There is something truly enjoyable about sitting down at the end of a long week and diving into your favorite edible. It is an experience that cannot be easily matched by anything else. At the same time, it is important that you understand everything that you are getting into before you start to enjoy your favorite edible delight. In particular, you should be mindful about knowing how to make edibles kick in faster and why the delayed onset of the effects of an edible might be a concern for you.
We want to help you learn some of the tricks of the trade to reduce the activation time necessary to start feeling the effects of an edible. The sooner that you can begin feeling the effects, the sooner that you can enjoy the experience. On top of that, you won't have to worry quite as much about a delayed onset causing you to inadvertently overindulge.
Understanding How Cannabis Edibles Work
No matter what kind of substance you consume, there is always at least a short delay between when you consume it and when it begins to have an impact on you. This is true even of the nutrients that you absorb when you eat regular food. No matter what, you can expect some time to pass between when you consume something and when you begin to feel it throughout your body. That is a particularly important thing to understand about how cannabis edibles work.
Your liver bares a significant amount of the responsibility for the processing of the impacts of cannabis edibles throughout your system. In particular, it is responsible for converting THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) into 11-hydroxy-THC. The impacts of 11-hydroxy-THC are what you will feel most acutely when you are consuming edibles. As such, you certainly want your liver to do an effective job at making that conversion.
When you consume cannabis edibles, they will enter your digestive tract and be absorbed into your bloodstream. However, before THC can reach your brain and begin to have the impacts that you desire, it is necessary for it to pass through your liver. Your liver then gets to work metabolizing the compounds and converting them into the 11-hydroxy-THC that will provide the most pleasurable experience for you. The impacts that you will feel are generally longer lasting and more powerful than your garden-variety THC.
All of this process takes some time to take hold. After all, your liver needs time to do what it needs to do. However, there are factors that you can control which can lengthen or shorten the amount of time necessary to get the process done.
Factors Impacting Onset Time
A good rule of thumb when it comes to the average onset time for an individual to begin to feel the effects of cannabis edibles is roughly 90 minutes. This number can vary significantly from person to person though and is also dependent on numerous factors that we will discuss now. Knowing the approximate length of time that you might expect to have to wait for the onset of impacts from a cannabis edible can greatly improve your experience with them. A few factors that have an impact include:
- Metabolism - The faster your metabolism is, the sooner that you can expect the onset of effects from your cannabis edible. For most people, metabolism begins to slow with age, so be mindful of this fact.
- Stomach Contents - The amount of food in one's stomach impacts the speed at which cannabis edibles are absorbed as well. If there is more food in there, then this will slow down the rate at which one can absorb anything new. However, an empty stomach will lead to faster onset times.
- Type of Edible - Liquid edibles such as those found in cannabis sodas generally act faster on the mind than those of a solid form such as candies and the like. Be mindful of this as you consider which types of edibles make the most sense for you.
- Dosage - The dosage and the potency of the specific edible that you consume will also have an impact on how rapidly you feel the effects. The higher the dosage, the faster that you are likely to feel them.
These are not all of the factors that impact onset time, but they give you a good sampling of what kind of things are likely to impact how rapidly you feel the impacts of cannabis edibles. Keep all of these in mind any time you consider having some cannabis edibles for yourself.
Tips to Make Edibles Kick in Faster
Many people prefer to experience the impacts of cannabis edibles as quickly as possible. Not only do they want to speed up the process because they want to enjoy the experience right away, but they also don't want to have to worry about a delayed onset causing them to overconsume. As such, it is important to understand some of the tips that you can use to speed up the process for yourself and start to feel the effects right away.
Consume Edibles on an Empty Stomach
Are you planning on staying in for the night, enjoying some edibles, and perhaps ordering some food later? If so, then you might consider having your edibles on an empty stomach. Doing so allows you to absorb the edibles faster and begin to experience the impacts more quickly than you would have otherwise. An empty stomach means that the cannabis edibles don't have to battle through anything within your stomach to get to your brain. It is a faster process that can be very enjoyable.
Do consider eating later after the edibles have kicked in so you don't miss out on a meal. Just think about starting on an empty stomach so that you can reach the high that you are looking for a bit faster.
Combine with Fatty Foods
You don't necessarily have to skip out on a meal entirely to enjoy a faster experience with a cannabis edible. Rather, you can choose to enjoy your edible with some fatty foods that are known to speed up the process as well. You see, as it turns out, fatty foods are great for aiding your liver in absorbing just about anything that you throw at it.
THC is fat-soluble, so fatty foods are a great compliment to any THC consumption that you may choose to do. Examples of fatty foods include the following:
- Butter
- Cheese
- Eggs
- Avocado
- Nut butters
- Ice cream
- Chips
- Chocolate
As you can see from this list, there are a number of foods here that are a delight to eat while also containing the fatty content that you need to make your edible experience that much better. Stock up at your local grocery store and keep these things around so that you can enjoy the next time you consume an edible.
Sublingual Consumption
Some people choose to use dissolvable strips that they can place under their tongue to absorb their favorite cannabis edible even faster. This method helps to bypass some of the pitfalls of traditional edibles when it comes to getting them absorbed into the body and allows you to experience the impacts of the THC on your brain even faster than you would have otherwise.
Pre-Digestion Techniques
You can allow your edibles to partial dissolve under your tongue or in a glass of water before you consume them. This helps them to break down a bit more than if you had eaten them in their most solid form. The fact that they are slightly broken down means that your digestive system won't have to work quite as hard as it would have otherwise to break down the various components of the edible and get the THC that you desire to your brain.
Drink Warm Beverages
Enjoy some warm beverages such as hot tea to get your blood flow stimulated prior to eating a cannabis edible. The increase in blood flow means that your body will be able to process anything that enters your bloodstream more rapidly than it otherwise would have. This includes processing the THC that is found in cannabis edibles. Besides that, a hot beverage like tea can be a delightful compliment to a THC edible for your taste buds as well.
Warnings and Precautions
We have discussed how you can speed up the effects that you feel when you consume cannabis edibles, and those tips are all worthy of being considered. That said, you should also be careful about not getting out over your skis too far with this. There is always a risk that you might overconsume or that the effects of the THC might be more than you had bargained for when you first set out on this journey.
Always make sure you take things slowly and that you are cautious with the dosage levels that you take when using cannabis edibles. It is always best to start out slowly and work your way up as far as dosage levels are concerned. You don't want to put yourself in a position where you end up consuming more than what will make you feel good.
Final Thoughts
It can be a lot of fun to enjoy cannabis edibles, but that is only true when you do so in a responsible way. By taking it slowly and understanding your limits, you can experience everything that cannabis edibles have to offer without ever having a bad experience.
If you are brand-new to cannabis edibles, you should consult a medical professional before you get started. Not only might they have some advice for you as far as safe consumption, but they can also let you know of any risks that you might face personally based on your medical history. Listen to what they have to say and make an informed decision about your cannabis edible consumption as a result.
There are a lot of things that you can do to make your cannabis edible experience kick in faster and be as enjoyable as possible. For more details on what those tricks are, please reach out and contact us today. We will gladly point you in the right direction so that you can approach this exciting world with confidence.
References
1) Richards, L. (2024, January 19). How long does it take for edibles to kick in? Medical News Today. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/how-long-for-edibles-to-kick-in
2) Gunnars, K. (2023, July 3). 10 super healthy high-fat foods. Healthline. https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/10-super-healthy-high-fat-foods
