alt Hacker NewsSome commenters here talking about anxiety, but I think the bigger cause, which many people don't know, is that THC significantly increases your heart rate despite it's usual characterization as a depressant. If I recall correctly (big "if" considering the circumstances hah) my heart rate after smoking would go up by 10-20 BPM (from 65-70 to 80-90) while still feeling relaxed; ~~finding some numbers on this from a reputable source is difficult right now and this symptom is suspiciously missing from the wikipedia page~~.
Edit:
Realized this comment sounds like fear mongering, so decided to dig up some actual sources. The wiki page I needed to find was:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_cannabis
Also, the CDC page mentions it:
https://www.cdc.gov/cannabis/health-effects/heart-health.htm...
And links to this paper (though I can't read past the abstract bc no institutional access):
There's more going on here than just the substance's effect.
There's a mind body connection that an altered state can throw into disarray.
Under the influence of cannabis, one may be a lot more aware of physical pain, dehydration, and so on. The key word is aware. Suddenly becoming aware of the fact that you are stressed out, you are carrying tension, can lead to something of a latent processing effect of some of these suppressed or physically felt emotions.
However, if you're generally not tense, ingesting cannabis itself does not always raise the heart rate. I can validate this myself right now, given I wear an Apple Watch and can vaporize cannabis. Looking at my historical data, there is no relationship, and my resting heart rate remains in the 40s.
It's anecdotal, but at the same time we need to be careful with something that acts on the physical, the mental, and dare I say it, the spiritual. If we focus too much on one dimension, we lose the important synergy from processing all dimensions.