How to Sober Up When You’re High

Nothing seems to be happening. Maybe I’ll just have one more gummy…

Overview – When is Someone Too High?

How did you feel when you first got high? It was great, wasn’t it? So you did it again. And again.

And then maybe you decided to experiment with other methods and strains and grow your tolerance. Chances are you probably learned the awful truth about getting “too high” only after it happened to you.

If you ingest cannabis regularly, it’s pretty much inevitable that you’ll experience a bad trip at least once in a great while. But you can keep those trips to a minimum by stopping what you’re doing when you start to feel anxious, confused, or even slightly paranoid.

If you start sweating more than you normally would, that’s a sign also that you may be getting too high.

Here’s How to Sober Up When You’re Too High

Don’t you wish that sometimes you could turn back time? Unfortunately, once you realize you’re too high, you can’t.

But while it’s impossible to undo what you did or immediately eradicate the effects of an unpleasant high, there are a few things you can do to sober up more quickly.

1. Don’t Panic

When a high gets too high, you may get extremely anxious and start asking yourself all sorts of questions. How long am I going to feel the effects of this wretched high?

How long does THC stay in a person’s system? No matter how awful you may feel at any given moment, it’s important to remember that the feeling will pass.

Most users who experience green-outs, the term for over-consumption of marijuana, will see the effects of their high diminish and disappear in a matter of minutes or hours.

You may feel fuzzy-headed later, and you may decide to avoid imbibing for a while but you aren’t going to die. So just chill.

2. Drink water and eat a snack

When you need to flush your system, there’s nothing like a nice, tall glass of H20 to get the job done. Water helps in several ways.

It moves the cannabinoids and terpenes out of your body and also helps stave off that morning after, foggy, dizzy feeling you’re likely to experience. It also does a good job of combatting dry mouth.

Prefer a little more zest in your liquids? Skip the alcohol for this round, as that may only increase the concentration of THC in your blood.

And skip the caffeinated drinks as well. Feel free, however, to substitute cranberry juice, orange juice, or sports drinks.

“Bottle Water and Splash. Source: depositphotos.com. Author: JohanSwanepoel”

And definitely match it with something to eat. Light snacks are best, such as cheese and fruit or a few handfuls of nuts.

Getting something in your stomach, especially foods with some fats will give the cannabinoids something to bind with, which will make them metabolize quicker. Food in the stomach also pulls blood from the brain thereby reducing the psychoactive effects of THC.

If nothing else, the simple practice of eating and drinking will give you something to occupy your mind instead of freaking out.

3. Listen to your body and rest

If you’re experiencing a too-high high, sometimes a nap feels just about right. When you sleep, your body releases hormones that will help clean out your system.

A 30-minute nap is recommended to avoid grogginess later. But even if you can’t necessarily fall asleep, shifting your body into a more relaxed mode will add some ease.

Practice taking deep breaths in through your nose and out through your mouth slowly.

4. Take a cool shower

Opt for a cool shower or barring that, some brisk splashes of cold water to the face. Cool water on the skin has the effect of waking you up.

5. Eat black peppercorns

Didn’t see that one coming, did you? The reason black pepper often works is that it contains a certain terpene that does a number on anxiety and stress.

Eating a few peppercorns or sucking on a pinch (1/8 teaspoon is recommended) of ground black pepper should help.

6. Ingest some form of CBD

Everyone likes getting high. Nobody likes getting too high. That’s why having some CBD oil on hand for those too-high moments can help.

CBD is known to counterbalance the psychoactive effects of THC and bring calm to such situations.

7. Find a distraction

When you’re experiencing a green-out your brain is on overload, and the last thing you need is to focus on the uncomfortable things that are happening to your mind and body. The best way to do that, of course, is to give yourself something relaxing and/or entertaining to focus on–something you already know gives you pleasure.

So, no, balancing your checkbook probably isn’t the best choice for this situation. But how about playing video games?

Or watching a favorite TV show that doesn’t tax your mind. If you’re with a friend, chill out and talk. If you’re alone, pick up the phone.

How Long Does It Take to Sober Up from Weed?

Are you trying to figure out the answer so you can take a home marijuana drug test and see if you’ll pass the real one you need to take for your employer or for the courts? In that case, the answer is one hour, eight minutes, and thirty-two seconds.

No, that was a joke. Seriously, there’s really no exact answer because every situation is different.

How did you consume your weed? Was it smoked? Consumed as an edible? Were you dabbing?

“Weed in glass pipes. Source: depositphotos.com. Author: photographee.eu”

How much cannabis you consumed and the strain you consumed are also factors. As is your personal genetics and tolerances to weed.

In general, the greater the potency of your cannabis product, the more intense your high will be. It’s why if you’re going to push the envelope and consume more than you usually do, it’s recommended you don’t push too hard.

And as long as we’re on the subject, if you’re coming up on being tested for a would-be employer or court case, be smart and stay away from it for at least a solid month.

Additional Ideas to Try to Come Down From a High

While the above list includes the most common suggestions for sobering up when you’re high, there are a few other remedies to explore.

Try some CBD to counter the effects of smoking too much weed

Being too high isn’t so much the problem as it is the intense anxiety that unfortunately sometimes insists on coming along for the ride. Whether a dose of CBD can help depends on a number of factors such as the kind of CBD you ingest, how intense your anxiety is, and your own genetics.

In these cases, it may be helpful to do some experimenting so you know ahead of time what kinds of CBD and in what doses you generally react well to.

Squeeze a lemon to help sober up

No, not in your hands! Lemons aren’t the same as stress balls, after all.

But like other citrus fruits including limes and oranges, they do contain limonene, a terpene known to be helpful in reducing anxiety and stress. And that anxiety you’re feeling is the big reason you want the unpleasant high to end in the first place.

Take some ibuprofen

A study published in November 2013 in the peer-reviewed scientific journal, Cell, suggests that ibuprofen may be helpful in counteracting certain effects of THC.

If you’ve never had a problem before with ibuprofen, it might be worth trying a safe dose of it to see if it can diminish the effects.

Wrap Up

So you got too high. It happens. And it might be beneficial to print off this list of helpful tips so you have something to refer to when you need to make a bad trip less miserable.

Hopefully, some of these will work for you or a few in combination with each other. But just remember, even if nothing works, the experience will pass.

Sometimes waiting it out is all you can do.