ANXIETY | +70 articles

[mr peabody]

Chronic, intermittent microdoses of DMT have positive effects on mood and anxiety*

Cameron, Benson, DeFelice, Fiehn, Olson (2019)

Drugs capable of ameliorating symptoms of depression and anxiety while also improving cognitive function and sociability are highly desirable. Anecdotal reports have suggested that serotonergic psychedelics administered in low doses on a chronic, intermittent schedule, so-called “microdosing”, might produce beneficial effects on mood, anxiety, cognition, and social interaction. Here, we test this hypothesis by subjecting male and female Sprague Dawley rats to behavioral testing following the chronic, intermittent administration of low doses of the psychedelic DMT. The behavioral and cellular effects of this dosing regimen were distinct from those induced following a single high dose of the drug. We found that chronic, intermittent, low doses of DMT produced an antidepressant-like phenotype and enhanced fear extinction learning without impacting working memory or social interaction. Additionally, male rats treated with DMT on this schedule gained a significant amount of body weight during the course of the study. Taken together, our results suggest that psychedelic microdosing may alleviate symptoms of mood and anxiety disorders, though the potential hazards of this practice warrant further investigation.

Mood and anxiety disorders are among the leading causes of disability worldwide, and antidepressants remain one of the most highly prescribed medications in the United States. Current therapeutic strategies for treating these disorders are slow-acting and prove to be ineffective for many patients. Thus, there is a critical need to develop new treatment strategies for these disorders.

Serotonergic psychedelics, such as LSD, psilocybin, and DMT have a long history of use as experimental therapeutics in the clinic for treating depression, anxiety, and substance use disorder. However, it is unclear whether hallucinogenic doses of these drugs are required for them to produce therapeutic effects. Psychedelic microdosing—the practice of administering sub-hallucinogenic doses of psychedelic compounds on a chronic, intermittent schedule—is rapidly gaining popularity due to its alleged antidepressant and anxiolytic effects. Despite the prevalence of psychedelic microdosing, there are essentially no peer-reviewed studies that have investigated the potential benefits and risks of this practice.

Psychedelics are potent psychoplastogens, and their effects on neural plasticity have been invoked to explain their long-lasting behavioral effects related to mood and anxiety. Previously, we observed that even a low dose of DMT caused changes in the frequency and amplitude of spontaneous excitatory postsynaptic currents in the prefrontal cortex of rats that lasted long after the drug had been cleared from the body. Therefore, we hypothesized that administration of this low dose on a chronic, intermittent schedule might impact behaviors relevant to mood and anxiety that involve the PFC.

Here, we demonstrate that chronic (∼2 months), intermittent (every third day), low (1 mg/kg) doses of DMT facilitate fear extinction learning and reduce immobility in the forced swim test without producing the anxiogenic-like effects characteristic of a high dose (10 mg/kg). However, the former dosing regimen also significantly increases bodyweight in male rats. Taken together, the data presented here suggest that sub-hallucinogenic doses of psychedelic compounds might possess value for treating and/or preventing mood and anxiety disorders. Despite the therapeutic potential of psychedelic microdosing, this practice is not without risks, and future studies need to better define the potential for negative neurobiological or metabolic repercussions.

*From the article here :
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acschemneuro.8b00692 ​

 

[mr peabody]

Ketamine an effective treatment for anxiety*

by Dalton Hemsworth | Sep 19 2019

FDA initially approved ketamine as a painkiller, but many health centers are using it to treat mental disorders, such as anxiety, treatment-resistant depression, and PTSD.

The reasons behind its growth in treating mental disorders are its effectiveness and fast action, with very few side effects.

Because of the gaps in modern treatment, ketamine is dominating as a more promising drug in the treatment of anxiety disorders, such as PTSD. Reflecting how widespread PTSD is, ketamine can produce a significant change for many patients who struggle with this debilitating condition.

Effects of modern medicines used to treat anxiety

Experiencing occasional anxiety is normal, but people struggling with anxiety disorders have extreme, persistent fear or worry about their daily activities. Anxiety disorders keep people from enjoying a healthy life, and constant worry can be overwhelming and disabling. Anxious people avoid events or places that remind them of the feelings that triggered their anxiety.

