I’ve always prided myself on my creativity as a freelance copywriter, producing a steady stream of high-quality marketing content for websites, publications and print campaigns. Recently, however, I felt stuck in a creative rut. To make matters worse, I didn’t even feel particularly good in any sense of the word, thanks to a combination of stress, hormonal imbalances, and chronic aches and pains — not a terrific recipe for original thinking. But when someone told me I ought to give products containing CBD (cannabidiol) a try, I thought they were joking. Cannabis to boost creativity? It sounded more like a justification from one of my old college roommates than a genuine argument for any kind of health and wellness benefits.
After a few more days of staring uselessly at the computer, I figured I had nothing to lose and everything to gain, creativity-wise. To my great relief, I was right. One idea was now leading to another, not-so-obviously related idea in a flurry of imaginative, original thought. By doing some snooping around in health and wellness journals, I discovered that this process is known to neurologists as hyper-priming.
But where was this newfound ability coming from? Was it the cannabis talking, or was my brain simply working better? Turns out that the correct answer was — both. Research indicates that CBD can direct extra blood flow to the frontal lobe of the brain, the region tasked with creative problem solving and emotional processing. Since blood is the delivery system for glucose, the brain’s main energy source, I found myself firing on all cognitive cylinders once again.
CBD also triggers the release of dopamine, a “feel-good” neurotransmitter that encourages emotional receptiveness. As a result of this happy combination, I wasn’t just bouncing from idea to idea more easily; I was also feeling free to accept those ideas, let them float around, play with them, pull them apart, put them back together again, and generally explore them to the fullest. And that’s pretty much what the creative process is all about, whether you’re making marketing content or looking for a new way to cure the common cold.
Speaking of health, somewhere along the way, I noticed that I no longer felt like the entire losing team in a particularly brutal rugby game. Wait, so now cannabis is helping my physical health as well as my mental health? Time for another stroll through the medical literature. I discovered that CBD contains fatty acids that can help normalize hormonal complaints such as PMS while also knocking out the pain receptors that feed headaches and other chronic pain conditions.
In addition to offering anti-inflammatory and analgesic benefits, CBD was reducing my stress and anxiety to a manageable level, while the boost in creative brainpower gave me less to feel stressed and anxious about. I soon found myself sleeping, eating, and moving better in everyday life, even as my brain was moving with more assurance in my quest for new creative frontiers.
The CBD had done the trick. The marketing content that emerged from my keyboard had regained its freshness, energy, originality, and unpredictability. The role CBD has played in my success forced me to use my newly open-minded, creative brain to rethink my attitude toward cannabis — especially when I found out that such major thinkers and success stories as Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Carl Sagan, and Neil deGrasse Tyson had all extolled its virtues. If it was good for those king-sized cortexes, I realized, it was certainly good enough for me.
