How Does Synthetic Cannabis Affect Your Sleep
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Sleep is not a luxury. It is the time when the brain sorts memories, the body repairs tissue, hormones settle back into balance and the mind clears the strain of the day. When sleep is broken night after night, everything else becomes harder: thinking slows, patience thins, work feels heavier and the body feels older than it is. Synthetic cannabis, a lab-made substance sold under many street names and often sprayed onto dried plant material, is one of the things that can disturb sleep in exactly this way. It is not the same as the cannabis plant, even though it is sold as if it were. The chemicals in it are stronger, less predictable and more likely to upset the systems that control rest, and the sleep problems it causes are often worse than people expect when they first try it.
Many people who use it say they hoped it would help them relax or drift off. That hope is understandable, because the first effect can feel calming or heavy, and a person may fall asleep quickly after using it. But falling asleep quickly is not the same as sleeping well. Health guidance and reports from drug services describe a pattern that is now familiar: lighter sleep, more waking during the night, strange and vivid dreams, a body clock that drifts out of step, and mornings that feel as if no rest happened at all. Over weeks and months the pattern can deepen, so that sleep depends more and more on the substance, and without it sleep becomes even harder. This article explains, in plain words, how synthetic cannabis affects sleep, why the effects happen, what they look like day to day, and what tends to happen after a person stops. It is general information only, not individual medical advice. If sleep problems or substance use are worrying you, a qualified health professional is the right person to talk to.
What Synthetic Cannabis Actually Is
Synthetic cannabis is made in a laboratory. Chemists create compounds that attach to the same docking points in the brain as the active chemical in the cannabis plant, but the new compounds are often far stronger, and they act in a less controlled way. The plant contains a mixture of chemicals that partly balance each other. The lab-made versions do not have that balance. They are usually dissolved in liquid and sprayed onto dried leaves, then dried and sold in small packets, often with bright packaging and names that change every few months to stay ahead of the law. Because the spraying is uneven, one pinch from a packet can be much stronger than the next, and one packet can be very different from another packet with the same name. That unpredictability is part of why the effects on sleep, mood and thinking are so uneven and so hard to predict.
The brain has a natural system, sometimes called the endocannabinoid system, that helps control appetite, pain, mood and sleep. Natural cannabis affects this system gently by comparison. Synthetic versions push it much harder. They can switch the system on fully and keep it on for longer, which is why the effects can feel intense and why the body reacts more strongly afterwards. When a strong chemical pushes a control system that hard, the system often pushes back. Receptors become less sensitive, the brain’s own calming chemicals work less well, and the balance that normally guides a person into sleep becomes harder to reach. This is not a small detail. It is the reason why a substance that seems to help a person fall asleep on the first night can make sleep worse on the tenth night, and much worse after a month.
Another problem is that nobody using these packets knows exactly what is inside them. Tests by drug services have found different chemicals in different batches, sometimes several at once, and sometimes chemicals that were never meant to be in the product at all. Some batches contain chemicals that stay in the body longer than others, so the effect on the night does not end when the feeling of being high ends. A person can feel more or less normal in the evening and still find that their sleep that night is broken, because the chemical is still interfering with the brain’s sleep signals. That hidden carry-over is one of the reasons people are often surprised by how tired they feel the next day, even when they think the effect wore off hours earlier.
Why Sleep Feels Different After Using It
Sleep follows a rhythm. During the day, a chemical called adenosine builds up in the brain and creates sleep pressure, the growing tiredness that makes the evening feel heavy. At the same time, the body clock, a small group of cells deep in the brain, tracks light and darkness and tells the body when to feel alert and when to feel sleepy. In the evening, the body releases melatonin as darkness falls, body temperature drops slightly, and the brain begins to move towards sleep. Synthetic cannabis interferes with several parts of this process at once. It changes how alert or drowsy a person feels, it can raise heart rate and anxiety, and it can blunt the normal signals that tell the brain it is time to rest. The result is not a clean switch from awake to asleep. It is a muddled state where the body is tired but the brain will not settle.
