Dry Herb Vaping Better

Dry herb vaping is a popular alternative to smoking cannabis for fitness enthusiasts. Unlike traditional smoking, dry herb vaping heats the cannabis instead of burning it, resulting in less exposure to toxins. Vaping also offers discretion, dosage control, enhanced flavor, and convenience. It produces less odor and can be customized with different herbs for additional aromatherapy benefits. Vape devices are easy to use and maintain, allowing for precise temperature control and dosage measurements. While there are concerns about the impact on aerobic capacity and lung health, more research is needed to fully understand the effects of dry herb vaping on exercise. It may not be suitable for competitive athletes or individuals with respiratory issues. Overall, it is considered a safer alternative to smoking, but individual tolerance and respiratory health should be considered. Hi, my name is Beth, and you're listening to the Canna Fitness and Nutrition Podcast, where we are hanging out at the intersection of fitness, nutrition, and cannabis. Thanks for pressing play today and joining me to talk. Today we're going to talk about dry herb vaping and fitness. When we think about fitness, we generally don't think about smoking or vaping or inhaling cannabis, but a lot of us are, and a lot of people do smoke or vape before they work out or during their workout. I have some interesting information for you today, because does it interfere with our fitness? Should we be doing that? Well, here's the answer. So dry herb vaping, just so you know, the main difference between dry herb vaping and smoking is that when we smoke a bong or a joint, we're actually burning the material. You light it up and you burn it. When we dry herb vape, we're putting the herbs into a little teeny tiny oven, and it just heats it up. It just heats it up, that's all. We're not burning it. So there's some very big differences. There's actually quite a few benefits to dry herb vaping, including less exposure to toxins, discreteness, dosage control, enhanced flavor, and convenience. So dry herb vaping basically eliminates the exposure to potentially harmful toxins. Unlike traditional smoking, which is a bong or a joint, dry herb vapes, they heat up the herb until the terpenes and cannabinoids turn into a vapor. So they go in that little tiny oven, they heat it up, it turns into a vapor, which is then inhaled. For most people, this reduces throat irritation normally caused by other forms of smoking. Joints, blunts, bongs, etc., on the other hand, rely on combustion by using a lighter to burn the cannabis. That's the big difference. Although it's popular and it's the most traditional way to consume cannabis, this produces toxins and leads to inhalation of polyaromatic hydrocarbons, tar, carbon dioxide, formaldehyde, and carbon monoxide. Beyond just throat irritation, these byproducts can compromise respiration and make it feel more difficult to breathe when consumed during or before exercise. For example, if you've smoked a bong before, you may have experienced that short-term respiratory side effect that can irritate and even paralyze the small hairs in your lungs. If you've experienced that, it probably was a coughing fit of some sort, and you might have felt a continued irritation even minutes or so later, maybe 10-20 minutes later, you might even still feel a little bit of that pressure in your chest. That's what causes the coughing fit or sometimes even leads to bronchitis. But when we just heat up the cannabis, then we don't have that effect. And another benefit is because when we light up and burn the cannabis, we're reducing and destroying the cannabinoids and the terpenes, and so we're not getting all of the medicinal benefits. And when we just heat it up, we're able to capture all the terpenes and the medicinal benefits. So additional benefits, dry herb vaping produces less odor and is generally more discreet than smoking. When we smoke, pretty much everyone knows we did, right? So if you are trying to go to the gym, like I've had people tell me that they'll drive to the gym, they'll have a hit in the car, and then they'll go into the gym. Well, if you do that using a joint, then everyone's going to know that's exactly what you did. But whereas with a dry herb vape, no one's going to know that, right? A brief vapor is visible, but it's not nearly as obvious as the telltale scent of smoking a joint. You can even add herbs like lavender, peppermint, and chamomile to provide additional aromatherapy benefits and mask any odors. The vape's simplicity allows for easy filling of herbs into the chamber. It's a tiny little oven that you put your herbs in. And with a simple press of a button, the battery activates and heats the herbs to a specific temperature within seconds. So these new devices, I have one, and it's like a little tiny rectangle, and you can precisely control the temperature. You can put it into whatever temperature that you want, meaning you can customize the effects and the flavors that you have. On the other hand, smoking a joint can involve some practice if you're going to roll it yourself, and you definitely cannot control the temperature. It's burning. It is what it is, right? Compared to vape pens that use vaping oil, again, different, right? It's different using the oil than it is to actually vape the actual herbs, right? Using the herbs requires considerably less maintenance because they can be quickly cleaned. You can just clean your dryer vaporizer with a little rubbing alcohol, and you can use any type of herb. You could switch it out. You could change it out and put lavender with your cannabis in one session, and then later that day you could switch it out and do something different. There's lots of options in that case as well. It also offers better control over dosage, so most devices have adjustable temperature settings and allow precise measurements. This makes each session customizable, which is particularly helpful for how much of a psychoactive effect you're after, right? If you want more psychoactivity, you can put it at a different temperature and control it that way. You can take more or less hits, and you can control it more precisely than you would be able to by just smoking a joint. Vaping at a lower temperature, you get less of an effect. At a higher temperature, you get more of an effect, basically, to put it