Beware! Smoking weed may decrease your creative thinking capabilities

Zee Media Bureau

London: Do you like to be high on weed? Well, one should stop taking weed as it not only harms their health but also reduces their creative thinking capabilities.

A new study has found that smoking weed may put you at risk of losing your creativity as well as make you less aware of your mistakes.

The findings showed that cannabis users were less able to brainstorm, a mental process that is crucial for creative performance.

Mikael Kowal, Psychologist at the Leiden University in the Netherlands said that there are a widespread belief among users that these drugs enhance creativity. This experiment disproves that belief.

Kowal also demonstrated that for chronic users, the brain processes involved in monitoring mistakes also work less effectively.

A high dose of cannabis seems to influence both the unconscious processing of mistakes and the later and more conscious stages of error processing.

Kowal further added,'' It is important that we gather more knowledge about the effects of cannabis on a person's ability to detect mistakes. This can help with putting together a treatment programme for drug addiction''.

In addition, the research also indicated that cannabis disrupts the activity of dopamine -- a chemical in the brain important for the proper working of the brain and also plays a role in learning performance.

With chronic users a significant reduction was seen in the frequency of spontaneous eye blinking, an indication of a reduction in dopamine production, the researchers said, in the paper published in the journal PhD defence.

In the study the researchers assessed 40 regular users of cannabis, to study the direct and chronic effects of cannabis on dopamine-related functions, such as creative thinking and the ability to recognise one's own mistakes.

(With IANS inputs)