If you want to be more productive, a morning microdose might be just what you need. A recent study found that low doses of psilocybin increased task motivation, attentional accuracy, and impulsive action in low-performing rats based on repeated behavioural tests. The findings suggest that microdosing may have potential to treat major depressive disorder.
It’s clear that psychedelics are helpful in treating depression, but have you ever wondered why they work so well?
When someone suffers from depression or chronic stress, they typically have a reduction in neural connections, but psychedelics might be able to reverse this. A study at Yale just revealed that one dose of psilocybin can increase these neuronal connections by 10%. The dose also increased the density of dendritic spines (those little spikey things on nerve cells), making the connections stronger. About a third of the new connections remained intact after 34 days.
A study suggests that psilocybin therapy is at least as effective in treating depression as the leading antidepressant, but with fewer side effects and faster results. After six weeks, participants receiving psilocybin therapy saw an 8.0 point reduction in depressive symptoms and reported “greater improvements in the ability to cry and feel compassion, intense emotion, and pleasure”. Participants receiving escitalopram, a leading SSRI antidepressant, saw just a 6.0 point reduction in depressive symptoms, and were more likely to experience side effects like anxiety, dry mouth, sexual dysfunction, and reduced emotional responsiveness.
A recent NYU study found that psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy significantly reduced suicidal ideation in advanced cancer patients. Patients saw improvements in existential distress as early as 8 hours after the first dose, and the positive effects lasted over 6 months after the second dose.
Psychedelic drug users might be healthier than non-users, according to a recent study.
A survey of over 170,000 people showed that those who have used psychedelic drugs (14% of respondents) reported better overall health and were significantly less likely to be overweight or obese compared to non-users. The University of Oxford researchers suggest that transcendent psychedelic experiences might result in “long-term changes in health behavior that contribute to better physical health.”
In a study published in Psychopharmacology, 44% of survey respondents reported that microdosing psychedelics significantly improved their mental health, with 50% reporting that they were able to stop taking antidepressants completely. In a separate study, microdosers were significantly less likely to report a history of substance use or anxiety disorders, with an average dose of 0.3 grams of psilocybin or 13 micrograms of LSD taken every three days. In the 2019 Global Drug Survey, microdosers often reported “enhanced mood, creativity, focus, and sociability”, with the most common reported challenge of microdosing being “none”.
A study at Johns Hopkins Behavioral Biology Research Center found that 80% of participants were able to quit smoking for at least six months after taking one dose of psilocybin, including one participant who was a heavy smoker for over 25 years. This suggests that psilocybin therapy is over twice as effective as the leading smoking cessation drug, varenicline, which has a 35% success rate after six months. Dr. Albert Garcia-Romeu explains that psilocybin is effective for treating addiction because it changes the way the brain makes connections, which can “interrupt old patterns, well-worn neuro pathways, or habits.”
Research suggests that psychedelic drug use is linked to decreased criminal behaviour.
An analysis of 13 years worth of survey data revealed that psychedelic drug use was associated with decreased odds of past year theft, assault, arrest for property crime, and arrest for violent crimes by 27%, 12%, 22%, and 18%, respectively.
The use of other illegal drugs was associated with increased odds of criminal behaviour.
“These findings are consistent with a growing body of research suggesting classic psychedelics confer enduring psychological and prosocial benefits.”
If cancer patients have the right to end their suffering through assisted suicide, shouldn’t they have the right to end their suffering through psilocybin therapy?
In a Johns Hopkins study, 92% of cancer patients saw significant reductions in depression and anxiety 5 weeks after a single high dose of psilocybin. After 6 months, 78% still had significant reductions in symptoms.
Many of the 51 participants described a sense of infinite love, peace, and oneness, and several were able to come to conquer their fear of death.
“It was so powerful and so profound that it just took my breath away… I feel like it changed my life”, said one participant, Anthony Head.
In a Johns Hopkins study, 36 volunteers who had never taken hallucinogens were given high doses of psilocybin. They were told to “focus explicitly on the phenomenology of the drug experience rather than perform tasks”. 14 months after the trip, 67% of participants rated it as one of the top five most spiritually significant experiences of their lives, and six people said it was the single most spiritually significant experience. 64% said the experience increased their well-being and life satisfaction.