For some people the first effect is heavy drowsiness, and they do fall asleep fast. But the sleep that follows is often light and broken. The brain normally cycles through stages during the night: light sleep, deep sleep, and dream sleep, also called REM sleep, in a repeating pattern. Deep sleep is the stage that restores the body most, and dream sleep is the stage that helps process emotions and memories. Synthetic cannabis can shorten deep sleep and disturb dream sleep, so a person spends more of the night in light sleep and wakes more easily. They may not remember waking, but the brain has still been pulled out of the deeper stages, and the night has done less repair work than it should have. That is why eight hours in bed can feel like four hours of real rest.
Anxiety is another way sleep is disturbed. Synthetic cannabis is linked with racing thoughts, a pounding heart, worry and, in some people, panic. Those feelings do not switch off just because a person lies down. A person can be lying in a dark room, physically exhausted, while their mind runs through worries, replays the day, or imagines problems that are not there. The heart may still be beating faster than usual, breathing may feel shallow, and every small sound can feel too loud. In that state, falling asleep is hard, and staying asleep is harder. Even if sleep comes, it is shallow, and the person wakes at the smallest disturbance. Over time, the bed itself can become linked with worry, so that getting into bed brings a feeling of tension rather than relief, and the problem feeds itself night after night.
Falling Asleep Becomes Harder
Trouble falling asleep is one of the most common complaints from people who use synthetic cannabis regularly. At first, the delay may be small, perhaps half an hour of tossing and turning. After weeks of use, it can grow to an hour or more, and the person may lie awake long after everyone else in the house is asleep. The mind feels busy even when the body feels worn out. Thoughts loop, the person checks the clock, works out how little sleep is left before morning, and that worry makes sleep even less likely. This cycle is well known to sleep researchers: the more a person worries about not sleeping, the harder sleep becomes, and the harder sleep becomes, the more the person worries the next night.
Part of the reason is tolerance. When a chemical is used again and again, the brain adjusts to it, and the same amount has less effect. A person who once felt drowsy after using it may find that the drowsiness fades, while the restlessness and anxiety stay the same or grow stronger. They may then use more, or use it later in the evening, hoping to bring back the sleepy feeling, but that often makes the problem worse, because a larger amount can increase heart rate and agitation rather than calm. The brain is also learning a link: the evening, the packet, the feeling of being high, and then the attempt to sleep. When that link becomes strong, the brain may stay alert at the very time it should be winding down, because it has learned to expect stimulation in the evening rather than rest.
For people who already have trouble sleeping, the problem can be worse. If a person has shift work, a noisy home, a baby who wakes in the night, or worry about money or family, their sleep is already under pressure. Adding a chemical that disturbs the brain’s sleep system does not solve those pressures. It adds a new one, and it makes the existing ones harder to cope with, because a tired brain handles stress less well. That is why sleep services often ask about substance use when a person reports insomnia. They are not judging the person. They are looking for a cause that can be removed, because treating insomnia while the cause is still there is like trying to fill a bucket with a hole in it.
Deep Sleep and Dream Sleep Get Disturbed
Deep sleep is the quiet, heavy part of the night. Breathing slows, muscles relax, the brain waves become slow and regular, and the body does its most important repair work. Growth and repair signals are strongest in deep sleep, the immune system does much of its work there, and memories formed during the day are strengthened. When deep sleep is shortened, a person wakes feeling unrefreshed, even if they were in bed for a normal length of time. Their muscles may ache, their head may feel heavy, and simple tasks may feel harder than they should. Research on cannabis-like chemicals suggests they can reduce the amount of deep sleep, and the stronger synthetic versions are likely to disturb it more, because they act more forcefully on the same brain systems.
