Microdosing the Right Way

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Considering microdosing for a way to better control your mental health is just one small step towards big change.

The effects of using psychedelics to treat common mental and mood disorders have been researched often since the 1960s, and possibly even before. With many similar treatments being traced back to shamanic rituals in ancient civilizations. The conclusions being that psilocybin, along with other psychedelic substances, are an incredibly useful adjunct when contending with mental issues like depression or anxiety.

There are a few problems with bringing these time tested and trustworthy interventions into modern day society though. Psilocybin is still a schedule I drug in most of the world, making it classified as an illegal substance. Research has largely focused on single dose, hallucination-inspiring treatments that can leave some participants slightly uncomfortable with their experiences. Buying shrooms, Canada or elsewhere, can be an incredibly difficult situation, especially when you’re attempting to consume very specific doses. As mushrooms can contain wildly different concentrations of psilocybin, making it hard to approach dosage schedules with any measure of certainty.

Despite all of these roadblocks, microdosing psilocybin to address mental disturbances and promote convergent and divergent thinking strategies, is still gaining traction. With both the lay public and scientific communities alike, making it more important than ever to understand how to microdose the right way.

What Is Microdosing?

Microdosing is the act of taking sub-hallucinogenic doses of known psychotropics in order to obtain beneficial mental, physical, and emotional results. Someone who engages in microdosing will take such a fractional amount of these substances, that it’s rare for them to feel noticeable effects immediately. Because of this, microdosing schedules can be used practically, without interfering with normal habits of daily living.

Microdosing Psilocybin and Mental Health

To understand how finding a shroom dispensary could be correlated with positive mental health outcomes, you have to understand the neurochemical rationale behind the practice of microdosing. The effects of psilocybin on the brain are fairly well researched, despite the fact that microdosing itself hasn’t been. This is largely in part to the fact that few studies regarding dose scheduling have been done, as most psilocybin based studies focus on its effects in the brain.

Studies throughout the years have shown correlations between psilocybin use and a reduction in depression and anxiety. It is believed that this correlation has to do with how psilocybin affects the neural pathways throughout the brain, but particularly those located in the area of the brain that regulates the “sense of self”. For many ingrained depressive disorders and mental dysfunctions (such as obsessive-compulsive disorders), psychologists suggest that these sense of self areas are too connected, leading the people that suffer these issues to be too involved in cognitive processes that inhibit fluid thinking and neuroplasticity. In short- they’re over thinkers.

So while multiple studies have suggested psilocybin and other psychedelics as an intensive, long-lasting, and useful treatment for depression (where one professor of neuropharmacology and PhD at Johns Hopkins University equates the effects with “surgical intervention”), none of these studies have been double-blind, microdosing focused trials. Leaving the lion’s share of scientific evidence regarding microdosing psilocybin as anecdotal and more qualitative than quantitative. But the existing data suggests that using smaller doses, on a more frequent schedule, could realistically provide the same results, without the experience of going down a hallucinogenic rabbit hole.

Not only that, but microdosing allows users to continue to interact with their schedules and social circles normally, throughout the treatment process. With many participants reporting elevated mood, increased creativity, and more fluid thinking processes following a few weeks of a microdosing program, without requiring the oftentimes alienating experience of a shroom sabbatical.

Finding a Shroom Dispensary

As former schedule I drugs, like CBD and THC become available for recreational use and microdosing, Canada and the United States having both legalized marijuana, there are hopes that psilocybin and similar psychotropics should follow suit. Specifically as risks of side effects and overdose are exceptionally low, especially when engaging in microdosing schedules. Unfortunately, perhaps the biggest risk in choosing to try microdosing is purchasing the mushrooms, unless you can find a shroom dispensary.

Shroom dispensaries are exceptionally useful for a number of reasons, but what really makes them stand out as a great choice is the reliability and quality of the products they sell. As for buying shrooms, Canada hasn’t made the practice legal per se, but they have seemed to provide a legitimate line for sufferers looking to find quality and reliable psilocybin online, by providing digital shroom dispensaries. Aiding people who are in need of better treatments for ailments long endured. Shroom dispensaries offer pre-dosed psilocybin, in the low concentrations required for microdosing. Creating ease of consumption and consistency of absorption, taking the guesswork out of dosing schedules and quantities.

Microdosing Schedule and Dosage

Microdosing schedules are very personal. This is largely because each person’s pathophysiology will react differently to psilocybin. For both inexperienced and experienced individuals, it’s best to find a minimum threshold dose prior to mapping out the microdosing regimen that works ideally. This can be achieved by taking a slightly larger amount than the lowest recommended dose. Once you have found an amount that produces mild, but noticeable effects, step down until you reach a dose that isn’t immediately noticeable. This can be considered the lowest threshold. As you continue along a microdosing schedule, the lowest threshold may change, and you may need to slightly increase your dose in following weeks.

There are many microdosing “schedules” that are suggested, with Dr. James Fadiman’s approach being the most popular and well publicized. Fadiman suggests taking one microdose every three days. This can help prevent changes in tolerance over time, allowing a small “reset” to baseline between doses. Other schedules suggest microdosing once daily, throughout the work week, leaving weekends for recovery. Other schedules suggest taking once microdose every other day, and then moving to a more fluid “as needed” approach. Using the first few weeks to establish a baseline, and then tapering off and only using microdoses and a participant feels they need them.

Because of each very individual response to microdosing, it’s difficult to suggest which schedule will be right for any given individual. This is why it’s important to pay close attention to how you’re feeling throughout the treatment, adjusting doses and schedules to feelings of personal wellbeing, while being hyper-vigilant against taking large doses, or starting and stopping treatment abruptly.