HOW THE ECS WORKS

Your Endocannabinoid System is operating all the time, not just when you’re under the influence of cannabis. The ECS regulates many of your body’s functions – including sleep, appetite, pain, inflammation, and stress – by helping to modulate the signals flying around your body’s internal communications system. For example, if you’re super sore after a workout, transmitters within your ECS might interact with your pain receptors to be like, “We get it, we went too hard, please chill with this backache.” Other messages the ECS might deliver are: “It’s sleepy time now,” or, “We are not in danger, please calm down,” or, “Don’t you think we could use a snack?” 

The goal with all this intra-you communication is to keep your body’s systems in a state of relative harmony. But what happens when the ECS falters, and the balance is thrown off?

IF YOU CAN’T MAKE YOUR OWN CANNABINOIDS, STORE-BOUGHT ARE FINE.

When most of us hear the word “cannabinoid,” we think of the famous plant-produced ones like CBD or THC. But in fact, a “cannabinoid” refers to any molecule that interacts directly with the receptors of your ECS. Your body actually makes a ton of (non-intoxicating) cannabinoids on its own – these are technically called “endocannabinoids.”

THC, CBD, CBG, and other plant-derived cannabinoids are technically classified as “phytocannabinoids." These are neat because, while many can and do consume them just for funsies, they can also give your ECS a helping hand when balance, or homeostasis, is proving hard to maintain. 

For example, maybe your ECS isn’t doing such a good job with signaling bedtime, and you’re having trouble sleeping; phytocannabinoids like the ones in Wana Brand's Sleep Gummies can help bring the drowsiness. On a more intense note, let’s say chemotherapy is making you more nauseated than your ECS is equipped to handle alone. The phytocannabinoid THC can come to the rescue, interrupting those queasy-making internal signals and even helping to stimulate appetite.

It’s also worth noting that different phytocannabinoids can work together synergistically, often more effectively than they can work alone – a phenomenon known as “the entourage effect." We’ll talk more about that in a future article, but you can also learn more from this blog post.

WAIT... WHY HAVE I NEVER HEARD OF THIS?

Because cannabis remains highly stigmatized and wildly inaccessible to researchers on a large scale! The scientific community only really accepted the endocannabinoid system as a real thing in the ‘90s, and there’s a lot we still don’t know about it. Thankfully, the tide is finally starting to shift, and major cannabis studies are underway at some truly impressive institutions – including one, funded in part by the Wana Brands Foundation, at Johns Hopkins University. As soon as more research becomes available, we’ll be here to break it down for you as clearly as possible.