What causes a particular kratom product to affect one person in a powerful and distinct manner, but have a very different impact on another person? Why would a type of kratom, for example, make one person relaxed and even drowsy, while making another person energetic and productive?
One thing to keep in mind is what you do right after you take your kratom dose. Activity tends to make the kratom effects kick in quicker and with greater potency.
If you sit around reading a book, go visit a neighbor to chat, or decide to watch a movie — you’ll probably have a different set of effects from your friend who immediately after taking their kratom, always gets up and active, moving around, re-arranging a closet, playing a musical instrument, riding a horse, shopping at the mall and trying on clothes, painting a room, engaging in gardening activities, working on a physical labor-intensive project, mowing the lawn, shoveling snow off the driveway, or going for a long walk.
You may have heard someone rave about, say a Green Maeng Da kratom, and how effective it was for both pain and anxiety relief — but when you tried it, it was okay, but it wasn’t nearly as good as Red Bentuangie. Why is this?
The answer is first of all, because effects are subjective and nobody is using the exact same definitions all the time. What you would call “mild and pleasant”, someone else might call “smooth but weak”. When you use the terms “strong and fast-acting”, someone else may say, about the same exact kratom product, “too potent for comfort, had to reduce the dose amount by half”. If you say “I get fantastic energy and productivity for chores that I normally avoid”, someone else might state “I felt jittery and became a bit too active.”
In addition, there are many factors that contribute to how a specific type of kratom will impact you. What works well for one person may not work quite as well for another individual. And what works great for a long time may suddenly not have the same reliable effect you were counting on.
Kratom can have different effects on you due to physical and environmental aspects of the kratom itself.
Kratom as a natural plant varies in region of origin, vein color, plantation farm vs. wild jungle growth, harvesting techniques, maturity of leaves (more mature forms are called Horn or Elephant due to the leaf characteristics), drying method, soil components, environmental purity, rainfall levels, climate conditions of growth period, fermentation process (if used), and other factors.
Kratom is harvested and shipped in different lots and batches. One lot or batch of the same kratom (e.g., Green Maeng Da) may have different effects for you than another lot or batch of the exact same kratom supplier, strain, and origin.
Then kratom can also have different effects based on your own personal life. Your body has a different internal chemistry than your friends or kratom users who talk about strains of kratom in online forums.
How a specific type of kratom works for you is also dependent upon your mood, your diet, your expectations, your physical health, and whatever other drugs or herbal substances you may be taking at the time.
Of course, the amount of kratom, how many grams, you use per dose, and how frequently you take a dose, will have a huge impact on the results you get from any specific strain, lot, or batch of kratom product you buy.
If you take 8 grams of Red Bali kratom 4 times a day, you may have very different effects from it than someone who uses only 4 grams of Red Bali once a day and skips days.
Potentiators are also a contributing factor, which are the substances people may use to boost the effects of kratom. For example, many use toss and wash, and use grapefruit juice to wash down the kratom powder and to speed up the effects. Mixing kratom powder in applesauce, orange juice, or coffee will have some impact on the results you get, too.
All these personal factors can have a significant impact on how one type of kratom affects you versus another type.
How you take your kratom can also have a really big impact.
There is toss and wash, brewed tea, fresh leaf chewing, mixtures, and capsules. Each method of using kratom has a different impact on you — much like how smoking cannabis has a different result from consuming marijuana as edibles, THC beer, dabbing, vaping, or oils.
For example, taking kratom in capsules prevents you from tasting the bitterness of the herb, but capsules need more time to dissolve and enter your system. Toss and wash tends to act faster and with far greater potency of effect than capsules or brewed kratom leaf tea, especially when you use grapefruit juice to wash down the kratom powder.
So if you see someone rave about how effective a White Jongkong has been for boosting mood and providing increased energy, chances are that you’ll get a similar effect — but if you don’t, you now understand the many different plant and personal attributes that factor into your experience with a specific type of kratom.
You may on rare occasions even get almost no effect at all from a certain type of kratom! While this almost never happens, it is possible that a kratom product not give you hardly any of the typical effects that you expect.
