The anxiety/paranoia thing has to do with the trichomes at harvest (clear - cloudy - amber), not so much the cure...but....
You can smoke your weed whenever you want. Even pull a bud right off the plant and light it up. It's not going burn for crap or taste very good, but it will taste better than the tippy-toppest-shelf bud you have ever smoked - because you grew it!
Dry it too fast, or at too high of heat and you end up with a pile of something that smells like hay and smokes like Prince Albert in a can, lol. Just awful.
Great place to start while your plant is still on the hoof:
https://www.growweedeasy.com/drying-curing
You have some choices to make - wet or dry trim - depending on your climate. Where I am, I have to do a wet trim because we have webbed toes in the PNW - nothing dries out without help, lol. But someone in a dry climate would want to do a dry trim if slowing down the dry necessary. So many decisions, so little weed, LOL.
I found the wait till it was cured properly to be
the one thing I had trouble with the first grow. I was just far too excited and curious about the process - it was more of a scientific exploration than a crop at that point, lol. So much trouble waiting for a proper cure I have no idea what my weed does when it's cured right because we smoked all of it,..except the trim. That cured just fine, LOL. The 2nd run of the same strains is about to come off and I find I'm not as eager to try it until it's really ready. But I recommend trying it throughout the cure your first time (or any time

) because the only way to learn why is to walk through the process.
My 2 cents usually turns into 73 cents. I apologize, lol.