Time for a T-Break?

Discussion of what a tolerance break is, how to take one, why they can be challenging, and strategies to successfully complete a t-break.

Transcript

Marissa: Welcome back everybody - in light of yesterday being 420, we thought what better theme today to talk about than taking a tolerance break. What we're going to cover today is why you should take a tolerance break, when you should take a tolerance break, how to take one, and then if you're gonna go back to cannabis afterwards, how do you safely go back to doing that?

So, to start us off, Sarah, can you tell us a little bit about why someone should take one and maybe what to look for?

Sarah: Yeah, absolutely Mariss. So I think the bottom line is that this kind of circles back to dependency. So any time that you can't start your day without a substance, you spend a lot of time, and energy using a substance or getting the substance. You're feeling the impacts of a substance in your school, work, or personal life - it might be a good time to take a break.

And in this case, you know, we're talking about taking a tolerance break. Other things that I've seen and I'm sure that you've seen Mariss, are people who needing more and more weed to get you high. So you're not feeling the effects that you're looking for, with the same amount that you've been using.

So you're needing to consume higher potency cannabis or higher amounts every time that you use in order to get the results that you're looking for. This is, you know, literally your body has built up a tolerance to cannabis, which you'll get into, kind of get into more about that in, in the next part.

When you've integrated the weed into your daily habits. So some examples of this would be smoking at nighttime, in order to be able to fall asleep. You can't eat unless you smoke, and you only hang out with friends who smoke, and it's just a central piece of your everyday life.

Marissa: I like that, you mentioned the whole integrating weed into your daily life. When your whole day focuses on how you can get high and when you can get high, maybe it should be a little more mindful of your use. 

And another little caveat to this: this is more for people that are using cannabis recreationally, or for fun. For someone that might find benefits for the medicinal use of cannabis - and again, this is medicinal, where you've gone over this with a doctor, not your friend who's like, “yo, you should smoke so food tastes better.” That's different.

But, for people that might have disordered eating that are finding success with cannabis use, you know, we're really talking more for when cannabis is for fun rather than your quality of life.

Sarah: Yeah, absolutely, that makes sense. 

Marissa: So what are some benefits to taking a t-break? 

Sarah: Yeah, absolutely, Mariss. So, the first thing a lot of people that I've worked with talk about, how they're spending more and more money on cannabis because the amount that they used to purchase, isn't getting them the results that they want. So, it is economical to take a t-break - the more you have to consume, the worse that it is on your wallet.

So some other things that are benefits is that it can really help you find balance between your life and your use. So a lot of the people who whose lives are revolving around their cannabis use, don't have that use-life balance and can really help you focus on other areas of your life you may be neglecting: your school, your friends, your personal lives, your family lives it really helps you kind of take a look at the whole picture and realize, like, hey, I've really been slacking. I'm not getting my school work in, I need to refocus on that. Or, hey, you know, I haven't been spending as much time with my friends who don't use weed. Um, let me let me try and re-connect with them, so it can really help switch up that life balance. 

Another thing, and a lot of people might not necessarily want to hear this, but taking a break can help show you if your use is currently problematic. So, if you're taking a break and you're really having a hard time, stopping, cutting back, you're having significant withdrawal symptoms... This can show you that you might need more help than maybe just taking a t break.

Marissa: And something else that, you know, wasn't just listed here but kind of the essence of taking a tolerance break is that your body's going to build up a tolerance to cannabis over time. So, taking a t-break or, you know, pausing your use, your body's going to reset your endocannabinoid system and then remake those receptors. If you're curious about what receptors I'm talking about, I think it's helpful to understand the science of getting high to see the importance in taking a break. I'm going to nerd out over this for a hot second. So just stick with me…

So, in the beginning, our neurons are the messengers of new users, so weed, can have many sensitive CB1 receptors. These receptors are the ones that allow you to get high. So, this means that less THC is needed to experience the effects of being high - your tolerance is low.

But the more THC a person consumes, the more receptors will become desensitized, and the frequency of signals traveling along the neurons is going to reduce. So your tolerance is going to begin to increase.

When someone hits the heavy use phase of their cannabis journey, the receptor count decreases to the point where some of those receptors have retracted into the cell membrane. So your receptor sensitivity declines even more in your tolerance than becomes high.

So bottom line, the more often, and the more weed you smoke, the higher your tolerance is gonna get, and by pausing use, your body's gonna reset the endocannabinoid system and remake those receptors. Are you still with me? 

