Authors: Toni, MSN, PHN, CYT, and Harold Han
Cannabis and Yoga, from Ancient Roots to the Non-Intoxicating Present
I'm Toni, MSN, PHN, CYT—an author, public health nurse, wellness strategist, and certified Hatha yoga teacher. My work centers on helping others create sustainable well-being through a variety of therapeutic modalities, including movement through yoga and plant-based wellness tools such as cannabinoids like CBD and CBG.
So when Harold, a cannabis scientist and a longtime yoga practitioner, asked whether there was an honest conversation to be had about cannabis and yoga, I was interested. My experience growing with the plant is the story I want to tell here.
Cannabis has long been part of my wellness journey, particularly for inflammation, stress reduction, and anxiety. Like many people, my experience with the plant began with THC because, at the time, it was the only thing available. As I continued learning more about the plant and its relationship with our endocannabinoid system, I became more curious about the other cannabinoids within the plant, including CBD and CBG, and began exploring how they fit into my own wellness. As the industry evolved and different methods of consumption became available, I began incorporating drinkable CBD and CBG into my routine. I found they provided noticeable and meaningful benefits without the intoxicating effects, giving me another way to incorporate the plant into my life.
This article is not a pitch but an attempt to look clearly at an old pairing, separate what the evidence supports from what marketing has oversold, and offer a practical view from two sides of the mat, the yoga teacher's and the yoga practitioner's.
The Ancient Roots
The pairing of cannabis and yoga is not a modern fitness trend. In parts of the Indian tradition, cannabis preparations such as bhang have a long association with devotional and ascetic practice, including ties to the iconography of Shiva (Godlaski, 2012). The intention in those contexts was not escapism but a particular quality of attention, a way of settling the restless mind enough to be present.
We want to be careful not to overstate this history. Cannabis was woven into some spiritual traditions and explicitly discouraged in others, and the historical record is uneven and easy to romanticize. What is fair to say is that human beings have reached for this plant in the service of inner attention for a very long time.
Why the Pairing Makes Biological Sense
Your body makes its own endocannabinoids. The pleasant calm and reduced pain following sustained movement, often called the runner's high, was for years attributed to endorphins. More recent research points instead toward the endocannabinoid system (Fuss et al., 2015), the same signaling network that plant cannabinoids interact with. Exercise has been shown to raise blood levels of anandamide, an endocannabinoid named after the Sanskrit word for bliss.
We want to be honest about the limits of this. To our knowledge, the specific question of how yoga changes human endocannabinoid levels has not yet been answered in a published clinical trial, so the link between yoga and the endocannabinoid system is a reasonable hypothesis rather than an established fact.
Ganja Yoga, and Its Limits
This ancient pairing has resurfaced as the Ganja Yoga movement, which has grown across wellness communities. Practitioners use small amounts of THC to soften performance anxiety, relax the muscles, and drop into a deeper state of flow. For some people, in the right setting, it delivers wonders.
At the same time, THC carries real drawbacks for the broader yoga community, and they are worth naming plainly. Smoking cannabis before a session is at odds with the deep breathwork, the pranayama, that sits at the center of the practice. Inhaling smoke to prepare for an hour of conscious breathing could be a contradiction. Beyond that, many people simply do not want to feel high, and THC can impair balance and coordination in ways that make standing poses harder, or can trigger the very anxiety a person came to the mat to release. Harold's own experience captures it: he once tried a session after a strong dose and found he could not really move. The intensity took over, and the practice became a lying-down event rather than a flow.
So there is a real benefit on offer here, and a real ceiling. That gap is where the rest of this article lives.
A Different Path: Drinking CBD and CBG
As I began incorporating drinkable CBD and CBG into my own life, I realized it was also a seamless way to introduce cannabinoids to others. The stigma surrounding cannabis is still very real for many people. A drinkable option changes the conversation entirely. Instead of associating cannabis strictly with smoking, people can envision adding it to a morning coffee or an evening cup of tea as a simple, familiar ritual.
For me, incorporating these non-intoxicating options expanded my wellness toolkit. It became a functional wellness practice that fit naturally into my days, and one I feel completely comfortable sharing with others looking for a different approach to their well-being.
Cannabis is not only THC. Two non-intoxicating compounds, CBD and CBG, offer some of the calming and recovery-related effects people are seeking, without the high and without the smoke. Taken as a drink rather than inhaled, they sidestep the respiratory question entirely and fold into the hydration routine practitioners do anyway.
