5 Ways Your Bad Habits Might Just Save Your Life
#2. Marijuana Helps People With Alzheimer's
By now everybody -- or at least everybody in our target demographic -- knows the medical benefits of marijuana for cancer patients. But as far as benefits go, that's about it. For everybody else, it just seems to make dudes eat junk food, get lethargic and laugh at stupid shit.
So, if there's one part of the body you would think would be helped by weed, you'd pretty much pick anything but the brain. It doesn't matter how much you love pot or how badly you want it legalized, you still wouldn't hit the bong before climbing into the cockpit of a fighter jet. Yet, in a scientific development that we're certain won't be abused by stoners looking to legitimize their habit, marijuana has been proven to be helpful in treating Alzheimer's.
Getty
"Whoa there, buddy. You gotta save a little for Dr. Chad Feelgood."
Strangely enough, the same compounds in marijuana that are responsible for the quintessential stoner forgetfulness, the glassy stare, the short attention span and the, uh ... quintessential stoner forgetfulness could be the same compounds that protect short term memory in sufferers of Alzheimer's. Recent studies indicate that THC can boost the effectiveness of a neurotransmitter that is essentially the brain's lubricant -- the very stuff Alzheimer's sufferers are lacking. THC stimulates the growth of new neurons in the brain of the elderly, which also helps, obviously.
Well, shit, why aren't we giving the stuff to kids on the first day of school? It's basically brain food, right?
Getty
The less you remember, the less you'll have to forget.
Nope. Note that everyone who saw positive benefits were elderly. Brain chemistry changes once the brain matures (which doesn't happen until around age 30), and the effect of THC on a developing brain is radically different. Smoking weed early actually slows growth and development and can have lasting effects that, ironically, make you more susceptible to memory loss later in life.
Getty
"Where the hell did I put my hat?"
Well, since we've gone down this road, we suppose we have to mention ...
#1. LSD and Psilocybin Mushrooms Cure Headaches and Fear of Death Itself
Via Before you read this, please raise your hand and repeat after us: I will not do drugs because of some words I read on a comedy website. Thank you.
Quick, name the only thing psychotropic drugs are good for. If you said, "Making progressive rock tolerable," then you're right! However, thanks to a group of medical professionals willing to throw poorly understood and questionably safe drugs at every condition imaginable, there exists a body of research aimed at fixing anything with anything, and they recently discovered they could cure cluster headaches with hallucinogens.
Getty
"So I just put this under my tongue?"
A cluster headache is similar to a migraine, in that your brain feels like it's trying to punch your skull apart. Episodes can last for hours and strike anywhere from two to 20 times a week. Oh, and also they're nicknamed "suicide headaches," because the agony can get so intense they will drive people to suicide. Sufferers report that the pain is worse than childbirth, and attacks come with such predictability that people will shun social contact and sit in their rooms, staring at the walls, waiting for agony to come.
That's a recipe for drug use if we've ever heard one. Studies on the efficacy of psyclobin 'shrooms and LSD found that these hallucinogens were useful in treating not only cluster headaches, but also OCD and clinical depression. And it's not just about being too distracted by hallucinations of tiny clowns in your pants to notice your health problems -- studies using the non-psychoactive cousin of LSD, BOL-148, proved that it was just as effective at stopping headaches as LSD. Although at this point the sufferers must ask themselves why they're using psychoactive drugs over ibuprofen if they don't want to high-five a Luck Dragon while recovering from their head pain.
Getty
"We aren't people, we're just waves of vibrations that all deeply appreciate the Grateful Dead."
Oh, and LSD has other uses, too. In a hilarious-but-utterly-soul-crushing study where they gave elderly, terminally ill patients LSD, subjects reported a vast decrease in end-of-life anxiety, pain, sleep disturbances and even their fear of Death (capital D) itself. Which we suppose makes sense: Whatever you can say about the crowd at Woodstock, they weren't a stressed-out bunch. More surprising, however, was that the doses of LSD were found to be just as effective as traditional opiates at relieving pain and anxiety ... and they lasted as much as a week after their peak effects were felt.
Getty
A hit of acid a day keeps your fear of death at bay.
