Women, Hormones & Cannabis: Why Your Body Changes How the Plant Feels.

In this episode, we explore why so many women notice that cannabis feels different depending on where they are in their cycle, throughout perimenopause, or during periods of stress and hormonal change.

We unpack what’s actually happening in the body, why this experience is common (and normal), and how women can work with their changing physiology instead of blaming themselves or assuming something has gone wrong.

This episode builds on last week’s conversation about the endocannabinoid system and brings the focus specifically to women, hormones, and lived experience.

In this episode, we cover:

• Why cannabis can work beautifully one month and feel overwhelming the next
• How the endocannabinoid system interacts with estrogen and progesterone
• Why midlife women notice these changes more clearly
• The difference between microdosing as restriction versus microdosing as body literacy
• Why timing and nervous system state matter more than strain names
• Practical ways women can adjust their approach during hormonally sensitive times

Key ideas discussed

• The endocannabinoid system plays a central role in regulating mood, pain, sleep, inflammation, and stress
• Estrogen has been shown to influence cannabinoid receptor sensitivity, particularly CB1 receptors
• Hormonal fluctuation, rather than hormone loss, is a major factor in why experiences change during perimenopause
• Women often experience stronger subjective effects from THC at lower doses compared to men
• Cannabis tends to amplify the existing state of the nervous system rather than override it
• Learning to work with context, timing, and subtle dosing can make cannabis feel more supportive and less destabilising

Support the show
Canna Curious is produced independently. If you’d like to support the podcast, you can Buy me a coffee

Share this episode
If this conversation might help someone you love — a friend, a partner, a patient feel free to pass it on.

Thank you for listening, and for being part of this community.

Research and further reading

Cannabis, estrogen, and the endocannabinoid system

The Endocannabinoid System and Sex Steroid Hormone Signalling
A comprehensive review exploring how estrogen and progesterone interact with endocannabinoid signalling pathways.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3863507/

Sex Differences and the Endocannabinoid System
A review outlining biological sex differences in cannabinoid metabolism, receptor expression, and subjective effects.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8216879/

Estradiol Regulati

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Support the show

Connect with Kyla de Clifford
Instagram: @cannacuriousaus
TikTok: @cannacuriousau
YouTube: @cannacurious

If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, share, and leave a review - it helps the podcast reach more curious minds just like you.

Disclaimer:
We are not doctors, and this is not medical advice. Everything shared here is based on our personal lived experiences and the stories of others. Always speak with a qualified healthcare professional before making any changes to your health or wellness routine.

In this episode of the Canna Curious Podcast, Kyla slows things right down and returns to the foundations.

Before conversations about strain names, dosing, or delivery methods before stigma, shame, or opinion this episode asks a simpler question:

What is actually happening inside your body when you take cannabis?

This episode is for patients.

For women who turn to this plant not to escape their lives - but to cope with pain, stress, hormonal change, burnout, grief, or nervous system overload.

At the centre of this conversation is the endocannabinoid system (ECS) a regulatory system that exists in all of us, whether we ever take cannabis or not.

In this episode, Kyla explores:

• What the endocannabinoid system is - and why it’s not a “weed system,” but a core biological regulator
• How the ECS was identified in the 1990s through cannabinoid research by scientists including Ally Howlett and Raphael Mechoulam
• The three key components of the ECS: receptors, endocannabinoids, and enzymes
• The roles of CB1 and CB2 receptors, and how THC and CBD interact with them differently
• Why your body makes its own cannabinoids — and even passes them through breast milk
• Why relief from cannabis looks different for everyone, and why variability is expected - not failure
• How hormones, stress, nervous system state, and life stage (including perimenopause) influence response
• The difference between regulation and escape, and why many women use cannabis to stay present not numb
• Why dosing can feel unpredictable, and why curiosity works better than rigid rules
• How one-size-fits-all advice often creates shame and what a body-literate approach offers instead

Support the show
Canna Curious is produced independently. If you’d like to support the podcast, you can Buy me a coffee

Resources & Further Reading

Understanding the Endocannabinoid System

These sources support the explanation of the endocannabinoid system as a regulatory system involved in balance, pain, mood, sleep, inflammation, and stress:

• Di Marzo V, Piscitelli F. (2015). The endocannabinoid system and its modulation by phytocannabinoids.Neurotherapeutics, 12(4), 692–698.
  https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13311-015-0376-6
• Lu HC, Mackie K. (2016). An introduction to the endogenous cannabinoid system. Biological Psychiatry, 79(7), 516–525.
  https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006322315002127
• Pertwee RG. (2015). Endocannabinoids and their pharmacological actions. Handbook of Experimental Pharmacology, 231, 1–37.
  

"Send us a message"

Support the show

Connect with Kyla de Clifford
Instagram: @cannacuriousaus
TikTok: @cannacuriousau
YouTube: @cannacurious

If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, share, and leave a review - it helps the podcast reach more curious minds just like you.

Disclaimer:
We are not doctors, and this is not medical advice. Everything shared here is based on our personal lived experiences and the stories of others. Always speak with a qualified healthcare professional before making any changes to your health or wellness routine.

As the year draws to a close, Kyla pauses - not to summarise, but to sit inside what this season of listening has actually revealed.

Recorded from Melbourne, in a softer and more honest state than usual, this solo episode reflects on thirty-three conversations about women’s health, relief, regulation, and the quiet ways women learn to manage their bodies inside imperfect systems.

At the centre of the episode is a question Kyla has been carrying since the very beginning of the podcast:

What actually happens when women stop whispering about medicine?

This is not an episode about trends, tips, or solutions.

It’s about:

• why women whisper in the first place
• how shame still shapes the way relief is accessed and talked about
• what Kyla has noticed listening to women across diagnoses, ages, and lives

Throughout the episode, Kyla speaks candidly about:

• whispering as a learned survival strategy
• and the steadiness she witnessed when women were given language, curiosity, and trust

Rather than positioning the plant as a fix, this episode explores what cannabis use revealed:
the gaps in care, the lack of education, and the unmet needs women have been navigating for years.

This conversation is for anyone who has:

• softened their language to be taken seriously
• questioned whether their relief was “allowed”
• carried shame alongside something that helped
• or felt like they had to work it out on their own

"Send us a message"

Support the show

Connect with Kyla de Clifford
Instagram: @cannacuriousaus
TikTok: @cannacuriousau
YouTube: @cannacurious

If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, share, and leave a review - it helps the podcast reach more curious minds just like you.

Disclaimer:
We are not doctors, and this is not medical advice. Everything shared here is based on our personal lived experiences and the stories of others. Always speak with a qualified healthcare professional before making any changes to your health or wellness routine.