The Calm That Isn't: How Regular Cannabis May Quietly Raise Your Stress Hormones

The team, led by behavioral neuroscientist Anita Cservenka, set out to look at the relationship between frequent cannabis use and the body's central stress-response system. As reported by Oregon State University, the study compared 39 frequent cannabis users with 43 people who used rarely or not at all. Over two weekdays, participants collected saliva samples right when they woke up, again 30 minutes later, and once more at 9 p.m., giving researchers a window into the natural rise and fall of their cortisol across the day.

The researchers focused on something called the cortisol awakening response, or CAR. "CAR is the cortisol rise that all people experience in the morning, peaking around 30 minutes after they wake up," Cservenka explained. It's considered a marker of how well your body prepares itself for the demands of the day ahead.

Here's the nuance that's easy to miss. The awakening response itself, that 30-minute jump, looked similar between the two groups. What differed was the starting line. Frequent users tended to wake up with more cortisol already circulating in their systems. "Our research suggests cortisol levels upon awakening may serve as a neurobiological marker of problematic cannabis use, and that connection needs to be investigated further," Cservenka said. In other words, it's the baseline, not the morning climb, that stood out.

Cortisol has developed a bit of a villain reputation lately, and it's become a wellness buzzword attached to everything from supplements to the cortisol "mocktails" filling up social feeds. But cortisol isn't the enemy. It's an essential hormone, and your body would struggle without it.

Produced by your adrenal glands, cortisol helps you respond to stress, but it also quietly keeps a lot of everyday systems running. According to the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, it helps regulate blood pressure, blood sugar, metabolism, and the way your body handles inflammation. It also follows a daily rhythm, running highest in the morning to help you get going and tapering off through the evening so you can wind down.

That daily pattern is exactly why the study is interesting. When researchers talk about a "dysregulated" stress system, they don't mean cortisol has suddenly become harmful. They mean its normal rhythm, the reliable ebb and flow that helps your body match its energy to the time of day, may be shifting. A higher-than-usual starting point in the morning is one small sign that the rhythm might be off.

One of the most important things to understand here is that the immediate effects of cannabis and the effects of long-term, regular use are genuinely different stories, and mixing them up is where a lot of confusion comes from.

In the short term, a single dose can actually push cortisol up. In one controlled human study published in the journal Psychopharmacology, THC raised cortisol in a dose-dependent way, meaning higher doses produced bigger increases, though frequent users showed a more blunted rise than people who rarely used. So even in the moment when cannabis feels most relaxing, it can be nudging a stress hormone upward.

Regular use appears to tell a different story again. Some research suggests that people who use cannabis often develop a stress system that responds differently under pressure. Other human research has found that regular users showed a blunted cortisol reaction when put through a stressful task, meaning their bodies didn't ramp up cortisol the way non-users' did. That's part of why "dysregulated" is a more accurate word than simply "higher" or "lower." The picture involves the whole rhythm and the whole response, not a single number.

If your main reason for reaching for cannabis is to decompress, it's worth knowing that relaxation can come from a surprising range of places, including something as simple as a science-backed 15-minute "awe walk". The point isn't to swap one thing for another on command, but to notice that your options are wider than they might feel.

This is the part that deserves the most emphasis, because it's the part most likely to get lost in a scary headline. The Oregon State study is cross-sectional, which is a scientific way of saying it captured a single moment rather than following people over time. That design can reveal a link, but it cannot tell you which way the arrow points.

Cservenka was direct about this limitation. "We would need to study the same groups of people over a longer period of time to understand any cause and effect relationship, but we think this provides an important starting point," she said. It's entirely possible that frequent cannabis use nudges cortisol up. It's equally possible that people with more reactive or dysregulated stress systems are simply more likely to reach for cannabis in the first place. Stress and cannabis use also interact with a whole web of other factors, from sleep and diet to exercise and mood, any of which could be shaping both sides of the relationship.

The broader research adds another layer of humility. The science here is genuinely mixed rather than settled. A 2018 review in Frontiers in Psychiatry found that cannabis has been linked to a range of HPA-axis changes across studies, with results shifting depending on how much people used, how recently, and exactly how researchers measured cortisol.

Even the awakening response has produced conflicting findings. A 2025 study reported a lower awakening response among chronic users, a pattern the Oregon State team did not reproduce. Cservenka addressed that head-on: "Earlier studies by other researchers found CAR to be blunted in frequent cannabis users, but we didn't replicate that finding, which suggests there is a lot of nuance that could be related to analytic strategies and sample characteristics." In an evolving field, that kind of disagreement isn't a red flag. It's a sign the questions are still being worked out.

So why pay attention to a modest difference in morning cortisol at all? The answer lies in what cortisol does when it stays elevated over long stretches. Short bursts are helpful and completely normal. It's the prolonged, chronic elevation that researchers tend to watch, because sustained high cortisol has been associated over time with concerns like anxiety, depression, and cardiovascular strain.

It's important to be careful with that word "associated." None of this means cannabis directly causes these conditions, and it certainly doesn't mean a single study can predict anything about your personal health. What it does mean is that the body's stress rhythm is worth taking seriously as one signal among many. If you're curious about supporting a healthier stress response more broadly, there are plenty of well-studied, everyday approaches, from movement to breathing practices, and some stress-reduction methods have been ranked by how much they actually move the needle on cortisol.

This also arrives at a moment when the question matters to a lot of people. National survey data cited by the researchers show that roughly 29% of U.S. adults ages 19 to 30 report using cannabis in the past 30 days, a figure that has nearly doubled over about 15 years, with more than 10% of that age group using 20 or more times a month. When a behavior becomes this common, even subtle physiological links are worth understanding.

The most useful takeaway here probably isn't alarm. It's awareness. Feeling relaxed and being physiologically relaxed aren't always the same thing, and this research is a gentle reminder that a habit built around calm might have effects that don't show up in how you feel.

If cannabis has quietly become your primary tool for managing stress, that's simply worth noticing, and it may be a natural moment to think about what else helps you feel steady. Small, reliable anchors woven through a busy day can do more than we give them credit for, and there's no single right way to build them. And if you have questions about how your own use might be affecting your stress, sleep, or mood, a conversation with a healthcare professional can help you sort through what's relevant to you specifically.

For now, the honest summary is the most reassuring one: this is an early, thought-provoking signal, not a verdict. The researchers are still asking the questions, the evidence is still taking shape, and you get to hold this information the same way the scientists do, with curiosity and a healthy respect for how much is still unknown.