Compared to modern painkillers, which wear off in a few hours, that's a pretty significant medical advancement, all thanks to a crowd of tripping senior citizens.
For more hilarity, check out Samwise's blog here.
For more awesome cures, check out 7 Kickass Sci-Fi Cancer Cures. Or see what else your health nut friends are wrong about in 8 Health Foods That Are Bad For Your Health.
And stop by LinkSTORM to discover other, boob-filled ways to cure your fear of death.
And don't forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter to get sexy, sexy jokes sent straight to your news feed.
Do you have an idea in mind that would make a great article? Then sign up for our writers workshop! Do you possess expert skills in image creation and manipulation? Mediocre? Even rudimentary? Are you frightened by MS Paint and simply have a funny idea? You can create an infograpic and you could be on the front page of Cracked.com tomorrow!
i've been seeing this hate on prog rock everywhere now , can anyone just explain their perspective cause i really , really like pink floyd , and king crimson , they're talent is undeniable but is it bands like genesis and yes or phil collins
Replythat make it suck or what ?
FOR THE EMPORER!!!
ReplyWell, that's odd. My two-year "affliction" (I use quotations because I don't want to look like a dumbass comparing headaches to diseases) of cluster migraines just (seemingly) ended a week or two ago.
Reply
Reply"Biology can eat a dick, I want to bounce!"
Combined with that pic, too funny.
Re-reading this article made me realize something: Cracked suggesting self-medication of ADD/ADHD is INCREDIBLY DANGEROUS AND IRRESPONSIBLE. While it is true that coffee is known to help treat it due to its stimulant-based nature, one must never attempt to treat such a disorder on their own. I'm not a doctor, but that doesn't mean I do not understand the inherent risks involved in self-medication. Often, people don't stop to consider that many addicts to various substances (such as alcoholics) start out trying to self-medicate their problems.
ReplyThis is even more dangerous with ADD/ADHD since the disorder causes many to be predisposed to addiction, due to the way the ADD/ADHD brain functions.
Just please, talk to a doctor before any attempts at this stuff. I'm not some pawn by "the man" trying to force you into prescription medications and neither are they. Doctors are there to help.
All this being said, I recommend regular exercise HIGHLY. I know it sounds ironic for me to tell people not to self-medicate, then turn right around and encourage it, but the cons to regular exercise (even just 4 days a week, half-hour sessions) are far less than caffeine. Plus, it not only helps focus but also makes you feel good, manage weight and relieve stress.
So it's dangerous to self medicate... with a substance that like 80% of the country consumes every day... how? Yes you can get addicted to caffeine, but it's not even close to alcoholism.
Re: Botox- There was a study where researchers had three groups of people watch a clip from a comedy show and rate how funny it was. One group was a control, one group was asked to hold a pencil horizontally between their teeth (forcing them to smile), and one group was asked to hold a pencil sticking out of their mouth (forcing them to have a long face). The second group consistently rated the videos funnier than the other two did.
ReplyI hope they used a CLEAN pencil.
You heard this on QI.
Wow, if 5 is absolutely true, I must be the most numbed person in the world to war.
ReplyMarijuana and psilocybin seem to work wonders for the human animal when used appropriately.
ReplyDue to my recently invented learning disability that makes me unable to comprehend warning text, I will now blame Cracked if I do anything arrestable while under the influence of psylocybin or LSD. "The internet made me do it, your honour."
ReplyHey, marijuana is not at all bad for you. I've been smoking it for i don't remember how many years daily and I'm not addicted!
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesSarcasm, yes?
ya! just go for it! I started smoking marijuana ever since I was 13 and life is good! Go marijuana smokers!
See? You can't even remember how long you've been smoking it!!! Next thing you know, you're going to deep fry your dog's lungs and try to fly off the local belltower. Haven't you paid attention to the war on drugs? They obviously have no reason to exaggerate.
I remember reading that Larry Hagman (JR of Dallas, Major Nelson of I Dream of Jeannie) stated that he wasn't afraid of death since the 60s because of LSD.
ReplyThat, that right there, really makes me want to try it. If Larry Hagman doesn't fear death, that s**t must be awesome.
woo reading festival! (thats where the guy in the gas mask with the bong is)
Reply>>you still wouldn't hit the bong before climbing into the cockpit of a fighter jet.
