[ad_1]
The other day, I went to hit the ground with a friend for the first time in years. When he arrived late, he pushed the ball in my direction and I picked him up on the run and I hit his left foot in the center of the ball. I rushed to catch him behind the goals and my second touch consisted of a curved banana kick that was hiding in front of the sideline and leaning back to divide the goalposts.
My friend raised an eyebrow. "Go back to mushrooms, man?" He asked.
About 35 mg of powdered magic mushrooms one hour in advance were enough, about one-hundredth of a solid trigger dose. It was as if the intermediary between my body and me had been removed from the photo, and with it gone, I was feeling clearer than I had been for weeks.
Without thinking, I could feel my muscles with more precision and intensity, hence the two goals and a surge of energy as we ran around the oval.
Later in the evening, discussing the imminent apocalypse around a bottle of wine with friends, I noticed that my neurotic clouds seemed to be completely dissolved. My talk about Trump and his trauma seemed to me more fluid and it was a joy to rub shoulders with old friends – a global warming that worsened over the course of the week.
Microdosing was introduced to the world a few years ago in a book titled The guide of the psychedelic explorer by Dr. Jim Fadiman. He conducted clinical studies on LSD in the 1960s, before the war on drugs.
In 2010, he learned that Albert Hoffman, the chemist who had discovered LSD and psilocybin (the active ingredient in mushrooms), regularly took small amounts in the last decades of his life. "And he was giving a two-hour speech on the occasion of his 100th birthday," laughed Dr. Fadiman from his home in California.
RELATED: New Study on the Benefits of LSD Microdosing in the Workplace
Dr. Fadiman included a chapter on this in his book and people started to get in touch. From such DIY origins, it spreads quickly underground. Dr. Fadiman suggests taking about a tenth of a full dose of LSD or fungi every three days, but like me, many participants are modifying the protocol as they see fit. Another legendary mushroom expert, Paul Stamets, recommends a much lower dose five days a week.
The idea is to take a sub-perceptual or threshold dose – such a small amount, literally a little pinch in my case, for which there is no hallucinatory effect. As Dr. Fadiman describes it: "When you walk past flowers, they do not turn to look at you, but, like when you're feeling really good, the grbad may be a little brighter."
Dr. Fadiman now has thousands of case reports from people in 30 countries, describing a plethora of benefits. The theme, he said, is "better" – better sleep, better nutrition, better academic grades.
Many report that microdosing helps with depression. Some people talk about quitting drinking or smoking. "It's going to sound like bullshit," said Dr. Fadiman, "but it just seems to improve the way your system works, like a superior quality motor oil. We are seeing that people's healthy habits are improving. "
At this point, I should confirm what you are probably already wondering: yes, microdosing is currently illegal. In fact, as a Schedule 9 drug in Australia, psychedelic substances are at the same level as heroin or methamphetamine. And yet repeated studies over the last decade have shown that they are very safe.
Large-scale studies have shown that the use of psychedelic substances is actually correlated with better mental health outcomes and a reduction in suicidal ideation compared to the general population.
Clinical studies with high doses administered with therapeutic support have even been shown to be highly effective in the treatment of mental illnesses: psilocybin is currently undergoing clinical trials to treat treatment-resistant depression and is hailed as "Disruptive therapy" by US regulators.
Admittedly, taking large doses in an uncontrolled environment carries significant risks, but the experts felt that the relative danger was much lower than that of cannabis, tobacco or, worse, alcohol.
Certainly, there is less research on microdosing. A researcher from the Beckley Foundation, who runs the first placebo-controlled microdose trial in the UK, told me: "Leaving aside all the legal issues, we still do not even know what its effects are. But people do microdosing – we want to know what's going on. "
They are not the only ones. Recent studies in Canada and the Netherlands have shown that microdosing improves openness and creativity – which partly explains its popularity in Silicon Valley, where coders would find it to help solve problems – as well as emotional health in general.
The best research on microdosing to date, however, comes from here in Australia. Dr. Vince Polito, a cognitive science scientist from Macquarie University, tested 63 people who were already performing a microdose at the beginning and end of his six-week study. They showed significant reductions in depression and stress during the microdosing period, which Dr. Polito said was "consistent with the information that microdosing is beneficial to mental well-being in general".
However, Dr. Polito's study, published this week in the journal PLOS ONE, also revealed a slight increase in neuroticism, a result reproduced in another study by Edith Cowan University in Perth. "It's a surprising discovery," he told me. "Perhaps it is linked to an increase in emotional expression."
And that's the problem – he's not always there. I regularly feel a little frantic or restless for a few hours after microdosing, like a TV being tuned. Normally, this hubbub of mental static is resolved into an image with a much higher definition, but sometimes it does not take, and the anxiety remains uncomfortably compensated all day long.
Dr. Fadiman believes that "it is not that you are more anxious, it seems that you are more aware of your anxiety".
The increase in the number of connections is the main theme of all these invisible activities. This is also the main result of the Macquarie study. The measure that has changed the most is "absorption", the ability of imaginative experience, related to aesthetic appreciation and connection with nature.
Carolyn Gregoire, author of Wired to create, said that absorption increases our access to creative inspiration.
"The capacity for psychological absorption allows us to live more deeply the world around us. If we think that creativity connects points in one way or another, greater absorption creates more points and more connection opportunities. "
That's what I feel. Depression, for me, is a wall of glbad that separates me from the world, and I've been stuck behind it for most of my life. When the wall dissolves and I can get into the sunlight, it's like being reconnected to a source of energy and emotion that I would not otherwise have access to.
Last year, I worked very hard in retirement homes with extraordinary but extremely unstable teenagers. One afternoon shortly after I arrived, I was stressed and had trouble communicating with children who, by their childhood, are naturally on the defensive (like me). Frustrated after work, I microdosed, and the next day, I made a breakthrough: I spent the shift near a waterfall and had fun doing them. shops with both girls.
A few weeks later, one of them turned to me and said, "You know, Jesse, it's weird. Normally, it takes me about a year to trust male workers, but it's only been a month and I already trust you. We have our little fights and then we continue. It was a sweet moment.
It's not that I was able to establish these links so quickly because of the mushrooms, it's me who do it. Microdosing helps me get out of my own way. And it's certainly not the only way to break through – I always think hard and frequent drills are the best drug in the world – but every little bit matters, and I'll accept any help.
When you choose between easy, natural and fun, or self-conscious, slow and tense, I choose good every time.
Of course, everything could be in my head. A second part of Dr. Polito's research examined attitudes toward microdosing in 236 respondents. "Overall, people were waiting for anything that could improve to improve."
But he notes that the pattern of expectations does not match the benefits found in the first study. "It sort of indicates that the results of our first study are not entirely due to expectations. I am less skeptical than at first. "
Dr. Fadiman believes that we may never know if these experiences are all in our minds. "But when a person who has been depressed for 15 years and has taken 10 medications and feels better every time she microdoses, I believe them."
I am inclined to accept. This is not a miracle solution, but as part of a balanced diet, I know that mushrooms do me good. When it works, it really works, striking through the partition between the world and me. Other times, when the walls in my mind are thicker, I need a bigger pestle hammer. Anyway, microdosing is just a tool – I have to do something about it.
This is a personal account and news.com.au does not advocate the use of illicit drugs, nor does it imply that its use will contribute to the management of mental illness.
Source link
