What causes PTSD?
PTSD refers to emotional and behavioral symptoms that develop after a terrifying event that puts you in danger or threatens your life. Most people are directly involved in the event, but you can also end up with PTSD by witnessing the trauma.
Traumatic events that lead to PTSD include:
- Military duty
- Physical assault
- Sexual assault
- Emotional or physical abuse
- Automobile, plane, and train accidents
- Earthquakes, floods, and tornadoes
- Death of a loved one
- Gun violence
- Robberies
- Fires
While it’s natural to feel anxious, worried, and distressed after trauma, your feelings should improve over a few weeks. When your symptoms stick around, you may have PTSD.
What symptoms does PTSD cause?
PTSD causes ongoing anxiety and sudden, unexpected symptom flare-ups. The recurring symptoms include:
- Uncontrollable memories
- Nightmares
- Flashbacks
- Anger and irritability
- Uncharacteristic emotional outbursts
- Difficulty sleeping
- Depression
- Inability to concentrate
- Isolation
- Avoidance
The anxiety caused by PTSD often makes people avoid the people, places, and activities that remind them of the trauma.
Why do PTSD symptoms flare up?
During a traumatic event, your brain automatically records the details, like smells, sights, and sounds. Those details get tucked into your subconscious.
Then one day, you encounter one of those details. The detail reaches your subconscious, unlocks the memory, and triggers a sudden, unexpected surge of intense emotions.
How does medical cannabis help PTSD?
People with PTSD often improve with psychotherapy. They may also take medications that relieve specific symptoms like depression and anger.
However, you have another option in the form of medical cannabis. Medical cannabis activates nerves in your brain, resulting in changes that can improve PTSD symptoms.
Cannabis has long been known to relieve anxiety and help you relax and sleep better, but it may do more than that for PTSD.
Can medical cannabis reduce anxiety and traumatic memories?
Medical cannabis may lower the brain’s reactivity to PTSD triggers. As a result, you experience less anxiety and fear. Cannabis could also help you overcome the memories.
PTSD develops when your brain doesn’t overcome the trauma. Normally, new memories form that override old memories, allowing you to recover. The old memories are still there, but they no longer cause the same fear and anxiety. That natural process is called extinction learning.
When people develop PTSD, extinction learning doesn’t occur, so they keep re-experiencing the same intense reactions. It turns out that the active ingredients in medical cannabis may kickstart extinction learning and help you overcome the memories.
To explore the benefits of medical marijuana for PTSD, call Remix420 or book an appointment online today.
