Playing video games takes more than just dedication that has you glued to a seat for eight hours at a time (Don’t we all do that at work?). It takes fast reflexes, awareness, concentration, practice and often teamwork. Sometimes our minds can get in the way in the battlefield, and casualties are unavoidable. By using medical cannabis like CBD oil, you may gain that control that puts you in the big leagues.
What Is CBD?
Cannabidiol (CBD) is a compound that they extract from the marijuana plant. It’s not the pot you might be thinking of because it doesn’t get you high. The chemical that makes you feel a sense of euphoria in weed is THC. The reason it has this effect is that it directly binds to cannabinoid receptors in your brain. CBD, on the other hand, indirectly interacts with our endocannabinoid system, creating an even more regulated environment.
The Endocannabinoid System
The system that CBD interacts with is called the endocannabinoid system. It is in charge of your body’s regulation. When you get sad, it makes sure that you don’t stay unhappy for the rest of your life, and when you cut yourself open your wounds heal. Three major components make up the endocannabinoid system: metabolic enzymes, cannabinoid receptors, and endocannabinoids.
Metabolic Enzymes
These enzymes are what keeps your brain free from clutter. They deteriorate chemicals that are no longer needed, and they produce the endocannabinoids that our system requires to function. They also go around like a healer making sure the cells that are still present are active and healthy.
Cannabinoid Receptors
You have cannabinoid receptors all over your body in everywhere you could imagine. The two that we know of and study are CB1 and CB2. CB1 receptors are more densely populated in the brain, having control over the neurological functions of the body. CB2 receptors live all through the body more evenly, and its primary focus is on the immune functions.
Endocannabinoids
Endocannabinoids are chemicals that our brains make organically. They are produced by metabolic enzymes to help mediate the activity between cells. They travel from the receiving neuron to the sending neuron through a process called retrograde signaling, which is interesting because that means it moves backward. They tell the sending cell what the receiving cell needs and the sending cell acts appropriately. If there is too much activity going on in the brain, then the sending cell will stop sending so many signals. If there is under activity, these endocannabinoids help pump it up.
How Does CBD Work?
Cannabidiol stimulates receptors, opens pathways, and elevates endocannabinoids to regulate the endocannabinoid system. When the body isn’t functioning correctly, CBD can come in and help with treatment. It may help ease pain by controlling the transmitting signals in the brain, and it may help inflammation go down by regulating the immune system. With gamers, emotions are high, and the neurotransmitters are flying around in a war zone. CBD helps a lot of common issues players have by calming the brain down.
Common Issues While Playing Video Games
Listen, none of us are perfect. We all have our flaws, and we do what we can with them. When it comes to gaming, not everyone has a cool head, and not everyone can jump on the mic and talk to everyone in the lobby. Certain things hold us back from our true potential as gamers, and you can eliminate those issues by using CBD oil.
Can’t Get On The Mic
You might have a headset that collects dust on a shelf while you play your online team-based games. You got them thinking about how great it would be to shout call outs that save your team members finally. But then you remember as you turn your mic off mute that there are people on the other side of these characters. Real life people. Who are probably going to scrutinize every move you make. And they don’t hold back with the insults, so you’d rather stay the strong and silent type.
CBD may help with social anxiety, making those paranoid fears less invasive in your mind. When it comes to gamers, most of them aren’t going to grill you as you think. And if they do, find a new lobby. Having a team who can communicate is what makes the game fun. Against a bunch of people playing individually, your team will destroy them, and fast. Doing this is not just better for the team, but it helps you gain experience more quickly when you are just slamming through those matches. We are all about efficiency in the gaming community, aren’t we?
Getting Too Flustered
Sometimes you get stuck with a team where it genuinely seems like they all just handed their little cousins the remote. And not that perfect age where they are better than every adult, the young ones who have barely used anything that wasn’t touch screen. It gets frustrating when your team doesn’t have your back or continually let a sniper take everyone down. Or that player on the other team who is purposefully looking for you to kill you. Even if you are playing a solo roleplaying game, there are only so many times a boss can beat someone before they want to throw their controller out the window.
This frustration and this anger are widespread and understandable. But it makes you play worse when your emotions are high. You won't make the right decisions, everything will be brash, and you will end up making more mistakes and having more deaths, and you can kiss your impressive ratio goodbye.
This could also create an exile out of you in your community. Your friends might start playing while invisible so that they don’t have to worry about playing with someone who gets angry and lashes out all of the time. It can also leave you with regret when you calm down knowing you yelled at a complete stranger over something that probably wasn’t that big of a deal.
CBD has shown to be a mood regulator, which includes those spurts of tantrums that only online first-person shooters can bring out of a full grown adult. What it does is recognizes the activity in the brain that is overstimulating, and it sends endocannabinoids out to calm down the cells. This stops the neural overactivity making you calm and relaxed and able to take on the team by yourself if you have to.
Easily Overwhelmed
The best example of this is Overwatch; they should have called it Overwhelming (bud-un-tss). Every single character is different with their own pros and cons. There are ways to defeat a character, but the best player always wins. The game pulls characters together to have an all-out brawl, and there are at most 12 people running around trying to kill or heal each other while remembering there is an objective.
Remembering everyone’s ultimate cues, what the ultimate is, what your powers are that can avoid it, who all is in the ring to take care of, who is going to do the most damage, and there goes the healer again. It can get to a point in games like these that harbor so many mechanics, that you might feel like you have a brain overload.
CBD may calm those nerves and help you make good decisions that get you and your team out of a bind. While others are panicking and button mashing, you are putting together the puzzle that yields the most success. It can help you strategize in a tight spot where you usually might freeze and let them take the kill. CBD can help you play the game of no mercy.
Impulsive Game Play
Playing strategically generally comes with lots of gaming. However, not everyone can get on the bandwagon of thinking things through. Video games illicit emotions and make you feel excited, and some gamers just roll with it and end up paying for it in the end.
If you continue to play impulsively, it can be the reason you don’t have a grenade when you need it because you wasted it on a time you had an available headshot. It can make the game more difficult in RPGs because you spent all of your gold on items that are easily found in the world with a terrible sell back price. It could be the reason half of your team dies because you chose a miserable place to throw down your heals.
By regulating your neurotransmitters, CBD may help with impulsive tendencies. Just like in people with personality disorders, it may calm the need down to want which becomes much easier to control. It gives your brain the ability to map out consequences before you have taken any action, making you better while gaming and making life choices.
How Should I Take It?
If you only have these problems in the heat of battle online, taking CBD where it gets into your system quickly and doesn’t last all day is the way to go. Any of our CBD vapes or tinctures will work perfectly for your pregame supplement.
