Psilocybin therapy – and in particular microdosing psilocybin – is the new craze and with just reason given the host of mental and physical concerns that can be treated with psilocybin even in minuscule quantities. If you’re new to the practice of microdosing, read on to learn about what microdosing is, how to do it, and the promising results of research focusing on microdosing mushrooms, as well as more extensive findings based on the experiences of microdosers.
What Is Microdosing?
Microdosing is taking a small amount, usually between 0.1 and 0.5 g, of psilocybin mushrooms in order to obtain a lot of the same benefits of a larger dose of psilocybin without the psychedelic effects, which imply a greater time commitment than the effects of a microdose and are simply not everyone’s cup of tea.
What We’ve Learned from Microdosers Themselves
Microdosing, although not new at all as far as traditional practices go, is still new in the world of modern scientific research. Dr. James Fadiman, who is responsible for a great part of what we currently know about microdosing, carried out his research in a very clever way, especially considering the legal obstacles interfering with research. Basically, Dr. Fadiman requested that people, who were already microdosing, tell him about their experiences microdosing with psilocybin. Many of these people had been struggling for years with depression or anxiety and were either not seeing results from conventional treatments or were seeking to avoid the negative side effects of these treatments. The following are some conditions being successfully treated with microdoses of psilocybin according to microdosers:
- Different forms of anxiety
- Depression
- Depression phase of bipolar disorder
- Trauma (decrease in triggers)
- Different types of substance abuse (tobacco, coffee, Adderall, Venlafaxine)
- Headaches/migraines
- Menstrual period pain
- Stuttering
Aside from success treating these mental and physical health concerns, microdosers reported the following benefits:
- Better health habits (food choices, exercise, yoga, meditation)
- Improved quality and enjoyment of work
- Increased creativity
- Decreased procrastination and writer’s block
- Enhanced learning and attention
- Greater personal and work-related insights
- Greater capacity to live in the present
It seems like even without enough formal, rigorous scientific studies, there is still enough evidence to encourage giving microdosing magic mushrooms a try, especially considering that psilocybin is safe and non-habit-forming.
What Else Do Studies Show about the Effects of Microdosing Shrooms?
Although we are still lacking rigorous scientific research on microdosing psilocybin, preliminary studies are very promising and confirm a lot of anecdotal findings. A study carried out by Johnstad in 2018 found that microdosers for the most part reported positive outcomes regarding mood, energy, and cognition. Also in 2018, Prochazkova and others found that microdosing increased both convergent and divergent thought, which in turn contribute to increased creativity.
In 2019, Anderson and others found that – in comparison to non-microdosers – microdosers reported lower levels of negative attitudes and emotions, and greater wisdom, open-mindedness, and creativity. Other studies have even found that microdosing might be able to replace conventional psychiatric treatments since it has proven effective in reducing stress, improving mood, and lessening symptoms of depression, anxiety, PTSD, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. An additional study published in 2021 found that microdosing helped people with substance dependence, specifically alcohol and tobacco, to decrease their use of these substances or even to abstain from them completely.
How to Microdose Psilocybin Mushrooms
Since microdoses are such small amounts of magic mushrooms, these doses can be taken more frequently than psychedelic doses. People who microdose will usually consume psilocybin on a weekday and go about their lives as usual, including going to work or school. In fact, as we have seen, many microdosers take psilocybin to help them learn or to enhance creativity, which can help with work-related projects.
There is no standard way to microdose since our knowledge of microdosing is still in infancy. However, we do know that our bodies quickly build up a tolerance to psilocybin, so most people intersperse microdose days with rest days to allow psilocybin to once again make its full impact.
Probably the most common microdosing schedule is the one proposed by Dr. Fadiman. Dr. Fadiman proposed leaving three days between microdoses so that all psilocybin would be flushed out of the body before taking another dose. Another possible schedule is the one recommended by mushroom enthusiast Paul Stamets, who suggests taking a microdose of psilocybin every day for four days and then resting for three.
You might still be wondering how to actually consume a microdose of magic mushrooms. Do I have to bite off a very small piece of mushroom? Do I need to take out a kitchen scale to measure an exact amount? Well, yes, and yes; you can certainly do both those things. However, you can also buy ready-to-consume, precisely dosed, and labelled microdoses in many presentations and concentrations of psilocybin. Ready to shop? Check out our selection of microdose psilocybin capsules today!