Cannabis and Yoga: How to Get High & Do Yoga

Cannabis and yoga may both seem to be so prevalent in American culture that you might think they are a product of our own society, no different than cheeseburgers or baseball. In reality, both practices pre-date the U.S. by thousands of years, reflecting an ancient culture whose roots continue to influence our habits today. Their use in history has been intertwined, and today the two together are known by names like "ganja yoga." Fans of either practice may find that both together enhance the experience, helping for a better time and a healthier body.

Downward Facing Dank

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Yoga is a physical exercise that, like a smoke session, can be done alone or within a larger group, and often a first-timer benefits from an introduction to the activity. Yoga requires no special shoes or weights, only a simple mat and your body to do the workout. It tests your stamina and strength by resisting gravity in a variety of different poses like the stable Tree pose to the challenging Warrior pose. While Americans only associate yoga with this exercise, in Indian culture the term encompasses philosophic ideas and spiritual guidance, a helpful aspect of the practice you won't find in any other workout. 

The chemical formula of cannabis can provide a major boost to a yoga enthusiast, helping to achieve a clearer state of mind and even reach new personal records. That's because cannabis is capable of enhancing the everyday benefits of yoga, like stress relief and muscle strength. Why do yoga and cannabis complement each other so well, and what should you know about doing yoga while high?

Breathe Deep

One key factor in yoga workouts is mastery of your breathing. Each movement in yoga is accompanied by a breathing transition, either inhaling or exhaling, requiring you to pay close attention to how and when you are using your lungs. Unlike a sport where you simply catch your breath after exerting yourself, yoga workouts demand that you pace your breathing and your motions until they become in sync. Like so many other aspects of yoga, this is easy to say and difficult to do.

Cannabis helps to enhance your breathing patterns in several ways. A strain with lots of terpenes like Shady Apples OG kush is perfect for a weed yoga session because it focuses your attention and concentration, allowing you to track every breath you take. Additionally, inhaling cannabis smoke helps as a warm-up to the breathing exercises at the start of a yoga session, allowing you to better get into a rhythm before you begin.

Meditation Medication

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While not all routines end in a meditation session, many yoga enthusiasts find that the conclusion of a class or a video ending in a quiet, reflective period helps to enhance their thought processes. Meditation is something that might be unfamiliar to the average person, especially if you feel like you struggle to clarify your thoughts during the span of an ordinary busy day. Yet the advantages of meditation have been demonstrated in many different aspects of health, from greater attention span to lower risk of memory loss as you age.

Here, again, cannabis yoga can enhance the experience by allowing you to more easily slip away from your everyday thoughts. Marijuana and meditation go together hand in hand; a strain with a strong quantity of THC, like Chernobyl's eye-popping 30% ratio, help your brain to slip into neutral and wash away everyday stress. This can put you in the proper frame of mind to meditate, allowing you to concentrate on nothing more than concentration itself, allowing the worries of the world to leak out of your psyche. Cannabis and meditation can also be used before or after a yoga session as a way of transitioning mind and body.

Relaxing Atmosphere

One of the great benefits of both cannabis and yoga is that it relaxes you in body and soul. Yoga triggers the endorphins from exercise that alleviate stress, dull pain, and create a sense of euphoria. Cannabis strains, especially those high in CBD, are famous for doing just the same thing. That's why many yoga practitioners actually go so far as to recommend that their students take the plunge, believing that the spiritual connections between cannabis and yoga reflect ancient practices that benefit our modern lives.

Muscle Memory

A final benefit of ganja yoga is that the active ingredients in cannabis can help with the physical recovery from a yoga workout. Anyone who has gone to the mat for a yoga session, even a beginner's session, likely remembers how their muscles felt the next day. While a CBD-heavy strain of cannabis can be perfect for alleviating muscle stress and soreness, a chemical called myrcene in strains like Tropicana Cookies helps to relax muscles, acting as a sedative. Taking a toke of weed with lots of myrcene can help you to recover immediately afterward as well as the next day, in the event, you pushed yourself so hard that you dread the thought of walking up a simple set of stairs.

Have you ever combined cannabis and yoga? How do you prefer to enjoy them together compared to separately? What poses are more fun or more challenging after a good bit of bud? Let us know in the comments below!