The medications used to treat anxiety are benzodiazepines (for short-term use), and SSRI (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors) recommended for long-term anxiety treatment. Other common medications are tricyclic antidepressants, and SNRI (Serotonin-Norepinephrine Reuptake Inhibitor).

These drugs can offer temporary relief, but more often associated with side effects, significant consequences, and safety concerns. Others like benzodiazepines are very addictive and difficult to stop using without suffering from severe withdrawal symptoms.

Some of these drugs do not treat anxiety disorders but only control their symptoms. Besides, researchers have raised many questions about the long-term use of these medicines.

For instance, according to the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP), benzodiazepines lose their curative anti-anxiety results after four to six months of regular use.

Additionally, recent studies published in JAMA Psychiatry found that health providers have overestimated the effectiveness of SSRIs in treating anxiety disorders, and in some cases, it is worse than placebo.

Furthermore, patients have difficulties when they need to stop using anxiety medications due to severe withdrawal symptoms, including relapse anxiety which could be worse than the original anxiety problem.

Also, patients who use these anxiety drugs may fail to respond well to treatment, forcing them to try various combinations until they find one that works best.

Ketamine a breakthrough treatment for anxiety

Fortunately, ketamine has proven very effective in treating anxiety disorders. The primary procedure used by health providers to treat anxiety is known as ketamine infusion therapy.

Ketamine therapy procedure has also shown remarkable results to patients struggling with depression, bipolar disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder apart from treating anxiety disorders.

For patients who suffer from mild to severe anxiety, they may find it challenging to deal with daily life stressors. They may also fail to respond well to standard therapies, such as counseling and/or the use of sedatives.

However, with the introduction of ketamine infusion therapy, patients experience a calming effect on the nervous system and quick relief within hours.

Ketamine comprehensive benefits with its fast action and fewer side effects imply that health providers should include it as part of anxiety treatment medication. While other psychiatric drugs take more than a few weeks to start showing significant results in the body, ketamine's results are immediate.

Its quick response and other benefits indicate why it should be an exceptional part of anxiety treatment and only qualified professional should supervise its dose on patients

Ketamine infusion therapy

Many clinics use intravenous ketamine therapy to treat patients with anxiety since it works quickly with fewer side effects. Unlike prescription drugs which can take weeks or months to work and involve continuous monitoring to ensure the right dosage, ketamine infusion requires short schedule administration until symptoms disappear.

Many patients usually get relief from symptoms in just a few days after going through the second or third infusion process. Patients receiving ketamine therapy to treat anxiety can lower or eliminate dependency on prescription medication to control their symptoms. They may also have more available energy to adjust to lifestyle changes to keep anxiety away.

Although more research is still required to prove the long-term effectiveness of ketamine, most patients who have used ketamine for anxiety treatment have admired it due to its fast action, strength, and usefulness.

Currently, ketamine infusion therapy is an excellent potential remedy for anxiety disorders, with the ability to reduce its symptoms quickly in a sustainable way. Also, many upcoming clinics and treatment services are opting to offer ketamine treatment for anxiety.

*From the article here :

Why Ketamine Needs To Be a Part of Anxiety Treatment - Daily News IvDaily

FDA initially approved ketamine as a painkiller, but many health centers are progressively using it to treat mental disorders, such as anxiety disorders, treatment-resistant depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The reason behind its growth in treating mental disorders is due to...

www.ivdaily.com

 

[mr peabody]

Psilocybin investigated for its anxiolytic (anti-anxiety) properties

Neuroscientifically Challenged

Recently, psilocybin received recognition as a potential treatment for anxiety. A pilot study conducted explored the ability of psilocybin to reduce anxiety in individuals with advanced stage cancer. Although a small study and exploratory in nature, it suggested that psilocybin could have some benefit in reducing anxiety and improving mood in patients with a terminal illness.