Dream sleep, the stage when most dreaming happens, is also affected. Some people report very vivid, strange or frightening dreams after using synthetic cannabis, and others report that their dreams become more intense when they stop using it, as the brain rebounds. Vivid dreams are not just a curiosity. They wake people up, they leave a person feeling shaken or frightened in the middle of the night, and they make it harder to fall back asleep. A frightening dream can raise the heart rate and fill the mind with images that are hard to shake off in the dark. A person who wakes from such a dream at three in the morning may lie awake for an hour, thinking about the dream and worrying about the day ahead, and that lost hour is lost deep sleep as well.
The balance between the stages matters as much as the total hours. A healthy night moves through cycles of about ninety minutes, each cycle containing light sleep, deep sleep and dream sleep in a certain order. When a chemical disturbs that order, the cycles become messy. A person may spend too long in light sleep, too little in deep sleep, and then have dream sleep arrive at the wrong time. The result is a night that looks long enough on the clock but feels broken and shallow. People often describe it in the same words: I slept, but I did not feel as if I had slept. That description is accurate, because the brain did not get the stages it needed in the order it needed them.
Waking in the Night and Waking Up Tired
Waking during the night is a normal part of sleep. Most people wake briefly several times a night and fall back asleep without remembering it. The problem with synthetic cannabis is that those brief wakings become longer, more frequent and harder to recover from. A person may wake to use the toilet, to drink water, or because of a noise, and then find they cannot get back to sleep. Their mind starts working, their body feels restless, and the night stretches out in the dark. Some people wake with a dry mouth, a racing heart, or a feeling of nausea, and those physical feelings keep them awake. Others wake from a vivid dream and cannot shake the feeling of fear or confusion that came with it.
Waking up tired is the morning side of the same problem. A person opens their eyes and feels as if they have not slept at all. Their head feels foggy, their eyes feel heavy, and the first hour of the day is spent trying to wake up properly. Coffee may help for a short time, but the tiredness returns by late morning, and by the afternoon the person feels drained again. This is sometimes called unrefreshing sleep, and it is one of the clearest signs that the night did not do its work. It is different from simply being short of sleep. A person can be short of sleep because they went to bed late, and one good night fixes it. Unrefreshing sleep is different, because even a long night in bed does not fix it, and the tiredness returns the next day as well.
The tiredness is not only physical. It affects thinking, patience and mood. A tired person finds it harder to follow a conversation, harder to remember what they were told, and harder to make decisions. They may snap at family members over small things, or feel tearful without knowing why. At work, they may make mistakes they would not normally make, or find it hard to concentrate on a task for more than a few minutes. Driving becomes more dangerous, because reaction time slows and attention drifts. These daytime effects are often the first thing other people notice, even before the person using the substance notices it themselves. A partner may say, you are always tired now, or a manager may notice that work is slower, long before the person links the change to their evenings.
Daytime Tiredness, Focus and Safety
Daytime tiredness from broken sleep is not a small inconvenience. It changes how a person lives their day. Concentration becomes patchy, so reading a page, following instructions, or listening in a meeting takes more effort than it should. Memory becomes less reliable, so appointments are forgotten, names slip away, and a person may walk into a room and forget why they went there. Reaction time slows, so catching a falling object, stepping out of the way, or braking in time becomes harder. For people who work with machines, drive for a living, or look after children, that slowing is not just tiring. It is dangerous, and it puts other people at risk as well as the person themselves.
Mood is closely tied to daytime tiredness. A person who has not slept properly is more likely to feel low, anxious or irritable, and less able to cope with ordinary stress. Small problems feel bigger, and the patience needed for family life, work and friendships wears thin. Over time, that can strain relationships. A partner may feel pushed away, children may feel that a parent is always tired or cross, and friends may drift away because the person cancels plans or seems distant. The tiredness does not only affect the person using the substance. It affects everyone who depends on them, and that wider effect is often the part that finally makes a person seek help.
Safety is the most urgent part of daytime tiredness. Driving while tired is a known cause of road accidents, and the risk is similar to driving after drinking in some studies of tiredness. A tired driver may drift across a lane, miss a red light, or fall asleep for a few seconds without realising it. At work, a tired person is more likely to have an accident with tools or machinery, or to make a mistake that harms someone else. If a person who uses synthetic cannabis feels tired during the day, they should not drive, and they should tell their employer if their work involves safety. That is not an admission of failure. It is a responsible step that protects the person and the people around them.
