By Dawson Church, PhD

Cannabinoids are psychoactive compounds that are used in both medical and recreational settings to achieve elevated emotional states.

Plant-derived cannabinoids, such as the THC found in marijuana, are called phytocannabinoids.

Few people are aware that our bodies also produce cannabinoids naturally. These are referred to as endocannabinoids.  

Our brains have receptors specific to cannabinoids—similar to a lock and key. The endocannabinoids and their receptors comprise what is known as the endocannabinoid system. This system plays a role in appetite, pain, inflammation, sleep, stress, mood, memory, motivation, and reward. 

There are two types of receptors: Cannabinoid receptor 1 (CB1) and cannabinoid receptor 2 (CB2). CB1 receptors are primarily in brain regions involved in limb control, posture and balance, learning, and memory. CB2 receptors are found in immune tissues, such as the tonsils and spleen. 

Low endocannabinoid levels in the human body have been linked to major depression, generalized anxiety disorder, PTSD, multiple sclerosis, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, Parkinson’s disease, fibromyalgia, and sleep disorders. 

The health benefits of activating your endocannabinoid system are extensive, including:

• Stress control
• Anxiety reduction
• Increased optimism
• Improved concentration
• Drop in hyperactivity 
• Lower cortisol 
• Increased neurogenesis 
• Thicker myelin insulators around nerve cells
• Improved sleep
• Reduced impulsivity
• Mood improvement
• Reduced inflammation
• Fewer headaches
• Decreased activity in the amygdala (the brain’s fear relay)

Among the methods for boosting your endocannabinoid system are eating plenty of fruits and vegetables. Particularly potent endocannabinoid boosters include olive oil, green tea, probiotics, dark chocolate (it contains anandamide), and foods rich in omega-3 fatty acids (they upregulate both CB1 and CB2). 

Anandamide: The Bliss Molecule

Anandamide is known as the joy chemical. It has also been called “the brain’s own marijuana” and “the bliss molecule.” Research has demonstrated that anandamide is involved in the neural generation of pleasure and motivation. 

Anandamide can also improve cognitive function, motivation, learning, and memory, while triggering the growth of neurons in the brain centers that govern those functions. 

A blissed brain is a learning brain; meditation cements our feel-good experiences into brain hardware through increasing neuroplasticity. Anandamide also relieves anxiety and depression while stimulating closeness and connection with others.

The endocannabinoid systems can also be boosted by our behaviors. These include reducing stress, exercising (activates the endocannabinoid system), and deep meditation (raises your level of anandamide). 

One of the most fun ways to enhance anandamide is through the power of touch and release of oxytocin. In a fascinating series of experiments, Don Wei and colleagues at the University of California-Irvine demonstrated that oxytocin spikes anandamide. Engage in social behavior and “oxytocin-driven anandamide signaling” kicks in. What a bargain—two pleasure neurochemicals for the price of one. 

Why Not Just Use Phytocannabinoids?

If you can achieve elevated brain states using phytocannabinoids and drugs, why not just smoke an herb or pop a pill rather than take time to meditate?

You don’t have to be a mathematician to compare the level of effort required of meditators with drug users: hours of meditation versus one pill. Why not the pill?

Two words: side effects. Chemically induced joy comes at a cost. That cost can be high. One study found that adolescents who smoke just a couple of joints show changes in their brains. That’s not a couple of years of smoking marijuana or the decades that some adults rack up. It’s just two joints. If adolescents continue smoking marijuana for five years, they lose progressively more neurons in the planning, decision-making, learning, and memory regions of the prefrontal cortex. 

A research team led by Gabriella Gobbi, MD, PhD, discovered that teenagers using cannabis had a nearly forty percent greater risk of depression and a fifty percent greater risk of suicidal ideation in adulthood. 

The research that revealed these startling numbers was not just a single study of adolescent marijuana use. It was a meta-analysis and review of eleven studies with a total of 23,317 teenage subjects followed through young adulthood. 

Further, Gobbi’s team only reviewed studies that provided information on depression in the subjects prior to their cannabis use. “We considered only studies that control for [preexisting] depression,” said Gobbi. “They were not depressed before using marijuana, so they probably weren’t using it to self-medicate.” In other words, marijuana use preceded depression. 

In adults with prolonged marijuana use, the wiring of the brain degrades. Areas affected include the hippocampus (learning and memory), insula (compassion), and prefrontal cortex (executive functions). The authors of one study stated that “regular cannabis use is associated with gray matter volume reduction in the medial temporal cortex, temporal pole, parahippocampal gyrus, insula, and orbitofrontal cortex.”  

Study authors continue, “These regions are rich in cannabinoid CB1 receptors and functionally associated with motivation, emotional, and affective processing. Furthermore, these changes correlate with the frequency of cannabis use…age of onset of drug use also influences the magnitude of these changes.”  

I’d like to flip the “why not use phytocannabinoids” questions on its head. Why use them? 

Your own body synthesizes the chemicals to produce an elevated state all by itself. It does this in concentrations that are not harmful, are in perfect balance, have the correct ratios one to another, degrade effortlessly when they are no longer needed, create no hangover, and produce no side effects. 

When a more blissful state can be achieved daily, consistently, safely, and on demand, why seek exogenous sources?