In a study due to be published soon in Biological Psychiatry, a research group in Switzerland explored a potential mechanism for reduced anxiety after psilocybin administration. The authors, Kraehenmann et al., administered psilocybin or placebo to a group of participants. Then, they monitored the participants' brain activity using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while the subjects completed a task that generally increases activation in an area of the brain called the amygdala. The task involved viewing a series of pictures; half of the pictures presented negative stimuli like a car accident, and the other half presented neutral pictures like everyday objects or scenes from daily life.

The amygdala is an almond-shaped collection of nuclei in the temporal lobe (there are actually two amygdalae--one in each hemisphere). Increased activity in the amygdala has been associated with emotional reactions, and especially with fear and anxiety. Hyperactivity in the amygdala has also been observed in depressed patients, and treatment with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) has been found to reduce that hyperactivity. This suggests that increased activity in the amygdala may also play a role in symptoms of depression.

Kraehenmann et al. found that psilocybin administration improved mood and decreased anxiety. But the study also offered some insight into what might be causing that reduction in anxiety. After taking psilocybin (as compared to placebo), activity in the right amygdala was reduced while viewing negative images, and activity in the left amygdala was decreased in response to both negative and neutral images.

Psilocybin is thought to act as an agonist at serotonin receptors, meaning it increases serotonin transmission. Thus, it may be that antidepressants like SSRIs that act on serotonin--at least as part of their mechanism--have something in common with psilocybin. And, it suggests that perhaps psilocybin should continue to be investigated for its antidepressant and anxiolytic (anti-anxiety) properties.

https://www.neuroscientificallychall...d-the-amygdala​

 

[mr peabody]

How I freed myself from anxiety with Iboga

reset.me

About 7 months ago I developed anxiety. It started off with a feeling of tightness in my head and soon developed into panic attacks. Life became so hard and unpleasant to live that I was having suicidal thoughts. The anxiety persisted for months, and I was walking around so hyped all the time I started suffering from hyper vigilance. I would see distortions and trails, and I would hear buzzing and beeping sounds from time to time. I managed to convince myself that it was the beginning of schizophrenia. I started panicking that I would lose my job and all my friends and end up in a mental asylum. Every time I would hear a beep or a buzz in my ears I would have intense panic attacks.

At some point I set myself a goal to become free from anxiety no matter how long it would take or how hard it would be to achieve this goal.

After watching and reading about Aubrey Marcus experience with iboga I decided to give it a try. I did some research and decided to go to an ibogaine provider overseas. After making contact, I was asked to provide a bit of information about myself and the reasons for wanting to do ibogaine. I also had to do an ECG and a blood test to prove that my heart and liver were healthy.

3 months later, I traveled to a tropical island. I checked into a hotel room which was booked by the provider and later that night I met him and his wife. I later found out that he used to be an investment banker before becoming an ibogaine provider full time, which gave me a great sense of respect for him. Both he and his wife were very pleasant, spiritual people, which made me feel like I was in good hands. The couple would take turns sitting next to the patient for the entire time they were on ibogaine. They constantly check the patients blood pressure and heart rate and give the patient water to drink.

The next morning the provider came over. We had a brief chat about what to expect over the next 24 hours and I took a test dose to make sure my body did not have any adverse reactions to ibogaine. After the test dose went down fine, I took the flood dose which consisted of 8 large capsules and lied down in my bed with a towel over my eyes to help with the light sensitivity that was to come.

About an hour later, I noticed the ibogaine coming on when I started hearing mechanical sounds. It sounded like someone was operating a drill or a whipper snipper outside of the hotel room. For the next 8 hours I experienced seeing geometric patterns similar to those that you would see on ayahuasca. I was expecting to feel extremely noxious after reading dozens of peoples testimonials about ibogaine but the feeling never came.

At times I would notice how weak and slow my heart beat was and how shallow my breathing was. I remember thinking to myself: My body is in such a weak state right now that I wouldnt be surprised if I dont get through this experience.