What Happens Over Weeks and Months
In the first days of use, sleep problems may seem small or easy to explain away. A person may blame a late night, a noisy neighbour, or a stressful week. After a few weeks of regular use, the pattern becomes harder to ignore. Falling asleep takes longer, waking during the night becomes more common, and mornings feel tired more often than they feel fresh. The body clock may start to shift, so that a person feels wide awake late at night and exhausted in the morning, even when they try to go to bed at a normal time. That shift is sometimes called a delayed sleep pattern, and it can make school, work and family life very difficult, because the person’s natural rhythm is out of step with the rest of the world.
Over months, dependence can develop. Dependence does not only mean craving the substance during the day. It can also mean that sleep itself becomes linked to it. A person may feel they cannot sleep without it, and the thought of a night without it brings anxiety. That anxiety itself makes sleep harder, so the person uses it again to avoid the anxiety, and the link grows stronger. This is one of the most difficult parts of the problem, because the person is no longer using the substance for pleasure. They are using it to avoid a bad night, and the bad night is partly caused by the substance itself. Breaking that link takes time, and it often needs support, because the first nights without it can be the hardest of all.
Long-term use is also linked with wider health problems that affect sleep in their own right. Breathing can become worse, especially if the substance is smoked, and poor breathing disturbs sleep. Mental health can suffer, with low mood and anxiety becoming more common, and those conditions disturb sleep as well. Appetite, weight and physical fitness can change, and those changes affect how well a person sleeps. In other words, the longer the use goes on, the more causes of poor sleep pile up, and the harder it becomes to tell which cause is doing the most harm. That is why health services treat the whole person, not just the sleep problem in isolation, and why they ask about mood, breathing, work and family life as well as the night itself.
Sleep After Stopping
Stopping synthetic cannabis does not fix sleep overnight, and it is better to know that in advance than to be surprised by it. In the first few nights after stopping, sleep can actually feel worse. Dreams may become more vivid and more frequent, a person may wake more often, and falling asleep may take longer than usual. This is sometimes called a rebound, because the brain is adjusting back to working without the chemical, and the sleep stages that were suppressed come back strongly. It is uncomfortable, and it can be frightening if a person does not expect it, but it is usually a sign that the brain is starting to recover, not a sign that stopping was a mistake.
After the first week or two, many people find that sleep begins to settle. Falling asleep becomes a little easier, waking during the night becomes less frequent, and mornings begin to feel a little fresher. The improvement is usually gradual rather than sudden. One night may be better, the next night may be worse, and the overall trend is what matters, not a single night. Keeping a regular bedtime, getting daylight in the morning, avoiding bright screens late at night, and not using other substances to force sleep can all help the body clock find its rhythm again. These are simple steps, but they work best when they are done every day, not just once in a while.
The most important message is that sleep can improve. The brain is able to recover, and the body clock is able to find its rhythm again, when the chemical that was disturbing it is removed. The first nights may be hard, and the improvement may be slower than a person hopes, but the direction is usually towards better sleep, not worse. A person who stops and gives their sleep time to recover is giving their brain the chance to do the work it was always meant to do at night. If the problems do not improve, or if they get worse, that is a reason to seek help promptly, not a reason to go back to the substance that caused the problem in the first place.
My Take:
I want to start with something I think is often missed in warnings about synthetic cannabis. People do not usually start using it because they want to ruin their sleep. They start because they are stressed, or bored, or curious, or because someone they know offered it to them, or because they hoped it would help them relax after a hard day. The sleep problem arrives quietly, a little later, and by the time it is obvious, the person is already caught in it. I think that matters, because it changes how we should talk about it. If we treat a person with broken sleep as foolish, we will not help them. If we explain clearly what is happening and why, we give them a reason to change, and a way to see that the problem is not in their character, but in a chemical that is doing exactly what strong chemicals do to a delicate system.