A disclosure before going further. The next two sections describe Harold's personal practice using a water-compatible CBD and CBG beverage that he helped develop as the founder of phytoRX. We are flagging that plainly so you can read it as a practitioner's account, with a clear view of his stake, rather than as a clinical recommendation. The one genuine, defensible advantage of a water-compatible format for this use is timing: a water-compatible preparation tends to take effect faster and more predictably than an oil-based edible, which matters when you want an effect to arrive before or during a class rather than after.
Harold’s routine 1: Settling the Mind Before a Gentle Flow
As a chemist and entrepreneur, Harold has practiced yoga for over 20 years, which is a necessary process to restore energy and stay focused. He turned it into a habit to reward himself with a hot yoga session every year on his birthday.
In Harold's experience, when he prepares for a gentle or restorative flow, the work is mostly mental, letting go of the day so he can actually be there. About half an hour before class, as part of my normal hydration, he drank the phytoRX CBD and CBG blend. Thanks to its fast onset, he steps onto the mat with a clearer focus without intoxication.
In 2024, Prof. Cuttler and colleagues published in Scientific Reports the first human clinical trial of CBG's acute effects on anxiety, stress, and mood. In a double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover trial of thirty-four healthy adults who already used cannabis, a single twenty-milligram dose of hemp-derived CBG reduced ratings of anxiety and stress, with some improvement in verbal memory, and without intoxication or measurable impairment (Cuttler et al., 2024). This study shows CBG has potential to take the edge off anxiety without clouding the mind, which is close to the state a practitioner wants before stepping onto the mat.
Harold’s routine 2: Supporting Recovery after an Intense Practice
Yoga is not always gentle. A vigorous power flow or a Pilates session demands real muscular endurance, and it can leave the kind of next-day soreness that exercise scientists call Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS). After those heavier sessions, Harold drinks the same CBD and CBG blend afterward, as part of recovery.
In 2023, Peters and colleagues published a small pilot trial in forty exercise-trained adults using 70 mg CBD + 100mg CBG water + some other actives to reduce muscle soreness post-workout. The result proved this formula reduced how much soreness interfered with daily activities and showed moderate evidence of lower average soreness, while objective measures of recovery, along with sleep and mood, showed no significant difference from placebo (Peters et al., 2023). In plain language, when taking CBD & CBG post an intense workout, people felt the muscle soreness got in their way much less.
A Teacher's View
Here is Toni again, and I've incorporated cannabinoids into my personal movement practice for years, especially to support recovery after long hikes, strength training, Pilates, or yoga. Beginning my day with phytoRX's drinkable CBD and CBG has become another supportive way I care for my body after movement. Similar to what Harold’s literature showed, I've noticed a shorter recovery time from muscle tightness and soreness, along with an overall sense of relaxation. If I had to compare it to anything, it’s become my version of Advil.
Finding that sweet spot took some personal experimentation. I tried different dosages, timing, and methods of consumption until I found what worked for me.
When working with clients, I recommend they start with a low dose and keep a journal. I encourage them to document what they're taking, the amount, the timing, and how they're feeling. That journal becomes a valuable resource to build their personal relationship with the plant.
The Bottom Line
The yoga community has always had a relationship with the cannabis plant. What has changed is that practitioners no longer have to trade a clear head or healthy lungs for it. For those who want support without the smoke and without the high, non-intoxicating cannabinoids in a drinkable form are worth a try.
The science is early, and we have tried to represent it as exactly what it is, neither more nor less. The invitation is a simple one: pay attention to your own body, notice what actually serves it, and let that, rather than any trend, guide what you bring to the mat.
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Disclosures and Sources
None of the statements in this article have been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration, and nothing here is intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Anyone taking medication or managing a health condition should consult their own clinician before using any cannabinoid product.
References
Cuttler, C., Stueber, A., Cooper, Z. D., & Russo, E. (2024). Acute effects of cannabigerol on anxiety, stress, and mood: a double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover, field trial. Scientific Reports, 14, 16163.
Peters, E. N., Yardley, H., Harrison, A., Eglit, G. M. L., Antonio, J., Turcotte, C., & Bonn-Miller, M. O. (2023). A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, repeated-dose pilot study of the safety, tolerability, and preliminary effects of a cannabidiol (CBD)- and cannabigerol (CBG)-based beverage powder to support recovery from delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS). Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, 20(1), 2280113.
Fuss, J., Steinle, J., Bindila, L., Auer, M. K., Kirchherr, H., Lutz, B., & Gass, P. (2015). A runner's high depends on cannabinoid receptors in mice. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(42), 13105-13108.