PMS: How microdosing helps against mood swings and menstrual complaints
Why PMS is not 'normal' but a sign of imbalance For many women, PMS is a monthly reality: fatigue, mood swings, irritability, headaches and cramps. But
Clinical research indicates that psilocybin can be used to provide a wide range of therapeutic health benefits. We continue to explore the 15 most promising health benefits of psilocybin and the clinical evidence supporting them.
Deeply rooted in ancient traditions and imbued with mystery, magic truffles have been considered a gift from Mother Nature throughout history. But these little treasures not only offer a single enchanting journey; they also harbour a wealth of health benefits that have stood the test of time. Step into the enchanting world of magic truffles as we take you on a journey of discovery through the 15 most remarkable ways these natural wonders can enrich your well-being. From enhanced mood to deeper insights, we reveal the secrets of the magic truffle that are sure to amaze you.
What is Psilocybin?
Besides fats and polysaccharides, the truffle also contains, in low doses, the substances psilocybin, psilocin, baeocystin and many other nutrients. Psilocybin is one of the active ingredients present in natural truffles. Psilocybin is a naturally occurring substance belonging to the class of tryptamine alkaloids and is chemically related to the neurotransmitter serotonin. Psilocybin has a similar chemical structure to serotonin. Psilocybin affects the brain by integrating with serotonin receptors, particularly the 5-HT2A receptor and is a neurotransmitter involved in regulating mood, sleep and appetite.
Psilocybin is metabolised to psilocin in the liver, the active form that directly affects the nervous system. Psilocin exerts its effects by interacting with serotonin receptors in the brain, particularly the 5-HT2A receptor. This leads to changes in normal neurotransmission, resulting in altered perceptions, thoughts and emotions.
Psilocybin and psilocin have the power to alter a person's perception, thoughts and emotions. An altered state of consciousness and a deeper connection with the inner world allowing changes to begin to take place.
There is a considerable amount of clinical evidence indicating that psilocybin can be used to dramatically reduce the symptoms of long-term depression.
The first-ever clinical trial to assess the efficacy of psilocybin in treating long-term untreatable depression offered 12 otherwise healthy volunteers a series of doses. In the trial, individuals who received psilocybin showed dramatically reduced depressive symptoms for up to three months after administration.
Psilocybin was administered to the trial participants at a primary dose of 10 mg. A secondary dose of 20 mg was given a week later, with a third and final dose of 25 mg in the final week of the trial. The trial showed that psilocybin could significantly improve symptoms of anxiety and help participants feel pleasure in life.
Another study investigated the therapeutic potential of psilocybin in treating 15 people diagnosed with treatment-resistant depression. Within a week of the end of the study, participants reported less pessimism and an overall improvement in mood balance.
All available evidence indicates that psilocybin, when combined and administered with comprehensive psychological support, enables people diagnosed with untreatable depression to have a more positive outlook on life and leave their condition behind.
The success of these studies has led to the design of additional studies, both ongoing and planned for the future.
There are many different symptoms associated with cancer and terminal illness, but one of the symptoms most often overlooked is the existential anxiety experienced by those diagnosed with incurable terminal illnesses.
Terminal illness-induced anxiety can result in poor clinical outcomes and cause the development of further psychological disorders, and is an important factor in the management of terminal illnesses.
However, in multiple clinical trials, psilocybin has been shown to rapidly and dramatically help individuals diagnosed with terminal illnesses and cancer to change their outlook on life and potentially produce better clinical outcomes.
Clinical studies on the impact of psychological states on the clinical efficacy of medical treatments indicate that finding meaning can help diagnosed individuals summarise despair and hopelessness in positive self-examination.
When prescribed and dosed in a safe, supportive environment, psilocybin combined with psychotherapy has been shown to help people with terminal illnesses regain a sense of meaning and improve long-term mood stability, as well as minimise the anxiety associated with death.
A clinical study on the effects of psilocybin on 12 people diagnosed with advanced cancer provided the participants with a small dose of psilocybin. The results indicated that a small dose could improve mood balance two weeks after administration, which the participants maintained for 12 months.
The study also showed that psilocybin is able to minimise anxiety for three months after treatment, without study participants experiencing anxiety during the altered sensory perception induced by psilocybin.