Sarah: Yeah, that makes that makes a lot of sense. 

Marissa: Yeah, when people's eyes are glazing over and it's not cannabis. I've lost the crowd…

Sarah: That's so funny. So you talked a little bit about the science, but now, can you kind of walk, our listeners through how to take one and how often to take a tolerance break.

Marissa: Yeah, yeah, so I guess I'll start with that second question first. How often, like Sarah had said before, it really depends on the individual. So, the oversimplified answer is to take one, whenever you feel like your use is out of balance, as you covered a second ago. Another rule of thumb for how often you should take one is probably when you're no longer getting the desired effect from cannabis use. So, to get the most desired effects, you're going to probably want to go at least 3 weeks without consuming, to really start to reset those receptors.

So how to take one - you just stop smoking weed. That's it. The episodes over.

But you really you have to start somewhere with this so pick a date! I would shoot for sooner rather than later, otherwise you keep putting it off, or you'll have one more, “I'm just gonna get super high before I stop.” If you keep doing that, that defeats the whole purpose, so pick a date and stick with it. 

I'm gonna go over it real quick like your “t-break pre-break.”

So, in order to be the most successful, you're probably going to want to get rid of all your weed stuff: so your bowls, your buds, your paraphernalia - having it around, or even smelling it might be too tempting for people. So, leave it with a friend or someone you trust, or hide it somewhere that's not easily accessible. Out of sight, out of mind

Sarah: Yeah, it's funny because when you think about cannabis, a lot of people don't think it's, like, physically addictive. So they don't think about that triggering piece, but thinking about, like, if you're taking a t-break, how easily you could yourself be triggered if you saw any of your stuff out, and just want to go back to kind of using how you were previously.

Marissa: You're also going to want to tell your friends. So, your friends can be either your biggest support system, or they could be one of your biggest barriers to taking a tolerance break. Maybe they want to join you, and you can do it together. It might be easier if you have someone who you can call if, every time you're used to getting high with this person, call them and do something else. If they are not supportive or they give you a hard time, perhaps it's time for a break from them as well.

There might be a part of them that's kind of uncomfortable that you're taking a tolerance break and they might take that personally. They might take that as getting slighted, that you're doing it and it’s a slight to their friendship.

But, if all of your friends, all smoke weed, and that's the only thing that ties your friendship together… might be time to reevaluate a few things or, you know, reconnect as you just said with some people who don't smoke weed too.

Sarah: Yeah, absolutely, and what I'm talking about this with students, I ask them who they have in their lives that would be supportive of this, and if they would feel comfortable talking to them about this, as they're going through it. And it's funny, because a lot of the time it ends up being, you know, parents or family members that might not necessarily be fans of their use, but would absolutely be supportive if they decided to cut down or cut back. So, you know your friends, absolutely. But don't leave out your family too, because sometimes your family can be your biggest supporters as well.

Marissa: Yeah, yeah, and you know, once you've set all of that stuff up, now begins the tough part. So actually, stopping. So, you know, again, different strategies work for different people. If you have strategies, that we didn't cover in this. We love hearing about this and what works for people and what doesn't.

Some strategies, and this isn't everything, but you're gonna want to stay busy and you're gonna want to change your routine - and make this plan ahead of time. So just we were saying, if every day at 4:20 you get with your friends and you get high and then hang out - change that up. 

Maybe there's a TV show, a book that you haven't gotten to, that you wanted to… dare I say, maybe some assignments that you could get caught up on or get ahead in your classes. There’re different things you can do to stay busy. And, you know, a lot of students who I've talked to, who have taken tolerance break, they notice their grades start to go up when they stop using weed.

I'm not saying, using weed means you have low grades, but at the same time, if you're dedicating 2,3,4 hours a day to getting high and hanging with your friends now, you have 2,3,4 hours a day that you could be doing other things that might be a little bit more productive.

So some people, they can take a tolerance break, no problem. That's great for them. But this episode is for everybody else… If it was easy, everybody would take one, and if only bad things came from using weed, no one would use it. So a lot of people who use cannabis, they do find some benefits to their cannabis use, which makes taking a tolerance break very difficult.

Some people experience a lot of problems when they're sleeping. So, whether that's having a hard time falling asleep, whether that's experiencing strange dreams when they sleep – this has to do with your REM sleep state. Some people often wake up with night sweats or chills. 