Did you get ripped off? Was the kratom diluted or harvested too early or contaminated with non-kratom plant substances? Probably not, though, depending on the vendor, these things might be happening.
Leaf of Life Botanicals tests every strain, lot, and batch of kratom, using independent, non-affiliated 3rd party laboratories and publishes the test results online. You may request to see a lab test analysis at any time when considering the purchase of a kratom product from Leaf of Life Botanicals.
You need to realize that when a certain type of kratom doesn’t seem to be working like you thought it would, the issue of a decreased effect might be something about you — or it might be one, or a combination of, the variety of aspects of that kratom at that given time.
So, although general statements can be made in product descriptions and in actual customer reviews, each type of kratom will have a unique effect on you, depending on all these many conditions and attributes that are involved. If your experience of a specific kratom product is different from what was stated in a product description or a comment by an enthusiastic user of that kratom, you will be reassured that so many factors are involved, there is bound to be some variation in how that kratom impacts individual persons.
This is a good time to bring up, in conclusion, the issue of developing a tolerance. If you use the same type and vein color of kratom all the time, you run the risk of forming an immunity to it as far as relief from pain, anxiety, lethargy, or depression.
It’s okay to favor, for example, the Green Borneo, for your specific individual needs. You may love it and be totally satisfied with it. But if you never use any other kratom, if you never vary your kratom by vein color, region of origin, drying method, leaf maturity, etc., your body will eventually get accustomed to that specific kratom product and it will decrease in its effectiveness. How long this process will take depends on many things, but it will probably be noticeable within 1 or 2 years, maybe longer, maybe not as long a period of time.
This is why we urge you to (if possible) skip days and also rotate the types of kratom you use. You can continue to have a favorite kratom, but you need to introduce a variety of different strains into your system to prevent forming a resistance to the effects of a specific kratom alkaloid profile.
Vary your kratom usage by vein color, region of origin, leaf maturity, growth conditions, drying methods, and any other factors you can discover about the kratom you buy. You can also vary the overall alkaloid profile by making your own mixtures of 2 or more types of kratom.
It’s best, though, to keep the different strains separate, so, for example, if your pain is worse on a certain day, you can reach for a strong Red Borneo that tends to be highly effective for pain relief, rather than having all your kratoms mixed up into one big blend, where the effects will not be differentiated.
Rotating your kratom is a very successful method for avoiding tolerance. For example, if you prefer green vein kratom, go ahead and use white, red, pink, yellow, chocolate, and purple now and then.
All kratom has the same fundamental, basic overall effects, with some moderate to slight variations — so you probably won’t be suffering anything unpleasant by simply changing from one vein or strain to another once in a while. You may even decide to have a very systematic rotation schedule and choose to purchase a wide variety of smaller bags of kratom, rather than always buying the largest bag of one specific type of kratom.
Have fun being creative with your kratom rotation schedule. Monday, you use Green Borneo. Tuesday, go with Red Bali or White Elephant. Wednesday, it’s Super Yellow. Thursday, take Pink Bunny Blend. Friday, perhaps White Sumatra or Royal Bentuagie. Saturday, you sprinkle a little Red Sahara Extract into your Chocolate Bentuangie or White Horn. Sunday, you either take a break from kratom altogether — or you take some Strawberry Fields Blend, with a bit of White Aceh and Green Enlightened mixed in.
Kratom naturally comes in only one plant color, green — and in only 3 leaf vein colors: red, white, and green. Purple tends to describe a mix of many types of kratom and all 3 vein colors, pink refers to white and red vein blends, while gold, chocolate, and yellow refers not to leaf color, but to special drying and/or fermenting processes.
You might also try using some kratom tinctures, stem and vein, extracts, or enhanced versions now and then, to vary the alkaloid profiles.
Why does kratom have different effects on different people at different times? The mystery is now explained, your understanding is deeper, and your concerns are hopefully all resolved. Enjoy your amazing adventure in the kingdom of kratom, our beloved beneficial plant! If you need more personalized information, please feel free to contact us.
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