

00:03:29.500 | you usually get a very severe rebound insomnia.

00:03:32.940 | And in fact, it's so potent

00:03:34.540 | that it's typically part of the clinical withdrawal profile

00:03:38.940 | from THC, from cannabis.

00:03:41.860 | - And there's anxiety withdrawal.

00:03:43.560 | I don't ask anybody to change their behavior.

00:03:49.620 | We just, as you said,

00:03:50.780 | we try and inform people about what the science says

00:03:52.820 | and let them make choices for themselves.

00:03:54.820 | People who are regular pot smokers,

00:03:57.420 | that many will insist they're not addicted.

00:04:00.140 | And maybe indeed they don't actually follow

00:04:03.260 | the profile of classical addiction.

00:04:05.040 | I don't know.

00:04:05.880 | I'm guessing some do, some don't.

00:04:07.420 | But if you ask them,

00:04:09.500 | well, what if I took away all marijuana consumption

00:04:12.940 | for, I don't know, two weeks?

00:04:15.700 | That thought scares many of them.

00:04:18.220 | And many of them will experience intense anxiety

00:04:21.460 | without marijuana,

00:04:22.300 | which speaks to perhaps not addiction,

00:04:24.360 | but a certain kind of dependency.

00:04:26.580 | And again, I know many pot smokers,

00:04:29.220 | some of whom have jobs that are quite high-performing

00:04:32.580 | and they manage.

00:04:34.060 | - Here in Berkeley, I don't know any of those.

00:04:35.660 | - Yeah, none of those, right.

00:04:37.060 | What about CBD?

00:04:39.740 | I mean, we hear so much about CBD.

00:04:41.380 | I've been a little concerned about the fact

00:04:42.780 | that the analysis of a lot of CBD supplements out there

00:04:46.020 | has confirmed that much like with melatonin,

00:04:48.640 | the levels that are reported on the labels

00:04:52.260 | in no way, shape, or form match the levels

00:04:54.700 | that are actually contained in the various supplements.

00:04:56.780 | Sometimes the levels are much higher

00:04:58.860 | than they're reported on the labels.

00:05:00.840 | Other times it's much lower.

00:05:02.520 | What does ingesting CBD do to the architecture

00:05:07.420 | and quality of sleep?

00:05:09.500 | - Right now, I don't think we have enough data

00:05:12.180 | to make some kind of meaningful sense out of it.

00:05:16.460 | I think the picture that is emerging, however,

00:05:19.020 | is probably the following.

00:05:20.940 | Firstly, CBD does not seem to be detrimental

00:05:25.060 | in the same ways that THC is.

00:05:27.460 | So we can start by saying,

00:05:29.540 | does it create potential problems?

00:05:33.580 | Not of the nature necessarily that we see with THC,

00:05:38.100 | but the devil is a little bit in the details

00:05:41.060 | from the data that we do have,

00:05:42.500 | and it comes onto your valid point of purity.

00:05:45.020 | At low dose, CBD can seem to be wake-promoting.

00:05:50.900 | So in lower doses, let's say sort of five or 10 milligrams,

00:05:54.660 | I'm trying to remember some of the studies

00:05:56.100 | off the top of my head.

00:05:57.860 | There, it actually may enhance wakefulness

00:06:00.780 | and cause problems with sleep.

00:06:03.180 | It's only once you get into the higher dose range

00:06:05.820 | that there seem to have been some increases in sleepiness

00:06:11.100 | or sort of sedation-like increases.

00:06:15.020 | And that's usually, I think, above about 25 milligrams,

00:06:19.380 | as best I can recall from the data.

00:06:21.780 | And then when we look in animal models,

00:06:25.060 | you typically see the same type of profile too.

00:06:29.100 | So then the question becomes,

00:06:31.380 | and now again, you just don't know about purity.

00:06:35.060 | It's very difficult.

