What are the long-term effects of micro-dosing psychedelics? ☼

Dec 29, 2021

Read this helpful Doubleblind Magazine article by Bailey Rahn covering what we know about the benefits + disadvantages of long-term dosing and how to best re-set your tolerance.

‘So you’re interested in microdosing psychedelics. You’ve read story after story about all the ways that small, sub-perceptible doses of LSD, psilocybin, and other psychedelics are helping folks remove creative blocks, solve stubborn problems, find focus, improve relationships, and lift depression. Based on these stories, microdosing seems like a promising solution to many daily plagues, especially in a society that stresses productivity above all else—including your mental health.

However, the longer you microdose, the more often you might be thinking, how might this be affecting my brain and body in the long-term?

...One theory powering long-term microdosing has to do with neuroplasticity, which is the brain’s ability to change or reorganize neural connections over time. One study published in 2018 found that classic psychedelics like LSD and DMT encouraged new connections in the brain, leading the authors to hypothesize that psychedelics might provide novel approaches to depression treatment. - “The neuron is essentially healthier, more vibrant, and has more connections,” Dr. Fadiman said in regard to neuroplasticity research during a DoubleBlind webinar. “It may be—we have zero laboratory evidence—that when you’re taking [psychedelics] over time and your health, attitude, and mental functioning improve…that you’re building a healthier inner brain lattice or network of neurons that have been improved by their exposure to microdosing.

According to one systematic investigation of microdosing published in 2019, the benefits of microdosing were more accurately described as fleeting than lasting...it seems as though the window of benefit for microdosing is generally confined to the time during which you are actively microdosing. In contrast, large doses of psychedelics have been associated with sustained transformative benefits long after the initial dose.’

Art by @micro.dosis.mx