A Native American medicine woman told me that in her Twisted Hair clan, one of seven that make up the Cherokee nation, teachings about psychoactive herbs or “plant medicine” are passed from generation to generation. She said, “If you take plant medicine, you can have the [enlightenment] experience. But you will not grow as a human being unless you learn to create the experience within yourself.”

Power of Touch

Touch doesn’t just feel good. It can produce invisible but pervasive healing effects in your body. Oxytocin deactivates glutamate—the most excitatory of neurotransmitters—making you feel calmer and more emotionally balanced. It stimulates the release of nitric oxide in your blood vessels, improving circulation. 

To test the physical effects of oxytocin, a group of researchers administered psychological and physical tests to thirty-four married couples. Half were randomized into a control group that kept a diary of their moods and levels of physical affection. 

The experimental group were taught a technique called “listening touch.” They tuned into their partner’s mood by touching the partner’s neck, shoulders, and hands. They did this both back-to-back and facing each other. 

Men and women alternated giving and receiving “listening touch.” They practiced for four weeks at home, thirty minutes three times per week, then went back into the lab for a second set of tests. 

The researchers found that touch was producing oxytocin as expected. But as the hormone flowed through the blood vessels of the husbands, it triggered the production of nitric oxide. This lowered their blood pressure and the beneficial effects persisted for a whole day. 

Oxytocin can even produce bonding between species. One study demonstrated that when a person and a dog interact, oxytocin is released in both species. The levels increase as they gaze affectionately at each other, similar to a couple in love. The longer they gaze, the more oxytocin is released, stimulating yet more gazing. 

Boost Brain Health with Loving-Kindness Meditation

Meditation is good way to raise your anandamide and oxytocin levels, and research shows that loving-kindness produces more beneficial brain changes than other types of meditation. 

Specifically, a study comparing a non-meditating group with groups doing mindfulness and loving-kindness meditation found marked differences between the three. The researchers measured telomeres—the “end caps” of chromosomes. These are regarded as among the most reliable biological marker of aging since they get shorter by about one percent per year. 

Those in the loving-kindness group “showed no significant telomere shortening over time.” Those in the mindfulness group fell between the compassion group and the no-meditation group. 

Regardless of the meditation type, you don’t need to be a Tibetan monk to experience benefits, and the results can be immediate. Early studies showed that eight weeks of mindfulness meditation had an effect, and later studies suggested that even four weeks made a difference. 

A startling study performed by investigators at the University of North Carolina showed that just four days of meditation were associated with increased cognitive flexibility, creativity, memory, and attention. The lead researchers said that these “profound improvements” were “really surprising” and that they are “comparable to the results that have been documented in far more extensive training.”  

A study of beginning meditators found that their practice became progressively more enjoyable and easier during ten weeks of meditation. This held true whether they used a loving-kindness style meditation, observed the flow of their thoughts, or focused on the breath. 

In terms of structural changes, a research group at Harvard University examined the effect of twenty-seven-minute guided mindfulness sessions over the course of eight weeks. They found increases in the gray matter in regions of the brain related to emotional regulation, learning, memory, perspective taking, and sense of self. Yet in just a few minutes, observable changes take place. After just the first eight minutes of mindfulness, attentional focus improves. 

 Ultimately, keep up the meditation for months—then years—and the very structure of the brain changes fundamentally. From the first few minutes of meditation to the ten-thousandth hour, your brain continues evolving. 

Role of Meditation in Emotional Contagion and Heart Coherence

Did you know that a single happy person makes the people around them happier by thirty-four percent? Those affected in turn make others happier—by fifteen percent. The ripple keeps spreading, with the next layer happier by six percent. 

Do negative people spread emotional contagion too? Yes, but negativity has less clout than positivity. Having an unhappy connection increases your chances of unhappiness by just seven percent. 

The fourteen percent of the US population who are meditating, and the large numbers doing so worldwide, produce positive emotional contagion in many more. 

Emotional contagion is just one explanation for the growth of meditation. Another is field effects. Everything begins as energy, then works its way into matter. Though energy fields are invisible, they shape matter. Albert Einstein said, “The field is the sole governing agency of the particle.” 

Many studies show that human beings are influenced by the energy field of others. In a series of 148 one-minute trials involving twenty-five people, trained volunteers going into heart coherence were able to induce coherence in test subjects at a distance. They didn’t have to touch their targets to produce the effect. Their energy fields were sufficient. 

When you are in a heart coherent state, your heart radiates a coherent electromagnetic signal into the environment around you. This field is detectable by a magnetometer several meters away. When other people enter that coherent energy field, their heart coherence increases too, producing a group field effect. 

Meditation can be a powerful tool to help promote positivity and coherence—accelerating the trend toward human thriving and providing a substrate of compassion that turns consciousness away from conflict.

—

Dawson Church, PhD, is an award-winning author whose best-selling book The Genie In Your Genes has been hailed by reviewers as a breakthrough in linking emotions and genetics. His follow-up title Mind to Matter reviews the science of peak mental states. He has conducted dozens of clinical trials and founded the National Institute for Integrative Healthcare to promote groundbreaking new treatments.

Well Being Journal adapted the above excerpt from Bliss Brain: The Neuroscience of Remodeling Your Brain for Resilience, Creativity, and Joy by Dawson Church, PhD. Copyright 2020 by Dawson Church and reprinted with permission by Hay House, Inc.