What troubles me most is the gap between falling asleep and sleeping well. A person can fall asleep quickly after using synthetic cannabis and still wake up exhausted, and that gap is confusing. They may think, I slept for eight hours, so why am I still tired? The answer is that the hours were not real rest. Deep sleep was shortened, dream sleep was disturbed, and the night was broken in ways the person did not notice. I think more people would stop sooner if they understood that difference, because it explains why the tiredness does not go away with a longer night in bed. You cannot fix unrefreshing sleep by spending more hours in bed while the cause is still there. You fix it by removing the cause and giving the brain time to sleep properly again.
I also think the daytime effects deserve more attention than they usually get. We talk a lot about the night, and not enough about the day that follows it. A tired person is not just sleepy. They are slower to think, quicker to snap, more likely to forget, and more likely to have an accident. That affects their work, their driving, their children and their partner. I have seen how a person who is always tired becomes a different person in the daytime: less patient, less interested, less able to enjoy the small things that used to make them happy. That change is not a small price to pay for an evening of feeling relaxed. It is a large price, and it is paid every single day, in every part of life, until the sleep problem is dealt with.
The body clock is another part I think about a lot. When sleep shifts later and later, a person ends up living out of step with everyone else. They are awake when the house is quiet, and exhausted when the world expects them to work, study or look after children. That loneliness is hard to describe, but it is real. A person who is awake at three in the morning, while everyone else is asleep, feels alone in a way that is hard to shake off. Over time, that loneliness can feed low mood and anxiety, and those feelings make sleep even harder. It is a circle, and the longer it goes on, the harder it is to break. I think that is why routine matters so much in recovery. A regular bedtime, morning light, and a steady daily pattern are not just tips. They are a way of telling the body clock, you can trust the rhythm again, and the brain listens to that message over time.
I am honest about the fact that stopping is not easy, and I do not want to pretend otherwise. The first nights without synthetic cannabis can be the worst nights of all, with vivid dreams, restless sleep and long hours awake. A person who stops and then has a terrible night may think, this is worse than before, I should go back. That thought is understandable, but it is misleading. The terrible nights after stopping are the brain adjusting, not the brain failing. They pass, and the sleep that follows them is real sleep, not the shallow, broken sleep that the substance produced. I think anyone who is thinking of stopping should be told this in advance, so that the hard nights do not come as a shock, and so that they can plan for them: tell someone, keep the bedroom cool and dark, avoid screens late at night, and remind themselves that the discomfort is temporary and the improvement is real.
Money and work are reasons I think about too, because they are concrete. A person who is always tired works more slowly, makes more mistakes, and may miss work altogether. That affects income, and it affects how a person feels about themselves. A person who is too tired to work properly may start to feel useless, and that feeling feeds low mood, which feeds poor sleep again. Breaking that circle is not only about health. It is about dignity, about being able to do a day’s work and feel that the day was worthwhile. I think that is a powerful reason to take sleep seriously, not as a luxury, but as the foundation that everything else is built on. Without sleep, work suffers, family life suffers, and health suffers. With sleep, all of those things have a chance to improve.
Children are a reason I feel strongly about, because children depend on the adults around them being alert and patient. A parent who is exhausted every day cannot give their children the attention they need, and a parent who is irritable because of broken sleep may snap at a child over something small. That is not a judgement on the parent. It is a fact about tiredness. I think many parents would stop sooner if they saw the link clearly: your sleep is not only your problem, it affects your children too, and fixing your sleep is a gift to them as well as to yourself. A child who has a rested, patient parent has a better day, and a parent who sleeps well has more to give. That is a simple truth, and it is worth saying plainly.