Other people get anxious, they get restless, they could get irritable or angry. Like we mentioned before, there could be changes in your appetite, as well. So, it's really important to keep in mind that this is going to pass after a week or so. But you got to stick with it. It's going to get easier over time, but you have to give it time.

For some, this was part of your routine, or something that you've really enjoyed doing for months or even years. So, stopping abruptly might cause some discomfort. But this is only temporary and, there's a lot more benefits to being mindful or discontinuing use, if you're finding that every time you're using, things or out of balance.

Sarah: Yeah, and, you know, not to not to scare anyone, but especially if you've been using for years, you know, this is not a light task at hand. Right? So, this can be a very daunting thing to kind of think about and to implement in your life, especially if you've been doing the same thing and kind of the same way for years and years. So, you know, of course, it's scary to think about changing up your routine and not smoke every night before bed. If that's something we've been doing for years, but it will get better. And that's the important thing to realize is, like you said, most of it was easy, everyone would do it. It's not easy, but it will be worth.

Marissa: Yeah, and I'm going to get on a soapbox for a real quick second…but if you know someone who's taking a tolerance break, support them through that. There's nothing that is more disheartening when someone's like, “it's just stopping weed.”

Well, like, yeah, but if I say, “just stop drinking your coffee in the morning,” you're probably gonna get irritable about that. So, you know, for you, it might be just stopping weed but for somebody else, that might be stopping something that was integrated into their life. Something that was very important, something that helped somebody find solace and cope with stress.

I'm not saying that's a sustainable plan to cope with stress, but for somebody to give up something that has been such a part of their life for so long, or even not long - be mindful of that and be supportive of somebody if they're taking a tolerance break, because it's not always that easy for everybody.

Sarah: Yeah, absolutely so thinking about kind of what to do when, and if you go back to cannabis. So, I think the most important thing is that it's okay to not go back to use after, you've, you've taken your t-break, so you go through 21 days. You feel awesome, you feel great, and you realize that you, you don't feel the need to kind of continue with your use.

Our, our data shows that most college students are not consuming cannabis on a daily basis, which is great. Um, so you don't have to go back to your youth after taking a tolerance break if you like, how you feel, you feel great. Please continue with what you're doing and congratulations!

Marissa: But if you do go back, here are some things to keep in mind: moderate your dosage. So your tolerance is going to be down, and you're not going to need as much to get high as you used to in the past. Go slow uses little as possible. Just with Sarah was saying before think about how this was impacting your wallet. Use as little as possible.

Also, remember why you took a break in the first place, even if in the beginning you write down all the reasons why you want to take a tolerance break - use that as your little motivation guide for when you’re like, “I want to get high now.” Think of something else you could do; think of other ways that you can de-stress that might not involve cannabis.

Sarah: Yeah, absolutely. So, one thing that I do when working with students on this is talk to things that that they can do besides, you can send cannabis that will help reduce their stress. So, we don't incorporate exercise, take a walk, other creative things that they can do if they're feeling stressed out - listening to music, and calling a family member that they haven't talked to in a while. Incorporating new ways to deal with stress can really be helpful in this and then continuing to utilize those in the future I think is key when it comes to this.

Really, it's important to really take this as time to kind of learn about yourself, and just focus on improving your quality of life potentially, without weed.

Marissa: Yeah, and if any of the things that we said today resonated with you, a lot of these principles were taken from Tom Fontana's book called the t-break guide. So, he's out of the University of Vermont, and he wrote a really great in-depth book for you to get some pointers on. 

These books we keep very accessible for students. So, if you're on the SUNY Cortland campus, there are some outside of our office door in Van Hoesen Hall, room B1. I do encourage people to say, “hi.” I love talking about this stuff with people, but if you don't wanna come in and have a conversation, they’re outside of the door.

And if you're on the OCC campus, that's located in the Counseling Center in room G-230. 

We're also going to attach a link to a digital copy within the email promoting this episode. So we want this to be very accessible for students - we hope you find some success with it. You can always set up a meeting too with us one on one. We're so happy to work with students on this. 

Sarah: Just in closing, Mariss - I think it's important to know too, that we meet students where they're at. We don't try and make you do more than you're comfortable with. But this is something that people have seen a lot of success with, in terms of the t-break. We will meet students where they're at, but this is something that has worked with a lot of students.

Marissa: Thank you so much for joining us for this episode. We are going to have 1 more episode left for the semester, so be on the lookout.

Sarah: Bye!