In another clinical trial, 51 patients diagnosed with cancer and suffering from depression were given a relatively high dose of psilocybin. Each participant received 20 mg to 30 mg of psilocybin, which resulted in dramatic changes.
Trial participants experienced significantly less depression and anxiety, as well as reduced fear of death. Participants also reported increased quality of life and general optimism. The psilocybin-induced changes were sustained by participants over the course of 6 months.
Overall, the study showed that psilocybin is able to improve overall wellbeing and health by improving life attitudes and interpersonal relationships, and by providing subjective personal existential insight.
Psilocybin has been shown in clinical trials to minimise the negative symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder, also known as OCD. Participants in a clinical trial of psilocybin use in people diagnosed with OCD were given 4 different doses of psilocybin, each at 4-week intervals.
Interestingly, the specific dose of psilocybin given to participants did not matter - microdoses as small as 25 micrograms per kilogram of body weight and high doses of 300 micrograms per kilogram of body weight all provided the same relief from compulsive behaviour and unwanted repetitive ideas
Moreover, psilocybin has been shown in clinical trials with animal models to eliminate the behaviour associated with obsessive-compulsive disorder
There are many different types of addiction, both neurochemical and psychological. Some of the earliest clinical studies on the health benefits of psilocybin, conducted in the 1950s, found evidence that psychoactive compounds derived from mushrooms could potentially help addiction.
Early studies on psilocybin and addiction found that the introspective mental state caused by the compound could actually promote sobriety and positive behavioural patterns. This research is partly why these compounds are called "psychedelics", which etymologically analysed means "mind-manifestation".
Newer modern research into the uses of psilocybin reinforces previous evidence that it can be used to treat addiction. Psilocybin has been shown to help treat and prevent tobacco and alcohol addiction, as well as addictions associated with substance use disorders.
Interestingly, psilocybin is not addictive. With extremely low toxicity and as a completely safe compound when used in a clinical setting, psilocybin is completely different from all pharmaceutical solutions currently used to combat addiction.
Evidence gathered in clinical trials focused on the use of psilocybin to treat addiction indicates that a single dose and session can cause profound behavioural changes that last for a long time.
Psilocybin & Alcoholism
Specific clinical studies on psilocybin and alcohol addiction show that it is able to promote higher and more consistent levels of abstinence from alcohol use. In a clinical study assessing the impact of psilocybin on 10 people with alcoholism, all participants experienced a dramatic improvement in their condition.
Treatment with psilocybin in the alcoholism study was accompanied by a three-month motivational therapy regime. The benefits of the combination of psilocybin and motivational therapy lasted six months after the end of the sessions, showing a clear relationship between session intensity and the effectiveness of alcohol abstinence and reduced craving benefits.
Psilocybin & Smoking
Tobacco smoking is notoriously difficult for smokers to quit. Psilocybin, however, helped 12 out of 15 trial participants in a clinical trial to quit smoking completely, without any side effects.
Participants in the psilocybin and tobacco smoking trial each received a moderate dose of 20 mg per 70 kg and a high dose of 30 mg per 70 kg over a 15-week period. Six months after the end of the trial period, 12 of the individual participants had permanently quit smoking. The evidence gathered in this study indicates that psilocybin has a success rate of 80% in terminating smoking addiction.
An interesting fact recorded during the trial is that the more intense the introspective and "mystical" experiences reported by the participants were, the stronger the reduction in cravings - up to six months after the study.
Many of the studies mentioned above refer to the "mystical" experiences reported by participants in the studies. These experiences, driven by introspection and self-realisation, had a strong correlation with improved outcomes in all the studies, as well as greater health benefits and psychological improvement.
Patients with cancer who received psilocybin, for example, had significantly better mood balance and well-being improvements when their self-reported mystical experiences during psilocybin therapy were more intense. Similarly, individuals suffering from alcohol dependence were much more likely to abstain from alcohol consumption when exposed to a strong mystical or spiritual experience during psilocybin therapy.
The evidence gathered in these studies related to self-actualisation suggests that the contemporary medical framework, which is mainly focused on the outcome, may possibly neglect the importance of psychological experiences in the healing process of the human body. Meaningful psychological experiences could potentially provide more effective health benefits than currently thought in modern medical science.
Several leading scientists investigating the psychosomatic implications of healing and cessation have indicated that the experience of "deep wonder" and the feeling of overcoming a limited sense of self could be a driving factor in causing the long-term benefits of psilocybin therapy.
