Bong hits are undoubtedly more potent and effective than other ways of smoking cannabis. No wonder the popularity of bongs is at an all-time high. You can find numerous head shops online that sell a wide range of bongs in different shapes, designs, colors, and patterns. Many of them come with various functioning mechanisms, such as a gravity bong that gives you a more significant and more potent hit.
Though bongs are an effective way to smoke up, many rookie smokers are unaware of how to make the best use of their bongs. If you have just recently started using a bong, a little advice can help you make the best of your bong. Therefore, here are nine tips to maximize the effectiveness of your bong.
- Find the right herb
A perfect bong session is incomplete without the right herb. The herb quality determines the potency of the hit; you don’t want a harsh drag and a bad trip. Choose your usual herb that you smoke regularly. If it’s your first time using a bong, you should be keeping it simple. Avoid experimenting at this phase and stick to the usual.
- Perfectly grind the herb
Once you choose your herb, the next step is to grind the herb. Herbs often contain seeds and stem that you need to remove before smoking cannabis. Manually eliminating the stem can be time-consuming and challenging, but you can use a herb grinder to grind the herb and achieve an even texture. It will give you a smoother toke while maximizing the high.
You can find a variety of grinders in different materials like steel, plastic, and wood. If you are a true cannabis connoisseur, you should consider getting a handmade artisanal herb grinder. Head shops online offer handcrafted grinders made with premium materials and will look perfect in your collection.
- Get the right bong
Now comes the best part, choosing the right bong is essential for a perfect smoke sesh. Whether you are a rookie or have good experience in smoking bongs, selecting the right bong can be difficult. With so much variety available at your disposal, it can be challenging to make a choice. You get to see a lot of variety in the material also. Metal, acrylic, silicon, ceramic, glass are some of the materials that are used for making bongs.
Finding the right bong is more accessible now with all the head shops. There are numerous head shops online that offer top-quality bongs in different sizes, shapes, and colors. The search filters on the website can help you find the perfect bong according to your choice of size, color, and budget.
- Practice Your breathing
Smoking through a bong and cigarette is different. When you smoke a cigarette, you take smaller hits. That isn’t the case with bong hits. Using a bong involves taking a deeper bong hit for better effect. That is why taking slow and deep breaths while using a bong is essential. Practice deep breathing to expand your diaphragm before picking a bong and start smoking. That way, you take the smoke deeper and smoother. It will also improve your breathing capacity so that you can take more significant hits effortlessly.
Any cannabis enthusiast would tell you that alcohol and cannabis do not go well. Alcohol decreases your breathing capacity, so avoiding alcohol can help you increase your breathing capacity, and you can take deeper hits. Now you have one more reason to stay away from alcohol.
- Chew a mint while taking bong rips
The popular opinion says that coughing means you are smoking it right. Though the percolators help cool down the effect, the smoke still dries your throat, causing a dry mouth. It leads to excess coughing. Thankfully there’s a way to avoid that. You can chew a mint while ripping a bong. The mint helps salivate your mouth so it doesn’t dry up. That means you can take smoother hits and not cough your lungs out.
- Cool the smoke
Hot smoke can damage your throat and lungs in the long run. That’s why it is essential to cool down the smoke before you hit it. Fortunately, you can do that with a perc bong. A perc bong comes with a percolator that filters and cools the smoke. The percolator is an extra filter that passes the smoke through water and turns it into vapor. That way, the smoke gets calmer and easier to hit.
Apart from the percolators, there are other ways to cool down the smoke. You can use a bong that allows ice hits. There are small notches in the ice bong’s neck where you can place ice cubes. After passing the smoke through water, it passes through the ice cubes cooling it down further. That way, you can take even smoother and cooler hits. Some bongs also have ash catchers holding the ash and keeping the smoke cooler.
- Check the water content
The water level plays a key role when using the bong. The water level determines whether you will have smoother tokes or not. Remember to submerge the stem of the bong into the water. If you are using a percolator bong, you should dip it into the water as well.
- Gradually take out the bowl
Many percolator bong smokers usually remove the bowl with haste. Maybe they want to achieve a dramatic effect or don’t know any better. Regardless of the reasons, it would help if you never remove the bowl in a hurry. It’s a known fact that removing the bowl allows more smoke through the bong to your lungs. Slowly removing the bowl will release the smoke at a reasonable and tolerable pace. That means you can take smoother hits while your lungs can better receive the smoke and process it.
- After-toke care
Smoking the bong correctly is only half the work done. It would be best if you exhaled the smoke properly to avoid coughing. The leftover smoke causes coughing after exhaling it. You can apply a little force to exhale the smoke. Instead of exhaling all the smoke at once, you can also exhale half the smoke, then take a short breath and exhale the residual smoke out of your lungs. That short breath will lead the residual smoke out of your body. After exhaling the toke, take some more breaths to give your lungs a few breaths of fresh air. It’s also good to drink some water to restore the moisture content of your mouth and throat.
Smoking a bong doesn’t have to be challenging, especially if you know what you need to do. Rember to start slow and gradually build your tolerance and smoking capacity to make the most of your bong.