Smoking Weed and Optimizing Productivity

I've used to smoke everyday. Maybe go through 8th in 1 week. My friends and I used to hold sesh after work and play PES/FIFA. That was few years ago. Now that I relocated, I have no weed friends. So i just stopped smoking. I don't think weed hinders any work productivity long as your not high during work. However, weed tends to affect your motivation when your brain is still developing. I think the brain stops developing at age 24 or sth.

Have you tried vaping/dab pens/etc. I don't personally smoke often, but you may feel less tired doing one as opposed to the other.

I will say that long term weed use does have some negative side effects. There was a study awhile ago that correlated long-term (10+ years) heavy (daily) weed use to a loss of approximately 10 IQ points across 10 years. I don't know how well the study was controlled and IQ definitely isn't a definite measure of intelligence, but long-term heavy use will take its toll. The loss of the enjoyment from those things is probably due to the fact that you rewired the reward pathways in your brain by smoking almost every time you went out during a 2 year period. That's textbook addiction, and it'll take a decent period of time to rewire your brain back to "normal".

As far as work goes, I can't offer any advice.

Along the lines of vaping/dabs, have you tried different strains at all? If THC is leaving you feeling foggy-headed, you might like a strand that has higher CBD and less THC.

x

I've found vaping leaving me less foggy the next morning but this is compared to smoking joints and blunts which I am really trying to cut back on. Been using pens with different types of oils and have found it much cleaner. Also nice knowing exactly the strain you are getting

Typically use it before bed, especially if it was long day where I had a cup of coffee around 5 or 6. I'm pretty sensitive to caffeine so without taking a hit before bed I'd otherwise be laying in bed wide awake.

Exercise more drink water Its not the weed it's the 80hr weeks into your 30s Take a breather, sleep in two days in a row. Try green tea meditation or cold showers

lol you didn't have to make a post about this, it doesn't take a genius to realize you're a drug addict, if you're not sober at least 5 days a week then you've got a problem

As someone who smokes more frequently than you, works in a front office environment, and who I think is further down the stoner path: quit while you're ahead. It's the only way to avoid prolonged frustration and self-sabotage. Right now you're at the "there's no way something this stupid could interfere with my life" stage. Here's a hint: if you've gone as far as to consider this topic, it's impacting your productivity. Regardless whether you one day stop, think back to this post the next time you wonder...

New Zealand’s anti-marijuana stance negatively impacts consumers – both recreational and medicinal – in a number of different ways. In addition to an absence of quality control and the criminalisation of patients who rely on weed to cope with their health conditions, a lack of regulation in the country’s cannabis …

first, this is a throwaway account. I'm one of the top 30 certified users in terms of SBs, but in case my identity eventually gets revealed (it's inevitable), I didn't want this post to be attached to it

been smoking consistently for over 15 years, my IQ (recently got it tested) is still in the upper ranges (I've also checked this against other family members for confirmation). my career has only improved, and I've never missed an appointment, day at work, or other important commitment because I was stoned. this is all anecdotal evidence, but I don't see myself stopping anytime soon.

life is about balance. I'm an otherwise healthy dude, I exercise (7% body fat), eat well, have generally low stress, a great wife, and a great lifestyle. pot for me is just like having a beer after a long day, it's just fun to get stoned. I am not depressed, it's not self medication in my opinion. however, I will say any vice can be dangerous if it's being used as an escape or a distraction. if you smoke during the workday, that's bad. if it causes you to miss other commitments, that's bad. if you'd rather not see family and friends and instead just get high (sometimes this is OK, on the whole probably not), that's not good. and if it affects your work product, that's not good.

I'd argue your constant fogginess isn't the result of just pot (maybe it is, I'm not a doc), it's probably a confluence of lack of sleep, stress, diet, exercise, love life, etc.

what I'd do if I were you is do your own controlled study. first week, give up pot cold turkey but keep everything else the same. second week, be disciplined about getting at least 7-9 hours of sleep a night, but keep everything else the same (including smoking again). third week, make it a commitment to hit the gym every day for at least a half hour-45 mins (has to be high intensity), and so on.

I've met few people who toke more than I do (that have decent jobs) and maybe it's just my disposition, but I'd be really shocked if pot was the only thing causing you to feel foggy.

how to stay irie and still crush it:

1. don't get so bombed you can't function - every once in a while this is fun to do with some buddies and just watch entourage or family guy, but not regularly
2. NEVER do it until all of your work is done for the day. it should be a treat, not a part of your day like a cup of coffee
3. do the other things right - eat well, exercise, manage stress, get plenty of sleep, have a healthy love life
4. get your IQ tested periodically, see if it really is affecting you

Legalize it

"vuw957"as a STEM degree holder

This literally had nothing to do with the rest of that sentence. Nice humblebrag, though. I've come across people putting in high powered, high focused work, while high (though it was mostly repetitive tasks). It was very awkward for me, because they seemed high, even though they were generally productive. I couldn't see these people conducting a meeting or orchestrating complex systems. But, there's clearly some dependence issues with people feeling calm enough to be productive only while high.

