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Researchers have discovered a very important link between meditation and microdosing- get ready to buy shrooms, Canada.
For decades finding a shroom dispensary was downright impossible, as public sentiment and stigma looked unfavorably upon magic mushrooms. Canada has begun to step up however, making it easier to offer people who are genuinely interested in microdosing a reliable source for their mental health supplies. Cancer patients are now being offered the chance to try mushrooms in a safe setting, and more and more research is being applied to further investigate the purported properties of “magic mushrooms”.
Canada isn’t the only country that has taken a keen interest in the process, as the UK has also begun to relax more restrictive laws regarding psilocybin. Even Switzerland has begun to probe the possibilities of microdosing psilocybin by releasing a new study that explored the possible synergistic effects of using psilocybin to facilitate meditative practice and benefit.
The Incredible Weight of Being
Using meditation to become present, to transcend the oftentimes overwhelming sense of anxiety, depression, hopelessness, or self-consciousness that we all feel from time to time has become more than just a fad- but a cornerstone of a comfortable existence. Whether it is our brain’s near primal need for conflict or fight, or a symptom of a living under the pressures of contemporary society, it can be difficult to tell who is really behind the curtain. Since nearly the advent of psychology, philosophical factions of nature versus nurture have long argued the roots of our most common problems. Largely coming up wanting for a clear answer. What we do know is that these feelings of unease exist, and are possibly more prevalent than ever.
And so, we find ways to attempt to quell the symptoms that they present, rarely addressing a root cause- because frankly, no one can seem to agree on what the root cause may be. Theories go in and out of fashion, but few conclusions are reached. We fight sleeplessness with sleeping pills, intrusive thoughts with pills for anxiety, antidepressants for depression. All which at the best of times only seem to dull the edge off of the intensity that these feelings can bring with them. Numbing ourselves. Meditation looks to offer a different kind of solution to our problems however, as it aims to take time to be introspective, to shut off our often diatribing internal monologue and offer a moment of much needed disassociation from our chaotic thoughts.
What is Mindfulness Meditation?
It’s often said that anxiety is just a fear of the future, and depression a regret of the past- with either mental affliction resulting from the person experiencing it living anywhere but the present. It’s believed that if we should train our minds to be focused on the present moment, instead of fraying the future with our worrying minds, or putting the past on repeat, desperately searching to change things that we can’t. Allowing ourselves to focus on the present offers us to wield a greater control of ourselves, which in turn can affect what we expose our environments to. Many believe that this type of focus can be achieved by meditation, and science just revealed that mushrooms can help make it happen.
Practicing mindfulness through meditation can help us to also appreciate the things around us, particularly those bits of natural beauty and comfort that we often take for granted. As we pay more attention to both our physical and mental surroundings, we are able to shake ourselves free of… well, ourselves. Allowing each individual to take a step back from their own thoughts and deal with their feelings from a more analytical lens. Microdosing psilocybin, or taking larger doses or mushrooms, has been shown to help increase the speed at which we can reach this sort of ego dissolution, giving us the outward perspective that we need to be able to adequately address our problems and appreciate our surroundings.
Benefits of Mushroom-Mediated Meditation
This “self-transcendence”, the act of going beyond ourselves, can be enhanced with psilocybin. In the recent study by the University of Zurich, 40 meditation experts were involved in a double-blind study that was aimed at seeing if psilocybin could actually enhance the effects of meditative mindfulness and sustain them. The results were sound- mushrooms and meditation exhibited symbiotic effects on the other. While the psilocybin allowed the meditators to more often achieve an intense feeling of self-transcendence, the meditation seemed to mellow participants’ reactions to the substance, reducing anxiety and any dysphasia effects the psilocybin might have.
The group that had received the psilocybin also reported more lasting benefits to the mindful meditation they engaged in. Where four months later they reported better psychosocial function, self-acceptance, and more empathy than those who received the placebo. Which seems to corroborate researchers’ interpretations of MRI brain scans that suggest a neurological “rewiring” in patients that are given psilocybin. Which suggested that psilocybin interacted with areas of the brain that are thought to regulate ego-dissolution, a large part in self-transcendence.
Microdosing Guide to Meditation
These types of studies, in conjunction with the piles of anecdotal evidence suggesting a wide range of mental health benefits of microdosing, may lead to better treatment regimes for patients that suffer from a number of different mental health problems. Such as anxiety, depression, insomnia and many other affective disorders. As microdosing would more closely resemble legacy drug scheduling, in that patients would not need to endure mind-altering situations to reap the benefits that psilocybin offers. Which could see psilocybin fit into everyday schedules and work/life demands. Making it a very enticing treatment option, as it is low cost, widely accessible, and incredibly safe. Much more so than drugs that are standard lay prescribed currently. Specifically if mindful meditation is used in conjunction with microdosing. Canada is set to see these figures blossom first hand, as many shroom dispensaries exist with little or no legal implications.
