Smoking weed is often described as relaxing, calming, or a way to switch off. For some people, at least initially, that feels true. For others, cannabis triggers anxiety, paranoia, emotional blunting, disrupted sleep, low motivation, or a sense of feeling disconnected from themselves. What’s rarely discussed is that cannabis doesn’t act on everyone in the same way because it doesn’t act on a blank slate. It acts on your nervous system, and your nervous system is shaped by genetics, gut health, immune signalling, trauma history, hormones, and life stress.

This is why one person can smoke occasionally and feel fine, while another becomes anxious, overwhelmed, stuck in overthinking, or increasingly reliant on it to cope. This difference isn’t about willpower or weakness. It’s about biology. Your nervous system determines how cannabis is experienced, how it’s processed, and whether it ultimately supports or destabilises you.

Cannabis works primarily through the endo-cannabinoid system, which plays a central role in regulating stress responses, mood, sleep, appetite, inflammation, and emotional processing. This system is deeply interconnected with the nervous system and the gut–brain axis. When THC enters the body, it alters how signals are sent and received across these systems. In the short term, this can feel soothing or numbing. Over time, especially in sensitive nervous systems, it can reduce the body’s own ability to self-regulate, making anxiety, low mood, or emotional volatility more likely rather than less.

Many people are confused by the experience of weed helping them relax in the past but making them anxious now. This change is extremely common and reflects how the nervous system adapts. Tolerance builds, stress loads increase, hormones change, and underlying vulnerabilities begin to show themselves. Genetics play a major role here. Some nervous systems clear stress hormones and neurotransmitters efficiently. Others don’t. If your system already leans towards heightened alertness, slower adrenaline breakdown, or inflammatory signalling, cannabis can push it into over-activation rather than calm.

For some people, this shows up as racing thoughts, panic, or paranoia. Cannabis can amplify internal states, particularly in nervous systems that are already prone to threat scanning or rumination. This isn’t usually psychosis. It’s a nervous system struggling to regulate signal and noise. When dopamine and stress pathways are already sensitive, THC can increase pattern-seeking and meaning-making in a way that feels frightening rather than creative. This is why I tests my patients gene and look at their dopamine receptors as they play a key role in addiction. And addiction to cannabis can couple up with other addictions too by the way.

Cannabis is also closely linked with trauma and emotional coping. Many people use it, consciously or unconsciously, to soften emotional pain, numb difficult feelings, or create distance from stress. While this can feel supportive in the short term, it can also prevent the nervous system from completing natural emotional processing. Healing requires a sense of safety in the body. If cannabis becomes the primary regulator, the nervous system doesn’t learn how to self-soothe or recover on its own, and people can feel stuck rather than healed.

What’s often overlooked is the impact of cannabis on the gut and immune system. Cannabis doesn’t just affect the brain. It can and often does influence gut motility, appetite regulation, inflammation, and the microbiome. Because the gut produces the majority of the body’s serotonin, disturbances here can feed directly into anxiety, mood changes, and emotional resilience. For people with eczema, IBS, histamine issues, or chronic inflammation, cannabis can quietly aggravate the very systems that support mental health.

In teenagers and young adults, this picture is even more important. The nervous system and brain are still developing, and cannabis use during this period can interfere with emotional regulation, motivation, memory, and stress tolerance, particularly in those with genetic sensitivity. This doesn’t mean every young person who experiments with weed is harmed, but it does mean some nervous systems are far more vulnerable than others, and those differences are often invisible until problems emerge. Smoking skunk has raised the harm level much higher than the cannabis of the past.

Many people find that simply stopping cannabis isn’t easy, even when it no longer feels helpful. If weed has been acting as a nervous system regulator, stopping suddenly can lead to anxiety, irritability, insomnia, low mood, or a sense of being emotionally exposed. This isn’t failure or lack of discipline. It’s a nervous system that has adapted and now needs support to rebalance.

This is where personalised work matters. When people come to me struggling with anxiety, overthinking, dependency, or a sense that cannabis no longer suits them, we don’t start with judgement or rigid rules. We start by understanding their nervous system. I look at nervous system genetics, gut health, immune patterns, hormones, nutrient status, trauma history, and current stress load. From there, we build a plan that supports the individual system rather than fighting it.

For some people, this means gently reducing or stopping cannabis with proper nervous system support in place. For others, it means understanding why cannabis affects them so strongly and addressing the underlying drivers, such as inflammation, neurotransmitter imbalance, or chronic stress. The aim is never to take something away without replacing it with real regulation, safety, and resilience.

If weed makes you anxious, paranoid, flat, disconnected, or reliant, it doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you. It means your nervous system is asking for a different kind of support. And if weed feels helpful now but you sense it’s masking something deeper, that awareness matters too.

Your nervous system isn’t broken. It’s responding to its wiring, its history, and its environment. With the right understanding and the right support, it can learn to feel safe again without relying on something that no longer serves it. And that’s exactly where personalised nervous system, genetic, gut, and integrative work can make a profound difference.

I have helped many young, and not so young people, come off weed and get their lives back. I am here to help you too…

And I totally understand the appeal of getting high, trust me! No cannabis smoker really wants to stop, once their inner addict is in metaphorical their driving seat. But there is a part of you that actually does want to stop, and reclaim your power, ability to relate, motivation, health and life. We can talk all about this in a deep dive, non judgemental process. I have decades of experience. I am right here…