00:06:36.660 | Although I think, and again, I'm not a user,

00:06:39.740 | not necessarily because I have anything against it.

00:06:42.740 | It's just that's not necessarily my cup of tea.

00:06:45.820 | There are some firms that are now doing

00:06:49.300 | third-party independent laboratory tests.

00:06:52.380 | I don't know how gamed that is, so I've got no sense of it.

00:06:55.420 | - No, I think some supplement companies

00:06:56.820 | are quite honest and accurate

00:06:58.900 | about the amounts of various substances

00:07:00.960 | that are in other products, and some are not.

00:07:04.700 | And I think there's just a huge range.

00:07:06.760 | I think the FDA is starting to explore CBD.

00:07:09.580 | There are, certainly I saw some grant announcements

00:07:12.500 | to explore the function of CBD.

00:07:14.460 | Most of the work on CBD is being done

00:07:16.280 | by the general public, ingesting it and seeing how they feel.

00:07:18.660 | - Right now, if we were to,

00:07:20.340 | and I'm not making this statement,

00:07:22.140 | I don't think anyone could make the statement now,

00:07:23.820 | but if it ends up being that CBD

00:07:26.740 | is potentially beneficial for sleep,

00:07:29.900 | how can we reconcile that mechanistically?

00:07:33.140 | And I think there are, to me at least,

00:07:35.780 | there are at least three candidate mechanisms

00:07:37.860 | that I've been exploring and thinking about.

00:07:41.220 | The first is that it's thermoregulatory.

00:07:44.260 | And what we found in some animal models

00:07:46.340 | is that CBD will create a profile of hypothermia.

00:07:51.260 | In other words, it cools the body,

00:07:52.860 | the core body temperature down,

00:07:54.460 | and that's something that we know is good for sleep.

00:07:56.780 | The second is that it's an anxiolytic,

00:07:58.900 | that it can reduce anxiety.

00:08:00.660 | And that data is actually quite strong,

00:08:03.220 | even with some functional imaging work

00:08:05.100 | that's been coming out recently,

00:08:06.420 | showing that one epicenter of emotion

00:08:08.540 | called the amygdala deep within the brain

00:08:10.700 | is quietened down with CBD.

00:08:14.060 | So I think that's at least a second non-mutually

00:08:16.340 | exclusive, you know, possibility.

00:08:19.340 | I think the third is some recent data that's come out

00:08:22.740 | that was suggesting that CBD

00:08:24.900 | can alter the signaling of adenosine.

00:08:27.780 | So it doesn't necessarily mean

00:08:29.180 | that you produce more adenosine,

00:08:32.140 | but what it can do is perhaps modulate the sensitivity,

00:08:35.820 | perhaps, of the brain,

00:08:37.420 | so that the weight of that same adenosine

00:08:41.100 | is weightier in its brain signal,

00:08:46.020 | and therefore it creates this stronger pressure for sleep.

00:08:50.060 | So I think these are all tentative mechanisms.

00:08:52.860 | I think any one of them is viable.

00:08:54.540 | I think all three are viable together.

00:08:57.260 | But right now, I think, does that sort of help think

00:08:59.660 | through the tapestry of THC and CBD?

00:09:02.380 | - Yeah, very much so.

00:09:03.380 | And actually, it's a perfect segue

00:09:05.500 | from we've talked about caffeine, alcohol, THC, and CBD

00:09:10.500 | as sort of, we framed them anyway,

00:09:14.740 | as things that done in moderation at the appropriate times

00:09:17.420 | are probably okay for most people.

00:09:19.940 | Certainly not for everybody.

00:09:20.980 | There will be differences in sensitivity,

00:09:22.820 | but that done at the incorrect times,

00:09:25.940 | and certainly in the incorrect amounts,

00:09:28.340 | will greatly disrupt this vital stage of life we call sleep.

00:09:31.900 | [upbeat music]

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Does Marijuana Disrupt Your Sleep? | Matt Walker & Andrew Huberman

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