A specific clinical study sought to explore the spiritual and religious implications of psychedelic therapy. Conducted on 30 religious or self-proclaimed "spiritual" individuals who had never experienced psychedelics before, the study offered participants 8-hour sessions of psilocybin at a relatively high dose of 30 mg per 70 kg of body weight.
During the study, participants were instructed to focus their attention inward and close their eyes. When surveyed two months after the study, participants described the experience as one of deep personal meaning and profound spiritual significance. Most participants attributed positive lifestyle changes to the psilocybin sessions.
In a follow-up session conducted 14 months later, 70% of the participants described the experience as one of the five most spiritually significant and meaningful experiences in their lives, with 64% of the participants also reporting that the experience improved their overall well-being and life satisfaction.
The psychological changes induced by psilocybin have considerable potential to help treat post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. However, it is important to note that all available evidence regarding PTSD and psilocybin is limited to clinical trials conducted on animal models.
In a clinical study, traumatised mice were administered psilocybin to reduce anxiety response. The mice in the study were classically conditioned via sound signals announcing electroshock to PTSD-like symptoms. In a similar way to humans suffering from PTSD, the mice responded to the sound in a Pavlovian manner and exhibited painful symptoms even when the electroshock was absent from the sound signal.
However, low doses of psilocybin enabled the mice to transcend the fear response, with mice given higher doses showing a greater capacity to transcend conditioning.
Interestingly, the mice in this study also showed an increase in neurogenesis. This process causes the growth and repair of brain cells in the hippocampus, a brain region closely linked to the regulation of mood, memory and emotions. When the process of neurogenesis is blocked in animal models, anxiety responses increase. In neuroimaging studies in humans, individuals diagnosed with PTSD have smaller hippocampal areas of the brain.
These studies indicate that psilocybin could potentially promote neurogenesis in the human brain, which could help individuals with PTSD or neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease or dementia.
Neurogenesis plays an important role in many health problems and brain functions beyond the limited scope of PTSD. Promoting growth and cell renewal in the brain can potentially help manage depression and anxiety, as well as contribute to brain repair after traumatic brain injury, improve cognition and promote overall brain health.
Psilocybin has been shown to promote neurogenesis in traumatised mice, but several other clinical studies have shown that the substance can stimulate both neurogenesis and the formation of new connections, or synapses, in both in vivo and in vitro models.
Other interesting data collected in clinical studies show that psilocybin and other psychedelics can increase the number of branching brain cells and improve their overall neuroplasticity, which has profound effects on the processes of learning and memory retention.
The way emotions function is intrinsically linked to the structure of the human brain. A clinical study on the influence of psilocybin on emotional responses and mood gave 17 healthy adults psilocybin and subjected them to an emotional response test.
During the study, participants were shown a series of photographs of people. Individuals who had received psilocybin showed increased interest in the emotional states expressed by the people in the pictures, as well as in their facial expressions.
Another clinical study examined 25 healthy adult participants using neuroimaging. Study participants showed improved mood as a result of reduced reactivity of the amygdala to stimuli associated with negative reactions. In this way, psilocybin has been shown to enhance positive mood.
The influence of psilocybin on mood and emotional balance could function as a new and innovative therapeutic method for the management of various psychological disorders, such as bipolar mood disorders and possibly even schizophrenia. Individuals with depression and anxiety exhibit an overactive amygdala, which is linked to triggering negative moods
Dreaming is a poorly understood but crucial function of the human brain and consciousness. In multiple clinical studies, both medium and high doses of psilocybin have been shown to induce a "dream-like" state in individuals.
Scientific studies have shown that there are many similarities in terms of brain function between dream states and the brain state associated with psilocybin-induced altered consciousness. Similarities between the two states include altered sense of self and body, altered sense of perception, altered mental imagery, unorthodox emotional activation and extinction of anxiety-associated memories.
These mental states are closely related to lucid dreaming, which is characterised by a fusion of waking and sleeping, or dreaming, mental states.
Some analyses conducted by leading scientists argue that the out-of-body experiences reported by people who have nearly died and those under the influence of psilocybin and other psychedelics are caused by the same brain pathways
Further research into the benefits and interactions of psilocybin on the human brain could provide a significant amount of data on altered states of consciousness and how the human mind functions.
