Inside your body is a built-in control system designed to keep everything stable — your mood, sleep, pain levels, appetite and immune response.

It’s called the Endocannabinoid System (ECS), and scientists only discovered it in the 1990s while trying to understand how cannabis works. What they found was surprising: cannabis doesn’t create something new in the body — it interacts with a system that already exists.

The ECS uses natural compounds, specialised receptors in the brain and immune system, and enzymes that switch signals on and off. Whenever the body detects stress, inflammation or imbalance, this network activates to restore equilibrium.

Understanding this system helps explain why cannabinoids affect so many different functions at once.