August is National Wellness Month, 31 days focused on healthy habits, self-care, and existing at your highest potential. It’s about creating a life worth living, one you want to wake up every day just to delve into – which isn’t always easy to achieve.
Wellness is an ongoing journey that relies on frequently implementing healthy habits. It’s not about being perfect or in a constant state of improvement, it’s about figuring out what works for you and choosing to make an effort. So what are ways that you can reach this state of overall well-being?
Elevate Holistics is here to give our take on what it means to be well, discuss cannabis health and wellness, and overview the therapeutic benefits of cannabis. Do you want to know more about how cannabis and wellness go hand in hand? Let’s dive in!
First, what is National Wellness Month? How can I participate?
What is National Wellness Month?
When is National Wellness Month? August is National Wellness Month, although the healthy routines formed during this time could change the course of the rest of your life.
What is National Wellness Month and what can I do to celebrate? August wellness is about spending time to nurture the health of your mind, body, and soul. Self-care is a journey with no end goal, all about creating systems – or daily habits – that suit you and allow you to feel your best.
These systems, or consistent self-care routines, could consist of:
- Stress and mood management
- Meditation
- Yoga
- Alone time
- Social interactions and outings
- Consuming high-CBD cannabis
- Nourishing the physical body
- Adequate sleep
- Exercise, yoga, and stretching
- Consuming foods that fuel the body and keep it healthy
- Supplementing with herbs, including cannabis, or vitamins
- Spiritual upkeep
- Appreciation of the beauty around you
- Practicing gratitude
- Journaling
- Consuming cannabis as an eye-opening tool
- Looking inwards for guidance, acceptance, fulfillment, and purpose
All of these self-care habits connect and affect one another. When looking at the bigger picture of self-care, it’s important to also recognize social and occupational wellness as factors of well-being.
It’s essential to make your healthy habits manageable, especially at first, so you don’t dread doing them. There is a balance between easily manageable and challenging that makes a habit valuable and worth continuing.
The key is to stay consistent with your habits, knowing that it is better to show up and do something imperfectly than to not do something at all. It’s normal to not always feel motivated – push through.
Keep in mind, you are whole and complete just as you are – implementing healthy routines simply carves a path to fully access all of the goodness that is already within you.
Cannabis Health and Wellness
Do you have difficulty implementing healthy habits to improve your wellness? Are you sick of relying on chemical-based pharmaceuticals just to get through the day? Do you need a helping hand to promote your overall well-being?
Over time, we’ve found that the best treatments of health conditions are often naturally occurring. From this earth, you can find a natural remedy for practically any ailment with uses dating back to the beginning of humankind.
Along with other herbs, one multi-faceted tool humans have been using for thousands of years is cannabis. Even in modern times, cannabis was available as a licensed medicine in the U.S. for almost a century.
The history of cannabis is extensive, facilitating wellness in countless ways to treat a vast array of medical conditions. The ability cannabis has to treat the mind, body, and soul makes it a popular option for all types of people.
Since August is National Wellness Month, let’s discuss how you can enhance your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being with cannabis. What are some of the therapeutic benefits of cannabis? How do cannabis and wellness relate?
LEARN MORE: Mental Health Awareness Month: How Cannabis Can Help | How to Take Medical Marijuana for Health and Wellness
Treating Medical Conditions/Reducing Symptoms
Cannabis interacts with the body through the endocannabinoid system, which is arguably the body’s most essential system. The endocannabinoid system controls nearly all of our everyday functions and consists of cannabinoid receptors placed all over the body.
The endocannabinoid system lies at the center of cannabis health and wellness. The ECS performs different tasks in different areas of the body, but it is always striving for homeostasis – the maintaining of internal stability while adjusting to changing external conditions.
Cannabinoids in cannabis, like THC, CBD, CBN, and CBG, work with the ECS by binding to cannabinoid receptors to maintain homeostasis, protect against cell death, and manage various disorders.
Some of the medical conditions that cannabis can reduce the symptoms of are:
- Chronic pain and inflammation
- Nausea and vomiting
- Symptoms of multiple sclerosis
- Anorexia and weight loss
- Epilepsy
- IBS
- Huntington’s disease
- Parkinson’s disease
- Dementia
- Glaucoma
- Addiction
- Sleep disorder
- Mental health disorders
Numerous discomforts, like migraine, fibromyalgia, or irritable bowel syndrome, could be caused by endocannabinoid deficiency syndrome.
Learn more about endocannabinoid deficiency syndrome by clicking here.
Relieving Stress and Balancing Mood
Weed and stress relief is one of the most sought-after features of cannabis health and wellness. Since the endocannabinoid system plays a major role in mood regulation, it is clear that cannabis can help manage stress, anxiety, depression, and other mental health ailments. By regulating the ECS with cannabis, symptoms of these mental health disorders could be greatly reduced.
Full-spectrum cannabis products with high levels of CBD are best suited to treat most mental health disorders. If you are prone to anxiety or paranoia, avoid high levels of THC when starting your cannabis journey. Explore the balance between THC, CBD, other cannabinoids, and terpenes to find the combination that works best for you.
Boosting Energy and Focus
You might associate cannabis with laziness or couch-lock, but that’s often not the case. Certain terpenes found in cannabis promote energy and focus. Terpenes provide numerous benefits, such as anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, antifungal, and antipsychotic properties.
The terpene limonene is ideal for energy because it modulates the adenosine receptors. These receptors are responsible for kickstarting the release of dopamine and increasing serotonin levels. Another helpful terpene that promotes focus is alpha-pinene. Scientific analysis has found alpha-pinene to be potent in enhancing clearer thinking and improving memory.
In addition to terpenes, weed strains with lower levels of CBD and higher levels of THC tend to be the most energy-boosting. A 2:1 THC to CBD ratio is fitting for energy and focus and is less likely to cause anxiety.
Spiritual Guidance
We’ve talked about the mind and body, so what about the soul?
Cannabis and wellness connect to help lead individuals down a path of spiritual awakening. A spiritual awakening might consist of reevaluating beliefs, gaining a broader sense of reality, and letting go of fixation on the past or future.
If you allow it, cannabis can help you live in the now and work through built-up trauma by generating new thought patterns.
Cannabis is known to help ease spiritual and existential suffering. It also enhances sensory perceptions and awareness, increasing appreciation of scents, music, tastes, and visuals. Cannabis helps to “heighten awareness of moment-to-moment presence,” making life more enjoyable by living in the present.
Upgrade Your Wellness With Elevate Holistics
What is National Wellness Month and how can I celebrate? August is National Wellness Month, but Elevate Holistics is dedicated to helping patients feel better naturally year-round. How can we support your cannabis and wellness journey?
Elevate Holistics offers a safe, straightforward, and simple way to get your medical marijuana card. We connect you with an MMJ doctor via video chat for med card approval and help you the rest of the way. You deserve to feel well – book an appointment with Elevate Holistics to get your medical marijuana card today.
Do you need extra guidance throughout the process? We want to help! The Elevate Holistics team offers application assistance and additional services to make the process as easy as possible.
Wait! Before you go…
Do you know someone who could benefit from medical cannabis? Here at Elevate, we make the MMJ card process effortless. Simply send them our way and we’ll help them get a medical card at an affordable price — right from home. Plus, we have various services beyond just getting you your MMJ card.
Do you live somewhere where recreational cannabis is legal? Believe it or not, you could probably benefit from a medical card more than you think. MMJ cards help you save serious money, you get priority at your local shops, and you likely can buy (and maybe even grow) more weed than before. Click here to read about the benefits of getting an MMJ card; or, click here to book an appointment today.
