Keeping a Medical Cannabis Journal: Tips for Tracking Consumption

If you’re consuming medical cannabis, chances are you are using it for a specific health reason. You might be using it to manage the following: anxiety, chronic pain, the side effects of chemotherapy, or other conditions. Irrespective of what you’re trying to treat or manage, the truth is that we will all react differently to marijuana. Because of this, it’s may be helpful to keep a medical cannabis journal to help you monitor and achieve your health goals. In this article, you’ll learn some important tips and why you need a medical marijuana journal. You’ll also gain insight into how to maximize your journaling to have the best marijuana treatment experience. Let’s get started!

Why Do Need A Medical Cannabis Journal?

Keeping a journal is a simple but powerful practice. It’s more like your personal study or effort to understand your unique endocannabinoid receptors and what specifically works for you. Apart from this, here are the other benefits of a medical cannabis journal:

To Know What Works

When you have a medical cannabis journal, you can keep track of what works well with your body and what doesn’t. If you once consumed a strain that you reacted negatively to, you can just put it down in your journal. Write the name of the strain and how you reacted to it. For your next purchase or consultation, all you need to do is simply flip over your journal so you can avoid it during your future purchases.

To Observe The Patterns

When you journal, you can easily see your cannabis patterns. For example, it might be that you experience severe nausea or marijuana paranoia anytime you take coffee before your dosage. However, it might be difficult to connect these dots if you don’t have a proper record.

To Stay Updated

Cannabis treatments are getting more specialized as more studies are being carried out. With your journal, you’re creating your database on how cannabis products are evolving. Over time, you will identify and stay updated on new cultivars on the market that work better than the older ones.

It Helps Your Mind

When you write in your cannabis journal, especially with a pen and paper, it can be a form of meditation because it helps your mind stay focused. Writing also improves your comprehension, so you can better understand how your body reacts to cannabis, which helps you make better marijuana-related decisions.

It Helps Your Doctor or Budtender

If you need to see a doctor to make cannabis recommendations for you, you can help them by allowing them to go over your record. This is especially true if your doctor is new to caring for you. Armed with your personal experience from your journal, they can see facts that you might have missed to make better suggestions for your overall health.

How To Journal Your Cannabis Experience

Medical marijuana journaling is pretty straightforward. It simply involves you recording your experience whenever you use cannabis. Below are some steps you can follow for productive journaling:

Determine Your Type of Journal 

You should pick a journal type you feel most comfortable with. If you prefer the traditional hand-written journaling, you can get a physical journal that you can easily carry around. If you find hand-journalling inconvenient, you can use a memo app on your phone.

What matters the most is that you select an option that allows you to stay consistent in recording your experiences. However, you should know that while old-fashioned hand journaling might not be the most convenient approach, studies have shown that it can make your mind sharper at retaining information.

Cannabis Journal Tips: Before Dosage 

Once you’ve decided the kind of journal you want to use, you need to take note of the following:

• The date and time you want to start your dosage.
• The medical marijuana product name and the dispensary where you purchased it.
• The strain name, whether Sativa, Indica, or Hybrid.
• Delivery method, whether oral, inhalation, ingestion, tinctures, or/and topical.
• Your current symptoms.
• Other medications you are currently taking.
• What you ate or drank before using medical cannabis.
• Your mood before the session.

Cannabis Journal Tips: After Dosage 

You need to allow the cannabis to take its full effect before you record your post-dosage findings. Depending on your delivery method, this might take about two hours. Once you’ve fully experienced the effect of the drug, here are the things to take note of:

• The exact dosage you consumed. For example, say “50mg of vape” instead of recording “vaping.”
• How you currently feel
• How long the cannabis effect lasted
• The physical activities you engaged in during the session.
• The symptom relief you felt
• The side effects you had, whether allergies, illnesses, or pains.
• The effect of the session on your mood 

Tips As You Track Your Cannabis Use

Check out these simple tips to adopt as you put in the work to monitor your medical cannabis use: 

1. As a starter, use lower cannabis doses and walk your way up until you have the perfect dose.
2. You can take your journalling discipline a notch higher by having a scheduled time daily.
3. Feel free to record things peculiar to you, no matter how insignificant. For example, women can take note of any hormonal changes they experience over time, including during their menstrual cycles.

In Conclusion

There are no limits on the details you can include in your medical cannabis journal. As such, you can add as much information as possible to get a holistic view of your marijuana lifestyle. However, be sure to be specific regarding the details.

Also, pick a journaling form that you can be consistent with so you can get the best value from your medical cannabis journey. If you don’t have a medical marijuana journal yet, we recommend that you get one and start recording today!