Late into the night, I started having extremely vivid visions. They were as real as reality itself. So realistic that I completely forgot I was on ibogaine. All of the visions had a cartoony look to them. I remember seeing beautiful lightning bolts and gorgeous flowers and thinking to myself: Ive never seen anything more beautiful in my life.

There were two medieval beings who were helping me process childhood traumas and told me some things about my future. In hindsight, after having time to reflect on this experience, I believe the visions were a way for my subconscious mind to communicate with me to tell me where I went wrong and what I needed to do to fix it.

About 20 hours later the sun began to rise and the visions wore off, they were so real that I was convinced that I actually experienced them in the physical realm. When the provider told me he was going to leave me on my own for a couple of hours, I was feeling scared because I was afraid to be left alone with the beings that I had encountered. After he left, I got up to go to the toilet for the first time in 20 hours or so. Once I got up, I started feeling noxious and immediately purged. The after taste of purging ibogaine was very sour, however, it was not anywhere near as foul as the taste of purging ayahuasca.

A few hours later, I had a shower and was back in bed as I was feeling very weak. The provider came over and we had a discussion about what had occurred over the past 24 hours. He told me it would be normal to feel depressed over the next two days and that I would have trouble sleeping. He gave me a bunch of vitamins to help regulate my brain chemistry and to assist with sleep.

I did not feel any depression at all, instead I felt like my mind was in a state of zen. There was no trace of anxiety whatsoever. For the next four days or so I mostly rested in my hotel room. When I went outside, I would experience a whistling sound in my ears and a feeling as though there was an aura around me. The provider told me it was a normal experience after taking ibogaine. I did not get much sleep, but when I did, I had extremely vivid dreams. Some were dark and some were pleasant dreams.

After I returned home, I started noticing the anxiety slowly coming back, but I never worried or got disappointed. I took up meditating every day and started flooding my mind with positive thoughts, which has helped me greatly. I also started reading books and watching videos on the power of the subconscious mind and positive thinking.

It has been two and a half months since my ibogaine journey and my anxiety is barely noticeable. I fully believe that being anxiety free is a reality with an imminent arrival. I feel extremely motivated to be the best me I can be and to pursue all my dreams and goals until they become a reality. Taking ibogaine was a very powerful experience, which shifted my outlook on life in a positive direction.

Having 12 previous ayahuasca ceremonies with which to compare to my ibogaine journey, I feel that ibogaine should be in its own category of psychedelics. I feel it was a much more effective and powerful tool for my problems. It was such a direct experience; I felt like I went deep inside my subconscious and got to communicate to with my soul.

The provider I used stays in touch with all of his patients. He told me that I had been upgraded to a higher consciousness and I am now starting to understand what he meant by that. I am cognizant of always saturating my mind with positive thoughts and my outlook for the future is very positive.

I have an undeniable belief that everything is going to be just fine. In my experience, the 24-hour trip was nowhere near as arduous as I expected, and I recommend ibogaine to anyone that is having a mental problem and needs a positive shift in their life.

http://reset.me/personal-story/perso...ty-with-iboga/​

 

[mr peabody]

How I completely healed my panic attacks with psilocybin mushrooms

by Kevin Stephenson | reset.me | Dec 5 2019

Around this time last year, I was really struggling psychologically from panic attacks. I don’t know what led to this affliction, but it was just awful. When you’re having an attack, you feel intense fear overwhelm you; fear like your life is in jeopardy in situations that warrant no such reaction. You lock up and feel the need to ‘get away’ or feel as if something terrible is about to happen.

In the past, I’ve dealt with anxiety and depression but this was something different. It was debilitating. I would have them when I’d go out to the store or the gym or at work in important meetings in front of my superiors who definitely knew something was up. It was embarrassing and affected my confidence doing anything as I’d always have it in the back of my mind ‘what if I have a panic attack?’

Needless to say, my life sucked and, to be honest, I thought about just ending it.

Fast forward to today and now I’m doing great, I haven’t had a panic attack since and I never saw any professional or took any prescription drugs either. So, how did I do it?

Psilocybin mushrooms. Amazingly, I believe one big 4-gram dose of Amazonian cubensis, a species of psilocybin mushrooms, miraculously cured me of this terrible affliction in one night. Let me explain how it happened.