I also want to say something about the packets themselves, because the names and packaging are part of the problem. Bright colours, herbal-sounding names, and claims that the product is natural or legal can make it look harmless, or even helpful. It is not harmless, and a name does not change what is inside. The chemicals are lab-made, they are stronger than the plant they imitate, and they are not tested for safety. I think that deception is one of the worst parts of the whole trade. A person who buys a packet thinking it is a mild herbal product is not making an informed choice. They are being misled, and the sleep problems that follow are a consequence of that misleading, not of their own foolishness. Health warnings need to be just as clear as the packaging is bright, so that a person can see the risk before they buy, not after they have already lost sleep over it.
If you are reading this because your own sleep is broken, I would ask you to think about the pattern honestly. Do you fall asleep quickly but wake up tired? Do you wake in the night and struggle to get back to sleep? Do you feel wide awake late at night and exhausted in the morning? Do you need the substance to feel you can sleep at all? If the answer to several of those questions is yes, then the substance is likely part of the problem, even if it once seemed to help. That is not a reason for shame. It is a reason to act, and the act can be simple: talk to a doctor, talk to a drug service, or talk to someone you trust, and make a plan to stop. You do not have to do it alone, and doing it alone is the hardest way.
I think support matters more than willpower here, because willpower alone does not fix a disturbed body clock or a brain that has learned to link sleep with a chemical. Support can mean a doctor who explains what will happen after stopping, a service that helps with the first hard nights, a friend who checks in, or a family member who understands that the person is trying to change. I would urge anyone who is trying to stop to tell at least one person, so that the hard nights are not faced alone. A person who is awake at three in the morning, struggling with vivid dreams and restlessness, needs to know that someone else knows what they are going through, and that the night will pass. That knowledge does not make the night easy, but it makes it bearable, and bearable is often enough.
Finally, I would say this to anyone who has never used synthetic cannabis: do not start, and do not believe the packet. Sleep is one of the most valuable things you have, and it is easily damaged by a strong chemical that promises relaxation and delivers broken nights instead. There are better ways to relax in the evening: a walk, a warm drink, a quiet hour without screens, a regular bedtime. Those ways are slower, and they do not give an instant feeling of being high, but they do not steal your sleep either. The first packet may feel like nothing special. The fiftieth night of broken sleep is a real cost, and it is a cost that is hard to undo quickly. Protect your sleep, because once it is broken, everything else becomes harder, and the simplest way to protect it is to keep strong, untested chemicals out of your evenings altogether.
I think families need a kinder way to talk about this, because blame closes the conversation at the very moment it needs to stay open. A partner who says, you are always tired and cross, may be right, but the words alone do not explain why, and they do not offer a way forward. A better conversation starts with what can be seen: sleep is broken, mornings are hard, the day feels heavier than it should. From there, a person can ask for help without feeling accused, and the family can plan together, whether that means a doctor visit, a change in evening routine, or simply agreeing that the house will be quieter after a certain hour. I believe that kind of plain, practical support helps more than lectures, because it treats the person as someone who is struggling, not as someone who has failed.
Schools and workplaces have a part to play too, and I think they often miss it. A student who falls asleep in class or a worker who makes mistakes is often treated as lazy, when the real problem may be nights of broken sleep. A teacher or a manager who asks, are you sleeping properly, and listens to the answer, can change the course of a young person’s life. That does not mean excusing poor work. It means finding the cause before judging the result. If the cause is a substance that disturbs sleep, then help to stop it, and time to recover, will do more for performance than any warning or punishment. I would like to see more of that curiosity, and less of the quick judgement that pushes people further away from help.
Lastly, I want to leave room for hope, because without hope a person has little reason to endure the hard first nights. Recovery is not instant, and it is not a straight line. Some nights will be better, some will be worse, and the improvement will be measured in weeks, not hours. But the brain does recover, the body clock does find its rhythm again, and mornings do begin to feel fresh. I have seen people describe that first morning when they woke up and actually felt rested, and the surprise in their voice was real. That morning is worth working towards, and it is worth the uncomfortable nights that come before it. Sleep is not lost forever because it has been broken for a while. It can be rebuilt, one regular night at a time, and the effort is worth it for the person, for their family, and for every day that follows.