ReplyDang, someone needs to hook Cracked up with some real fighter pilots. Quite a few hit the bong INSIDE the cockpit.
Reading this article and the comments make me sad. People are so indoctrinated we're never gonna get out of this mess.
Reply Hide All See All 4 RepliesWith all the BS in the world, all the wars and killing and lesser evils like fast food, TV, etc. people still find time to bash on weed. Even with all the brilliant people who smoked. Carl Sagan off the top of my head.
As for more powerful psychedelics, LSD + shrooms etc are no joke but just saying they're "bad for you" is incredibly short sighted.
Just remember, you're better off smoking a j (or vaporizing actually, more healthy) than eating that cheeseburger.
why is tv one of the evils of the world?
Ironically tv turned me into a huge reading addict. When I was a kid I watched too much tv, but during the off seasons when there was never anything on I ended up going through a ton of books. The older and older I got the less I watched tv and the more I read.
Not to mention there is some REALLY good f*****g tv out there, it's not all trash.
That isn't saying much. Whenever you're subjecting your body to things it was not meant to endure (trans fat, cigarette/pot smoke, drugs) it's pretty safe to say it's not good for you. It may not be as bad at other things, but it's definitely not doing you any favors. If you notice, all the people who benefited from the substances in this article were people who already had problems where the body or brain wasn't doing what it was supposed to. The foreign substances corrected the problem. But if you're already healthy, then putting stuff in your body that isn't meant to be there really isn't going to do anything good.
That said, it doesn't really stop us from making use of some of the less damaging substances like caffeine. And that's cool, do that if you want. But don't try and tell people it's good for you. It's still a vice and it's still not healthy.
How about you don't light up a joint and you don't eat a cheeseburger?
When I'm old and close to death, I'm going to sit in a floor full of heroin needles while sticking LSD to my eyeballs. Then I hope I'll implode in a vortex of insanity.
ReplyI was with you up until the eyeballs.
The botox use against depression is very interesting. Can the same effect be achieved by telling one to avoid frowning instead of applying botox? I'm sure it's the least profitable approach from the researchers point of view but oh well... they'll be our heroes.
ReplyIt's already a really common suggestion that people are given, but it requires you to be constantly aware of your facial expression, which really isn't feasible. The botox makes it impossible for you to frown.
Thank you for saying space marine and using Warhammer and not Halo. This shall be added to the Emperors Glory.
Reply Hide All See All 4 RepliesJohn Cheese is a man of class.
That's certainly true, but he didn't write this article.
Should have been Starcraft. How many games had space marines before it?
Really, I'm asking here, how many space marine games were there before Starcraft, not counting Doom?
Warhammer 40k pre-dates Starcraft by a long way.
I've noticed that frowning thing though never considered how that would relate to botox before.
ReplyI've been in pissed off moods before where I start to feel that tension headache building which to leads to full blown bad moods when left unchecked. But sometimes I stop and realize I'm glaring, eyebrows scrunched and frowning and I stop and relax my face muscles and the headache goes away and I immediately feel less murderous. It was something I never even realized I was doing in the past.
Okay so botox 'cures' depression by stopping you frowning. But does it make you happy? Or just apathetic?
ReplyIf you didn't key on the key phrase, it was "facial feedback." They said theory, but it's actually a hypothesis.
The idea behind it is that smiling makes you happy, and that frowning makes you sad. If you aren't frowning, you're less likely to be sad. When you are sad and you do frown, it cyclically makes it sadder and more hopeless. When you're stressed and you worry your brow, you will get more stressed. If you are forced to smile for long periods of time, say at a social event where appearances matter, you may actually find yourself enjoying it more than if you were pouting the whole time.
So no, it doesn't make you happy. But depressed people don't want to be happy all the time, they want to be un-depressed all the time. Happiness can come and go.
tl;dr - Don't worry, be happy. Smile.
I recognized that picture of coffee beans. I used to have it set as my wallpaper a little while back. Is it weird that I remembered those exact coffee beans?
ReplyYes, that's weird. It's also weird that you had coffee beans set as your wallpaper.