Last year after suffering from these episodes for a few months which seemed to progressively get worse, I decided to take roll the dice and see if mushrooms could help me. In previous experiences with mushrooms, I felt during a trip that the mushrooms were trying to help me overcome my depression and anxiety by showing me how negative thought patterns and constantly beating myself down is a big contributor to all this. While I very well accept that this is probably just the mushrooms changing my perspective and allowing me to see things from a different point of view, honestly, it felt like I was communicating with something greater that wanted to help me.

This is not uncommon in psychedelics, particularly mushrooms, and many people report having very spiritual experiences and feel like they’re communicating with a higher power and their ability to help people suffering from depression and anxiety is well-documented.

However, panic attacks are a different thing and a serious condition which usually requires years of therapy and a plethora of various prescription medications to overcome. That’s IF you’re lucky.

Now, the risk of taking a heavy mushroom dose when you have panic attacks is it could potentially exacerbate your conditions, and my fear was I could very well be walking into a 6-hour long panic attack which could leave me worse off than I was before.

But, I had faith that they could help me, so I took a chance.

After taking the 4-gram dose all at once (the biggest I’ve ever taken), I laid down in a dark room as I came up as well as for most of the duration of the trip. Occasionally, I listened to my iPod, but mostly I just analyzed my thoughts and tried to find the root of the problem causing these attacks, while at the same time, I tried to prevent myself from having an attack while I was tripping.

I don’t know how it came to me, but while tripping, I somehow got the idea to suddenly focus hard on my breathing when negative thoughts or thoughts of panic would come up. To sort of override them and focus not only on in and out breaths but specifically the sensation of each breath, in an attempt to clear my mind of any bad thoughts. This went on for almost the entire trip and a few times, I would start to feel an attack coming on but I’d go right back to my breathing and, unbelievably, it worked.

It’s almost as if I was strengthening my mind to deal with these attacks as well as developing some sort of psychological immunity to them because ever since that night, I haven’t had one since. While I have had bouts of anxiety here and there, I’ve never had a full-on panic attack where I lock up and feel helpless like I did before. I think this mushroom experience is the reason why.

How I Completely Healed My Panic Attacks With Psilocybin Mushrooms - Reset.me

Around this time last year, I was really struggling psychologically from panic attacks. I don’t know what led to this affliction, but it was just awful. When you’re having an attack, you feel intense fear overwhelm you; fear like your life is in jeopardy in situations that warrant no such...

reset.me

 

[mr peabody]

Sachin Patel, M.D., Ph.D.

Study sheds light on cannabis' calming effects on anxiety and stress*

by Vanderbilt University Medical Center | Medical Xpress | Jan 13 2020

A molecule produced by the brain which activates the same receptors as marijuana is protective against stress by reducing anxiety-causing connections between two brain regions, Vanderbilt University Medical Center researchers report.

This finding, published today in Neuron, could help explain why some people use marijuana when they're anxious or under stress. It could also mean that pharmacologic treatments that increase levels of this molecule, known as "2-AG," in the brain could regulate anxiety and depressive symptoms in people with stress-related anxiety disorders, potentially avoiding a reliance on medical marijuana or similar treatments.

When mice are exposed to acute stress, a break in an anxiety-producing connection between the amygdala and the frontal cortex caused by 2-AG temporarily disappears, causing the emergence of anxiety-related behaviors.

"The circuit between the amygdala and the frontal cortex has been shown to be stronger in individuals with certain types of anxiety disorders. As people or animals are exposed to stress and get more anxious, these two brain areas glue together, and their activity grows stronger together," said Sachin Patel, MD, Ph.D., the paper's corresponding author and director of the Division of General Psychiatry at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

"We might predict there's a collapse in the endocannabinoid system, which includes 2-AG, in the patients that go on to develop a disorder. But, not everyone develops a psychiatric disorder after trauma exposure, so maybe the people who don't develop a disorder are able to maintain that system in some way. Those are the things we're interested in testing next."