Creativity is a difficult-to-measure function of the human mind, but there are several clinical studies indicating that psilocybin can actually increase a user's overall creativity.
However, there are a number of measures that can be used to measure creativity in an empirical sense, such as cognitive flexibility, divergent thinking, correlative thinking and the ability to associate data, the use of intense mental imagery, unique use of language and words , and the ability to find meaning in music or other stimuli.
Clinical studies conducted in the 1960s have shown that there are some similarities between the psychological element of the psychedelic experience catalysed by psilocybin and the characteristics of creative people.
These data indicate that psilocybin can potentially function as a creative nootropic supplement when given the right dosage and situation. However, more research is needed to determine whether the use of psilocybin as a creative nootropic is empirically demonstrable and feasible.
Some clinical studies assessing the performance of individuals given psilocybin have provided conflicting data on the overall performance impact of psilocybin on the human brain.
Interestingly, however, psilocybin appears to have a beneficial effect on memory retrieval, altering working memory functions at extremely high doses of more than 30 mg per 70 kg of body weight.
Psychotherapy is one of the largest and most interesting uses of psilocybin. Early clinical studies conducted with psilocybin in the 1950s were mainly concerned with psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy, a concept that is currently being explored in modern clinical settings.
Most of the clinical studies referenced in this blog on the health benefits of psilocybin show that the health benefits of psilocybin are only accessible in combination with some form of psychotherapy or supportive psychological environment.
However, music plays an important role in psilocybin psychotherapy. Clinical studies have shown that music used in combination with psilocybin during psychotherapy sessions is able to support meaningful insights and direct subjects' mental images and thought processes towards a productive therapeutic state.
In the 1960s, a small but important clinical study was conducted indicating that psilocybin could potentially be used to minimise criminal behaviour and promote a lower recidivism rate for released prisoners.
In the study, released prisoners received psilocybin psychotherapy as part of a programme for release from prison, and showed reduced criminal behaviour in the short term. However, the study was not followed up, with no further support for inmates after release.
However, the research does show that psilocybin promotes positive behavioural patterns that could potentially be applied in the rehabilitation of prisoners and their return to society.
Psilocybin has not yet been shown to directly interact with the immune system, which is responsible for inflammation, but there is a growing body of evidence indicating that psilocybin can reduce inflammation in specific cases.
Inflammation is responsible for a variety of health problems, from joint pain to neurodegenerative disorders. Research using animal models on the effect of psilocybin on inflammatory immune responses has shown that low doses of psychedelics can reduce inflammation.
These insights have led to new research efforts to explore the potential application of psychedelics such as psilocybin as novel and effective anti-inflammatory solutions.
Cluster headaches and migraines can be extremely debilitating health conditions that negatively impact the daily lives of diagnosed individuals. There are many natural options outside traditional pharmaceutical drugs to treat these conditions, such as CBD hemp oil, but psilocybin has recently emerged as an effective alternative.
Clinical studies have shown that psilocybin can prevent migraine-induced panic attacks as well as cluster headache attacks.
There is a large body of evidence in the form of self-reported benefits of psilocybin users for headaches available online, but a relatively recent clinical study provides further evidence. In the study, 53 people diagnosed with cluster headache who had previously used psilocybin or LSD reported benefits from psilocybin use.
Of the 26 people who had previously used psilocybin, 22 reported that their headaches had decreased in severity, while half of them reported that their cluster headaches had stopped completely.
Who should not microdose
Tinnitus
People who suffer from tinnitus have reported that their tinnitus (tinnitus) worsened during microdosing, it did not stop their tinnitus or it remained the same.Clinical studies and research on microdosing
Conclusion
In conclusion, microdosing with truffles and raw cocoa is a potential avenue of therapeutic relief that has recently been developed. Although much remains to be studied about the possible effects and benefits of microdosing, the potential may prove to be considerable. With caution and responsibility, it can be an effective way to improve mental and physical health and productivity. With increasing interest in the field of microdosing, we can look forward to further developments and insights into this emerging therapeutic practice.
Disclaimer
Microdosing truffles is a personal choice and should not be taken lightly. Research has been done on the potential health benefits, it is important to note that microdosing involves the use of potent substances and can lead to adverse side effects if not taken correctly and responsibly. As with any medicine, it is advised to use accordingly and consult a doctor if in doubt.
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