I would feel bad about having developed the dependence at all. It's one of the reasons I think marijuana legalization is a bad idea, although I'm excited for the US coffers to benefit from all that luxury/recreational, income, and sales tax revenue. The point is, I don't look down on it because if people aren't foggily pressing buttons and sending off nuclear warheads, I'm okay with it, because they feel better, making them more productive, and hopefully the US Treasury will be more healthy. I would say keep up the good work. But, maybe don't quit cold turkey if you want to stop. I've seen that and they always go right back just as hard if not harder after a month or two.

I'm going to second some of what @irielB" said about balance. You're working 80 hours a week on your own enterprise. You are your own boss, salesman and entrepreneur. You have a drive to work hard and push yourself. That's fantastic, but if you're sleepy and perpetually have mental fog, you need to look at all the variables. The assumption that weed is solely to blame seems like a cop-out answer because you don't want to look at other possible factors. Weed may be a mitigating factor in the mental fatigue and fog. It may not be. What is the rest of your life like? How's your weight? What's your diet like? How's your sleep? Are you exercising? What's your consumption of alcohol and other substances like?

I think that you are viewing this through a binary lens, when you should examine all the variables. If you're not exercising enough, have a gained significant weight, etc., I would evaluate how to change those factors in your life. Your sleep could be affected by your choice of diet and lack of exercise and not necessarily the sobriety factor. Your motivation could be suffering because you don't have a "non-stoned" outlet for stress. One of the best things I ever did for my mental acuity and sleep was adapting to a ketogenic diet and increasing my exercise. After getting through the induction phase, I found myself with more energy, a greater degree of mental acuity and no brain fog, more energy, and much better sleep.

If you're that concerned, and this is where I echo @irielb" and his idea of doing an n=1 experiment. First come up with a list of every possible factor that could cause a negative situation. Obviously weed, stress, diet, and exercise all come to mind. Start a 2 week n=1 experiment for cutting out weed, changing how you smoke, and starting exercise. I would also spend 2 weeks doing a control test just to have a baseline out of your notes. 4 experiments over 8 weeks isn't bad. I'd also take copious notes every day to compare things. For Diet, depending on what you choose (and I highly advocate for a ketogenic diet because it worked for me), look at a 3-month experiment, where your first month is induction and then you add in exercise in months 2 and 3. Oddly enough, when I started doing keto, I was advised by a nutritionist that weed would help during the induction phase.

As previously suggested, I would also look at how you are getting high. Different ways of getting high produce different effects on the body. This may be your body's way of saying don't plant, but look into wax, oil, and vape cartridges. I can't speak to the effects of wax, oil, and vape cartridges, but knowing ex-cigarette smokers who now vape, they have seem a remarkable change in their health by moving away from smoking something combustible and using a vapor alternative instead.

Finally, if you haven't had one in a while, get yourself checked out by your GP. Get a physical and see where your health stands in general. There may be something else that could be causing an underlying problem as well.

To talk about dependency on weed (or any substance for the matter) we first need to talk about addiction. When you are in the process of getting addicted (be that alcohol/weed/porn) there are neural pathways that are being created in your brain. This creation is completed with the production of a chemical called DeltaFosB in your neurons.

This DeltaFosB is responsible for your cravings. You said you intake 3-4 times a week. That is still on the lower side but if you continue on from this point the creation of DeltaFosB will increase. As a result you will stop getting high and will crave for that feeling more and more thus increasing your intake. You've started feeling drowsy and soon enough your motivation will start breaking down and you will not feel like doing anything without weed.

The really scary part about DeltaFosB is that it takes any where between 45 and 60 days to breakdown if you completely abstain from the substance that you are addicted to. So in between your detox if at any time you do pleasure yourself it immediately fires up the neural pathway thus making it even more difficult to recover and increasing the likelihood of you binging on it as your body will crave very very hard and your brain is going to rationalize partaking in it.

The fact that you are looking for high functioning weed addict means you've begun rationalizing taking weed rather than controlling. Depending on how much you smoke up, you have two ways forward. Either go cold turkey for two months to get back to your normal level and break those neural pathways being built or control your intake where you smoke up but not at the expense of your productivity.

I'm not against weed and feel its like alcohol where controlled intake isn't bad. But excess of anything will cause you harm and dependency on weed grows much faster compared to alcohol. As for high functioning weed addicts, I know a few but trust me you'd not want to be like them where you start every day by rolling up a joint.

Link in case you're more interested about how drugs develop an addiction: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOSB

“Smoking Weed and Optimizing Productivity”

A true oxymoron if I’ve ever heard one.

I relate to a lot of what you’re saying, especially the mental fog and the feeling of needing something to look forward to after a long work stretch. I went through a similar phase when launching my own business after years of corporate grind. For me, moderation became really important. Like someone mentioned, switching up strains with more CBD helped reduce brain fog. I also found that not smoking during peak workdays allowed me to keep my productivity high, and saving weed as an end-of-day reward made it feel more special.

Routine and keeping track of habits helped too. When I wanted to focus more on the business side, automation played a role in freeing up my time. I looked at different ways to boost efficiency and came across automated machines like the Hefestus AuraX machine, which really transformed how some of my friends in the cannabis business handle those tedious, repetitive tasks. Sometimes, finding tech to take the load off feels as rewarding as a smoke at the end of a long week.