Written By Lian Bruno, Founder of Puff Herbal Smokes
Cannabis is an amazing plant with many strains that help you achieve different kinds of highs, but did you know that adding smokable herbs to your weed could really up your smoking game?
Herbal smoking blends allow you to craft a more targeted experience and inhale with intention.
Cannabis companion plants are herbs with certain properties that pair nicely with weed, and can personalize your joint or bowl to suit your needs.
If you’re interested in a more intentional smoking experience, here are three herbal recipes to enhance your high:
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Keep Things Moving with Smokable Herbs
Indica strains, strains high in CBD, as well as CBD oil and supplements, are known to be calming, pain-relieving, and physically sedating.
But sometimes if you smoke too much you may find yourself feeling a little weighed-down or “couched.”
The herb damiana (Turnera diffusa) can help with this. Damiana is a gentle circulatory stimulant that helps to counteract the “couched” effect of CBD.
This herb gently, but insistently, disperses warmth and gets blood moving to the periphery and surface of your body.
Damiana is also an aphrodisiac, increasing blood flow in the pelvis and boosting sensitivity down there, which is another plus!
Along with these physical effects, damiana lightens the spirit and motivates the mind.
Adding damiana to your cannabis or CBD can enliven a dreary day and help shake a heavy, depressive mood.
Damiana is a great addition to any smoking blend. It retains much of its oil content once dried and has a lovely, light taste, making for a smooth, aromatic smoke (at Puff Herbal Smokes, damiana is formulated into all of our smoking blends).
Recipe:
Keep Things Moving Smoking Blend
Ingredients:
– 1 part cannabis
– 1 part damiana
Directions:
Simply grind both herbs together and enjoy via your smoking method of choice!
Stay Grounded with smokable herbs
Sativa strains are great for directing your energy upwards for mentally invigorating activities and creative projects.
Sativas and strains high in THC can be very uplifting, but if you lift off a little too much you may find yourself spacing-out and unable to focus.
To counter this, try mixing wood betony and dried rose petals with your weed.
Wood betony (Stachy officinalis) is a grounding herb that helps reseat you in your body. Adding wood betony to your smoke is like throwing an anchor down – you can get high with the piece of mind that you won’t float too far away.
Wood betony is also a great remedy for other “heady” conditions like tension headaches, migraines, and anxiety.
Rose petals (Rosa damascena) pair well in a smoke recipe with wood betony. In addition to adding a nice floral flavor and scent, rose helps cool you down if you find yourself getting a little too heated.
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Rose’s gentle psychological effect calms and brings back comfort in stressful situations. Rose is also known to be helpful for easing feelings of loneliness, especially when paired with wood betony, making this a great combo for getting through the pandemic lockdowns.
Recipe:
Stay Grounded Smoking Blend
Ingredients:
– 2 parts cannabis
– 1 part wood betony
– ½ part rose petals (dried)
Directions:
Grind cannabis and wood betony together. Add mixture to your rolling papers or bowl. Lightly crush and sprinkle rose petals on top with your fingers, and enjoy!
Drift Off To Dreamworld with smokable herbs
Unwinding with weed at the end of a long, stressful day is great, but sometimes your worries can’t help but stick around once you’re high.
Skullcap (Scutellaria lateriflora) and passionflower (Passiflora incarnata) are two favorite herbs for bedtime blends, and are often referred to by herbalists as “S & P” because they work together as well as salt and pepper.
Both skullcap and passionflower can help quiet circular, repetitive, and obsessive thoughts that can keep us up at night.
Passionflower also has a sleep-inducing effect if you’re behind on your sleep.
Lavender (Lavandula spp.) is another great herb for nighttime blends. Its terpene profile targets the nervous system to provide sedative, anxiety-inhibiting, and pain-relieving effects.
Lavender is a fantastic cannabis companion, especially with indica strains, since a synergistic, or entourage effect, between the two magnifies their pain and tension-relieving properties.
When used before bed, the herb mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris) increases the intensity of your dreaming experience and improves dream recall.
You know how when you’ve been smoking weed for awhile and then you stop, your dreams are crazy?
That’s because cannabis suppresses rapid eye movement or REM sleep which is responsible for the intense dreams we tend to remember, but mugwort can bring your dreams back!
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It also reduces waking up in the middle of the night, which disrupts your sleep cycles.
Recipe:
Dreamworld Smoking Blend
Ingredients:
– 2 parts cannabis
– 1 part mugwort
– 1 part lavender
– ½ part skullcap
– ½ part passionflower
Directions:
Grind cannabis, mugwort, skullcap, and passionflower together. Mix whole lavender flowers into the ground blend, and add to your rolling papers or bowl.
“Pulse dosing” is recommended for sleep blends: take a puff an hour before bed, a puff twenty minutes later, another puff twenty minutes later, and another puff before getting into bed.
Caution: Passionflower is contraindicated for people taking beta-blockers.
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Lian Bruno is the founder & herbalist of Puff Herbal Smokes. This information has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.