The study also found that signaling between the amygdala and the frontal cortex can be strengthened through genetic manipulations that compromise endogenous cannabinoid signaling in this pathway, causing mice to become anxious even without exposure to stress in some cases. This finding demonstrates that the cannabinoid signaling system that suppresses information flow between these two brain regions is critical for setting the level of anxiety in animals.

"We don't know how or why this cannabinoid signaling system disappears or disintegrates in response to stress, but it results in the strengthening of the connection between these two regions and heightened anxiety behaviors in mice. Understanding what's causing that compromise, what causes the signaling system to return after a few days, and many other questions about the molecular mechanisms by which this is happening are things we're interested in following up on," said Patel, also the James G. Blakemore Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Molecular Physiology and Biophysics and Pharmacology.

David Marcus, Neuroscience graduate student and first author on the paper, and Patel are also interested in how the system reacts to more chronic forms of stress and determining whether there are other environmental exposures that compromise or enhance this system to regulate behavior.

*From the article here :

Study sheds light on link between cannabis, anxiety and stress

A molecule produced by the brain that activates the same receptors as marijuana is protective against stress by reducing anxiety-causing connections between two brain regions, Vanderbilt University Medical Center researchers report.

medicalxpress.com

 

[mr peabody]

The great Kava boom: How Fiji's beloved psychoactive brew is going global

by Talei Tora in Suva | The Guardian | 4 Feb 2020

From trendy bars in New York, to anti-anxiety pills sold in Australia and New Zealand, the powdered root is taking off.

On a Friday night in Suva, the capital of Fiji, the Kava Bure is filling up. Groups of people have started arriving to meet friends for a post-work basin or three of kava, a drink made from the root of the piper methysticum tree.

The bar, which is out in the open air with wooden tables surrounded by bamboo fencing, sells $5 or $10 bags of powdered kava. These are mixed in a plastic basin by an elderly Fijian man, who asks patrons if they would like the mix “sosoko” – strong – or “just right,” before giving them the basin and coconut shell bowls for drinking.

“Kava Bure is a place where I can just sit, relax and enjoy myself with friends after a long day at work. Normally, we would go there to have a few basins,” says Ropate Valemei, a frequent patron.

Kava bars are relatively new in Fiji (compared to Vanuatu, where there are more than 300 bars) and reflect the shift of kava consumption from something drunk in traditional ceremonies or shared among family and friends while sitting on the floor around a tanoa (wooden kava bowl) or plastic basin to more commercial spaces.

But the appeal of kava – known to have psychoactive qualities – is no longer confined to the Pacific. There are now 100 kava bars across the US and Australia is preparing to allow commercial importation. In the meantime, the world’s first kava tissue culture laboratory in Fiji has been set up, aiming to increase supply and sell kava in products from a brewable powder to anti-anxiety medication.

'Demand just went up’

Kava sessions can last anywhere from an hour to several hours, sometimes until the early hours of the morning. The taste is earthy and the strong aftertaste is sometimes counteracted by sucking on a lolly or mint after consuming a bowl. In Fiji, seasoned drinkers are “black belts”, who can drink kava for hours, sometimes every day of the week. But for the uninitiated, the drink has an almost immediate numbing effect, which starts from the mouth and then eventually makes its way down the body, leaving a person with a relaxed sensation that gets stronger with every bowl.

But while extremely popular in the Pacific, kava has, for the most part, struggled to cut through internationally, in part due to tight regulations in Western countries, where kava has been blamed for causing liver problems, though evidence suggests this is only the case if kava is taken in conjunction with alcohol or other drugs.

Kava export earnings in Fiji peaked in the 1980s, at more than US $16m per year, largely driven by exports to Europe. After kava was banned in Europe in the 1990s, exports plummeted. But there has been steady growth since then, with the export market growing from about 900 tonnes per year in the 1990s to 6,000 tonnes in 2015.

By 2018, kava export earnings were peaking, with the largest amount being exported to the United States at 148,000kg, 80,000kg to New Zealand and 13,000kg to Hawaii.

