The only thing worse than a seriously hideous cannabis hangover is being told by some smug outsider that there is no such thing. Anyone who tries to tell you cannabis hangovers don’t exist has clearly never had one because a) they don’t smoke cannabis or b) they smoke cannabis on a 24/7 basis and have therefore never had to deal with one. For the rest of the cannabis community, the weed hangover is very much a thing…albeit a rather unpleasant thing.

That moment you wake up with the worst cotton mouth you’ve ever had, a headache that feels like your eyes are about to explode and the stale smell of whatever you got up to last night is pretty horrific. And of course, it’s then only made worse by the fact that you are still surrounded by your friends who crashed out last night, not to mention one or two people you don’t even remember inviting.

Sounds familiar?

Hindsight Can Be a B***h hindsight
Of course, some will tell you that the best way to avoid a cannabis hangover is to go easy on the stuff. You learn your limitations, you know when the time has come to call it a night and you don’t suffer the consequences the next morning. In the real world, sadly, things really don’t work like this. Two blunts turns into four, a quick bong rip spirals into ten and those pot brownies were so irresponsibly delicious you didn’t stop eating until they were gone.

All of which seems like a great idea at the time…not so much when it comes to the next morning. And then of course there’s the extremely plausible prospect that it was already next morning when you finally passed out, meaning you end up waking with a serious case of stoner jet lag. You’re in that limbo period where you’re clearly nowhere near over the effects of last night, but at the same time aren’t experiencing any of the positives that come with cannabis.

Which means you have effectively now one of two choices – you get yourself toasted again, or you get serious when it comes to killing your hangover. Assuming in this context that the first of the two simply isn’t a realistic option, you’re going to need a strategic plan of attack which should include the following steps:

Make a Pact with Yourself That You Will Not Smoke Anything Today
You might be feeling like pure garbage, but it’s important to remember that the vast majority of the process is all psychological. If you spent the entire day thinking maybe I will smoke, maybe I won’t, maybe later, maybe now and so on, you cannot expect to focus on beating your hangover. Which is precisely why you need to take a good hard look in the mirror (literally, if necessary) and tell yourself that no matter what happens, no weed today…if only today.

Empty Your Den as Brutally as Necessary empty-the-den
Try to remember that today is all about you, which means that anyone standing, sitting or snoring in your way needs to be gotten rid of – immediately admittedly, there’s a strong chance that aggressively waking your friends and throwing them out of your place without so much as a ‘farewell’ might be interpreted as a little brutal. Nevertheless, they are standing in the way of your getting yourself sorted and the more buddies you have around the place, more likely you are to succumb to temptation. Simply make it clear that they don’t have to go home – they just have to get the hell out of your place.

soundtrack Get Yourself A Soundtrack
You are definitely going to need some music to break the silence, or otherwise you risk driving yourself insane. Given the intended purpose of what you are doing, it doesn’t make sense to go straight back to the music you were listening to the night before, when you got yourself into the state that led to today’s mess. Instead, think of something right on the opposite end of the scale or make sure it is at least reasonably energetic, easy to listen to and isn’t likely to serve as a trigger – i.e. nothing that makes that bong appear oh-so tempting.

Clean Up…Properly clean-up
It’s pretty much inevitable that if you spend too much time wallowing in the filth from last night, you are simply going to fall into the trap of repeating your mistakes once again. You look around you, it seems like all hope is lost and that today is not a good day for cleaning up. But it is, as not only will the cleaning process both distract you and keep you moving, but you are massively less likely to then go and undo all your hard work It is so much easier to kill a hangover in a place that doesn’t look and smell like an explosion at a landfill site.

orange-juiceDrink a Buttload of Orange Juice
While there are thousands of weird and wonderful theories when it comes to what does and doesn’t work in killing cannabis hangovers, orange juice is anything but a myth. During all that revelry which you are clearly now regretting, you will have inevitably done a number on the vitamin C in your body. And by doing a number, we basically mean getting rid of pretty much every trace of the stuff…which isn’t good. Vitamin C does a whole bunch of incredibly important things in the human body – one of which being to quite literally rewire your brain and get essential natural sugars back into your system. So even if orange juice isn’t normally your drink of choice for the morning, the best advice is to make it your choice for the time being.

Eat…But Choose Your Weapons Carefully
As your body feels like it is dying a slow and painful death from head to toe means, of course, that you are going to need to eat something. In fact, you are going to need to eat plenty to even begin the recovery process. It’s here that you need to think carefully about your choices. On one side of the argument, your body will tell you it needs fat, sugar, salt and essentially the biggest, greasiest fast food meal you can get your hands on. Rest assured, it might be one of the best things you’ve ever eaten and you will feel fantastic at the time, but you are really only making it more difficult for your body to recover. By contrast, if you stick with light and let’s say ‘sensible’ food throughout the day, you will recover much quicker. The downside being that you might find eating anything healthy in your current condition nothing short of torture.

Get Comfortable and Indulge get-comfortable
It’s important to make sure you reward yourself for your positive efforts so far, so take the time to get comfortable and indulge in doing nothing at all. Fire up the games console, tune in to the Spongebob marathon on Nickelodeon or just treat yourself to an hour or two snoozing on the couch. If you can get away with it, combine this particular step in the process with a little nudity and open windows. Not for the sake of voyeurism, but rather the way in which fresh air and naked skin can be nothing short of a match made in heaven when it comes to the recovery process. If nudity simply isn’t an option, opt for the smallest pair of underpants you can find!

play-with-the-pet Play with Your Pet
Once again, no spiritual mumbo jumbo or wacky theories to do with this one – it’s a scientific fact that playing with pets is massively therapeutic. In your particular instance, it could be something to do with the fact that you probably have about the same IQ as your dog, cat, hamster or whatever right now. Spend some quality time with them, take them out for a walk (perhaps not in the case of the hamster) and begin to make amends for the horrors you made them witness last night. And if you don’t have a pet of your own, maybe offer to walk someone else’s dog?

Phone Your Grandmother…Or Mother…Or Aunt phone-granny
This can work miracles – simply think about who in your family would be least impressed by the prospect of you in your current condition and give them a call for a nice long chat. Insane? Not at all – the reason being that you will have to work so hard to convince them you aren’t going through hell that you may find yourself believing it too. You know what we said earlier about mind over matter? Well, simply trying persuading someone else for half an hour or so that you feel fantastic and are making something of your life and there’s a pretty strong chance you will come out the other end of the call believing the hype yourself.

repeat-history Let History Repeat Itself
Last but not least, there’s really only one way to go if the recovery process turns out to be a bust – and that is to make the same mistakes again. It happens – you’re only human and you can’t expect to get it right every time. So if you do find yourself reaching for the bong and considering today a write off, simply refer back to this survival guide once again tomorrow and see if it works any better for you!