I think it also helps to talk about sleep openly, without shame, because shame keeps people silent and silence keeps the problem going. A person who is embarrassed about broken sleep may hide it, pretend they are fine, and struggle alone at night. A person who can say to a partner, a friend or a doctor, my sleep is broken and I think this substance is part of it, has already taken the hardest step. From there, help can begin, whether that is a plan to stop, a regular routine, or simply someone who knows and checks in. I would rather a person spoke up early, when the problem is still small, than waited until exhaustion had affected their work, their health and their family.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does nights that feel restless from Synthetic Cannabis go away after stopping?
Restless nights often improve after stopping, but they do not always improve at once. In the first few nights, sleep can feel worse, with more vivid dreams and more waking, as the brain adjusts. After a week or two, many people find that restlessness eases, falling asleep becomes easier, and mornings feel fresher. If restless nights continue for weeks after stopping, it is worth speaking to a doctor or a sleep service, because other factors such as anxiety or a shifted body clock may also need attention.
Is an off-balance body clock from Synthetic Cannabis dangerous?
A body clock that is out of step is not usually dangerous in itself, but the effects it causes can be serious. A person who is wide awake at night and exhausted during the day may struggle at work or school, drive while tired, and find their mood and health getting worse over time. The longer the pattern goes on, the more it affects daily life, relationships and safety. The good news is that the body clock can usually be reset gradually with a regular sleep routine, morning daylight and stopping the substance that disturbed it, and a doctor can help if the shift is severe.
How soon can waking up exhausted appear after using Synthetic Cannabis?
Waking up exhausted can appear after only a few nights of use for some people, especially if the sleep that follows is light and broken. For others, it builds up over weeks, as deep sleep is shortened night after night and the tiredness adds up. It does not need months of heavy use to appear. Even short-term use can disturb the stages of sleep enough to leave a person feeling unrefreshed in the morning, and the effect is more likely if the person already sleeps poorly or uses the substance late in the evening.
Can Synthetic Cannabis really cause waking up exhausted?
Yes, it can. Synthetic cannabis can shorten deep sleep, disturb dream sleep, increase waking during the night and raise anxiety, all of which make sleep less refreshing. A person may spend a normal number of hours in bed and still wake up tired, because the brain did not get the deep, restorative stages it needed. That unrefreshing sleep is a recognised effect, and it is one of the reasons health services warn that falling asleep quickly after using it is not the same as sleeping well.
What should I do if Synthetic Cannabis is causing broken sleep through the night?
The safest step is to stop using synthetic cannabis and speak to a doctor or a local health service about the broken sleep. They can help with a plan to stop, explain what to expect in the first nights after stopping, and check whether other factors such as anxiety, breathing problems or a shifted body clock are also involved. In the meantime, keep a regular bedtime, avoid screens and bright light late at night, do not drive if you feel tired, and tell someone you trust so you are not dealing with the sleepless nights alone.
Who is most at risk of daytime drowsiness from Synthetic Cannabis?
People who use synthetic cannabis often or in larger amounts are at higher risk, and the risk is greater for teenagers, whose brains are still developing, for people who already have sleep problems, anxiety or low mood, and for people who mix substances. People who drive, work with machinery, or look after children are also at greater risk of harm from daytime drowsiness, because tiredness affects reaction time and judgement. Anyone in those groups who notices daytime tiredness should stop using it and seek advice promptly.
Sources
- National Institute on Drug Abuse — https://nida.nih.gov/research-topics/synthetic-cannabinoids
- U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration — https://www.dea.gov/drug-information
- Mayo Clinic, Drug addiction — https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/drug-addiction/symptoms-causes/syc-20365112
- World Health Organization, Substance abuse — https://www.who.int/health-topics/substance-abuse
- NHS, Drug addiction: getting help — https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/addiction-support/drug-addiction-getting-help/
This article is general information only. It is not medical advice. If you are worried about your health or about someone else, speak to a qualified health professional.