Fiji’s kava market suffered a major setback in 2016 when it was hit by Tropical Cyclone Winston, the most intense tropical cyclone on record in the southern hemisphere. Winston devastated the country, causing $US1.4bn in damages – more than one third of the country’s GDP – and wiped out huge swathes of the kava crop.

But kava sellers who have been able to re-establish their businesses are experiencing a huge boom. The lack of kava supplies after the cyclone caused a spike in the price of A-grade kava from about $FJ40-60 to $FJ120 per kilogram. This dramatic increase, combined with a sudden interest in the drink from foreign markets, has meant that more people have begun planting kava crops, and even then they cannot keep up with demand.

Mary Work, a kava stall owner at Suva’s Municipal Market has been selling kava for 18 years and has had a front row seat to the spike in demand. “From my point of view, after the cyclone the demand just went up. And [even with] the high price, they just want it more now,” she adds.

“There is a lot of demand. My husband is supplying the US and they want one tonne every month. He can’t meet the demand. One tonne a month ... And kava takes three to four years to mature.”

“The people are flying over there, even from overseas … and a lot of people from Australia too, like Fijians living there are coming back and planting their kava now, which is good.”

“The demand for kava is so high they [are] beginning to harvest young ones. One year, two year [-old plants], you know, so you getting young ones coming and you don’t allow it to mature because there is a lot of demand.”

Going high-tech

At the other end of the kava market is Fiji Kava Limited, also known as Taki Mai, one of two large kava processing facilities in Fiji. It is the first kava company to list on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) and in 2019 opened the world’s first kava tissue culture laboratory, which will clone parent kava plants and grow standardised, quality-controlled plantlets at its factory in Levuka, the old capital of Fiji.

Fiji Kava’s laboratory sits on a hill behind the 140-year-old Levuka public school, nestled between two kava nurseries. Its factory is unprepossessing from the outside but inside it is a different story. Visitors have to remove their shoes and put on protective plastic feet coverings. The dark rooms are lit by florescent lights and lined with small glass jars holding tiny kava samples.

The company is planning on initially growing 250,000 tissue culture plantlets and hopes to increase this by 500,000 plantlets annually. Fiji Kava Limited currently makes anti-anxiety capsules for the Australian, New Zealand and US markets and instant kava powder.

In October 2019, on a visit to Fiji, the Australian prime minister Scott Morrison announced "the personal kava import limit for people travelling from Fiji to Australia will be increased from 2kg to 4kg, and a pilot program will start by the end of 2020 allowing commercial importation of kava."

At the time of the kava announcement, Morrison described the relaxing of importation rules as a “further demonstration” of the countries’ close relationship. Fiji’s prime minister, Frank Bainimarama, thanked him for the announcement, saying “the whole of Fiji” had been waiting for Australia’s rules on kava to change.

Kava retailer Pauline Benson says even this small increase in a personal importation allowance is welcome. “Australia has always had a huge demand for kava because there's a large Pacific Island population living in Australia and it’s so hard to get kava there… there is still a huge demand,” she says.

Back in Kave Bure in Suva, the tables are full as dusk arrives. Cries of “Bula!” – Fiji’s national greeting – ring out as someone in the kava circle takes a bowl to drink. Ropate Valemei says that while people often arrive at the bar with a few friends, over the course of an evening of drinking they will inevitably make many more. In the Pacific, whether it be for traditional ceremonies or in more modern social gatherings, kava continues to bring people together.

The great kava boom: how Fiji's beloved psychoactive brew is going global

From trendy bars in New York, to anti-anxiety pills sold in Australia and New Zealand, the powdered root is taking off

www.theguardian.com

 

[mr peabody]

How safe is ketamine for anxiety and depression?

by Women Fitness Magazine | 30 March 2020

One in four people have a mental disorder, and the most common mental health issues are anxiety and depression. Anxiety and depression are debilitating mental issues that can take over your life, and can lead to even more serious issues such as excessive drinking.

While both ailments are different, both are treated in similar ways. Many patients opt to take medication for both anxiety and depression, alleviating their symptoms and improving their quality of life.