simply. Whereas when you're smoking a joint or a bong, you always get the strongest hits because it's just burning. It's always the same high temperature. Now, this doesn't impact aerobic capacity directly, but it does allow us to control consumption before, during, or after exercise. It ensures that we stay focused on our fitness goal when it comes to using it purposely for anxiety, stress, motivation, or recovery, for example. Some of the great pleasure in smoking is the unique taste and flavor of each terpene profile. But when you're inhaling the vapors from a dry herb vape, you actually get a better, richer experience of the strain's flavor profile and allows you to appreciate the nuances and effectiveness of various strains. If you've heard people talk about the different tastes of the different strains, this is what they're talking about. They're talking about how it tastes when they use a dry herb vape. Now, there are some concerns, of course, because you are inhaling the vapor. There are concerns that it could negatively affect aerobic capacity, including lung inflammation, reduced oxygen uptake, respiratory irritation. But there's a lack of long-term research, and there's a lack of research in general, so we don't know. I would say, from my general recommendation, if you're an average exerciser like me and you don't experience any problems with it, then you're okay. If you're a competitor and you're going out for the Olympics and you're being measured on your time and speed and accuracy and all of those things, then I may not recommend cannabis inhalation for you. But it's a relatively new trend. It really started gaining popularity in the early 2000s, so like 24-ish years, right? But because of the legalities of cannabis in general, there's just limited research on it. But studies and anecdotal evidence provide mixed results, and more research is needed to fully understand the long-term effects of dry herb vaping on exercise. It's generally considered a safer alternative to smoking, but it still involves inhaling foreign substances into your lungs, which could cause irritation and inflammation. You may still get a little bit of a cough, although it will not be as severe as it would be from smoking. If you're a regular exerciser, you know how uncomfortable it feels not to be able to breathe properly due to lung congestion. So if that really bothers you, then it's probably not for you, and you may want to look at a different alternative, like a gummy or a tincture or something else that's fast-acting that you can get into. Because the problem with gummies is that you have the time when you're going to exercise with your taking of the gummies, of the edible. So because edibles can take up to two hours to feel any effects, if you really like to have a little bit of a buzz going or have your anxiety managed before you go for your run, you're going to need to time that so that it's at least 30 to 45 or an hour or two beforehand, depending on how quickly your body metabolizes that. So it can potentially reduce the amount of oxygen available for uptake during exercise. And again, that might interfere with your breathing during exercise. And again, it's ongoing research because we don't have a lot of answers, but it seems from just anecdotal evidence and people who like to do it that it doesn't bother them at all. And it also seems like the intensity of the effects of that correlates with the frequency of vaping. And so if you're doing it more, you have more of a chance to have those negative side effects. Individual tolerance is a huge effect. That can definitely change the game. And your overall respiratory health. So if you're one of those people that's prone to bronchitis, then it may not be for you. If you're one of those people that has a lung constriction problem anyway, then it may not be for you. But if you're relatively healthy with your lungs and aren't prone to those things, then it's something that you could consider as an alternative to smoking, for sure. So you also have to purchase a device. Again, they sell these basically two different kinds. They have what's called a desktop, where it's a little machine that sits on your desk or your table, and then you can fill it and heat it and use it there. Or they have these little ones that are portable. Some look like a pen. Mine looks like a little rectangle box, but you have to buy it. So I had to up front some money for that. It was about $100. It wasn't crazy. And it needs to be charged. So you have to make sure that it's charged, which means that if you're going to take it with you, making sure you have a charger or making sure if you want to use it before you go for a run, making sure that it's already charged, for example. In conclusion, there isn't enough research really yet to know whether that dry herb vaping will negatively affect your exercise performance or our aerobic capacity. They're pretty sure that smoking has more of a detrimental effect because, again, of the inhalation of the combustion and that dry herb vaping doesn't do that. So it seems that there would be less interference with our exercise. So it's probably the better choice. But, again, more research is needed. If you enjoy dry herb vaping and feel no negative effects, then please continue to do so. Continue, enjoy. If that feels good for you to do before, during, or even after exercise, then you have no side effects, then I wouldn't worry about it. It does have a number of advantages over oil vaping and smoking. And I would consider switching to dry herb vaping if you are experiencing negative side effects from traditional smoking or the oil vaping. You're going to have a better experience. It's going to be a little bit cleaner for your lungs and should produce less respiratory effect. So with that said, feel free to give it a try. If you have more questions about it, I'd love to answer that. If you're concerned about inhaling and exercise, then I'd love to talk about that with you. If you have any other questions about cannabis, fitness, or nutrition at all, please reach out. I'd love to talk about that. And I'd love to answer your questions in a podcast if possible. So I can be reached through the podcast or on email. It's Beth at Cannafitnessnutrition.com. Or I'm on Instagram. It is at Beth underscore Cannafitnessnutrition. And thanks again for listening today, and I look forward to seeing you next time.