Pot can ease the pain of social exclusion @ low self-esteem

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Smoking marijuana can help ease the pain of social exclusion and low self-esteem but it won't fix your problems, claims new research

Tests by researchers at the University of Kentucky found cannabis can act as a buffer against feelings of negative self-worth and poor mental health

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
PUBLISHED: 12:12 EST, 18 May 2013 | UPDATED: 12:20 EST, 18 May 2013

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... earch.html

Newly published research suggests that one of the main reasons people enjoy smoking marijuana is because it helps them combat intense feelings of social exclusion.

Rather than simply getting high for the heck of it, a research team led by University of Kentucky psychologist Timothy Deckman has found that cannabis relieves not only physical pain but also emotional pain.

As their starting point, Deckman and his team used two recent pieces of research. One that found the pain of social exclusion is more intense than previously thought, and another that revealed physical and emotional pain travel similar pathways in the brain.

This second piece of research was uncovered after tests found the pain killer Tylenol had helped reduce the pain of social rejection and existential angst in test studies.

Since marijuana works through similar brain receptors, Deckman's researchers wondered whether pot could similarly soften the pain of exclusion, reports Pacific Standard.

One experiment that helped prove their theory involved surveying more than 5,000 Americans about their level of loneliness, their marijuana usage (if any), and assessed their mental health and feelings of self-worth.

Unsurprisingly the researchers found a relationship between loneliness and feelings of self-worth, but that those feelings were significantly diminished for those people that regularly smoked pot.

‘Marijuana use buffered the lonely feelings of negative self-worth and poor mental health,’ the researchers wrote in the Social Psychological and Personality Science journal.

Another experiment found people who were experiencing social pain were less likely to have suffered a major depression in the past year if they were regular pot smokers.

A third experiment was based around the Cyberball computer game, half the participants in the three-person game received the ball twice early on, and then never again during for the remainder of the game.

Afterwards they were asked to react to a series of statements designed to assess whether their need for self-esteem and belonging felt threatened using statements such as, 'I had the feeling that the other players did not like me.'

The results found that those who frequently smoked marijuana felt less threatened than the others. Deckman and his colleagues have concluded that these studies show 'marijuana use consistently buffered people from the negative consequences associated with loneliness and social exclusion'. They also warned that marijuana isn't a cure to solving these problems.

'Humans have a fundamental need to belong,' the researchers noted. 'Hurt feelings motivate us to fix our relationships and re-establish social connection.'
So while smoking pot can help temporarily alleviate feelings of insecurity, low self-esteem, and social awkwardness, the real cure is learning how to deal with the underlying issues that make someone feel like that.

People who smoke pot hang out with other people who smoke pot and talk about how they've expanded their consciousness and have found new modes of thinking or something.

All it did for me was make me dumb. I have NVLD and I felt like it shut off my constant verbal thought process. Maybe making me "NT" but also making me ret*d in the process. No thanks.

Listening to a pot smoker talk when they are high can be rather amusing sometimes. For example: a friend said this to me when he was high once "Aliens are us in the future man."

I do remember I was a little more in tune with the emotions of others when I had a small high from marijuana. I also remember feeling more anxious when I was out in social settings however.