There are many different anxiety and depression medications out there. But some surprising medications can treat both mental issues, such as ketamine.

Click here and know everything about using ketamine for anxiety and depression.

What is ketamine?

Are you wondering, what is ketamine? Ketamine is an anesthetic discovered in 1962 and approved for medical use in 1970. It was first used on Vietnam War soldiers in the operating room. Because of its safety, it’s also used on small animals during surgical operations.

Since ketamine is a new medication, we’re learning more about its uses and benefits. Its anti-depressant effects were discovered between the years of 2000 and 2006. In randomized trials, ketamine was discovered to improve depression in patients.

In similar tests, ketamine was also found to reduce anxiety and alleviate the effects of specific anxiety disorders, such as PTSD.

Different types of ketamine

There are many different types of ketamine, but two treat depression and anxiety best with few interactions:

- Esketamine
- Racemic ketamine

Esketamine is a nasal spray that activates the S-enantiomer of ketamine. The S-enantiomer produces anti-depressants effects that move through the NMDA receptor, leading to a new growth of nerve connectors.

Racemic ketamine (R-ketamine) is the type of ketamine administered through an IV. While more tests need to be done, studies show R-ketamine is more potent than esketamine, providing stronger and longer-lasting anti-depressant effects.

Why choose ketamine for depression?

There are many anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medications on the market. Why should patients choose ketamine? Ketamine is a safer alternative to other anxiety and depression medications. While more tests need to be done, it’s believed ketamine comes with fewer side effects.

For example, many anti-depressants increase the risk of suicidal thoughts and actions. Ketamine doesn’t cause this side effect.

Some anti-depressants need to build up in your system to take effect, which could take weeks. In addition, many patients develop resistance to these medications, forcing them to increase their dose.

Ketamine is becoming popular because it acts quickly — this study shows ketamine relieves depression and anxiety symptoms in as little as two hours.

Does ketamine have any side effects?

While ketamine is safer than many anti-depressants, it does come with a few side effects. These include:

- Nausea and vomiting
- High blood pressure
- Out-of-body experience
- Disturbances and hallucinations

In addition, long-term ketamine use could come with more or different side effects.

Ketamine for anxiety and depression works

Ketamine is a popular anesthetic and its anti-depressants effects were discovered recently. Research shows ketamine for anxiety and depression alleviates symptoms quickly and ketamine is a powerful anti-depressant.

If you’re looking for a natural way to alleviate depression and anxiety, CBD is said to treat both depression and anxiety.

How ketamine treats depression



Ketamine: Is it safe?



Here’s how ketamine actually works as a treatment

How Safe Is Ketamine for Anxiety and Depression? - Women Fitness Mag

How Safe Is Ketamine for Anxiety and Depression? - How Safe Is Ketamine for Anxiety and Depression? One in four people have a mental disorder and the most common mental health issues are anxiety and

www.womenfitnessmag.com

 

[mr peabody]

University of Houston

Adults who mix cannabis with opioids report higher anxiety, depression

Science Daily | Aug 12 2019

Researchers at the University of Houston has found that adults who take prescription opioids for severe pain are more likely to have increased anxiety, depression and substance abuse issues if they also use marijuana.

"Given the fact that cannabis potentially has analgesic properties, some people are turning to it to potentially manage their pain," Andrew Rogers, said in describing the work published in the Journal of Addiction Medicine. Rogers focuses on the intersection of chronic pain and opioid use, and identifying the underlying psychological mechanisms, such as anxiety sensitivity, emotion regulation, pain-related anxiety, of these relationships. Rogers is a doctoral student in clinical psychology who works in the UH Anxiety and Health Research Laboratory and its Substance Use Treatment Clinic.

Under the guidance of advisor Michael Zvolensky, Hugh Roy and Lillie Cranz Cullen Distinguished University Professor of psychology and director of the lab and clinic, Rogers surveyed 450 adults throughout the United States who had experienced moderate to severe pain for more than three months. The study revealed not only elevated anxiety and depression symptoms, but also tobacco, alcohol, cocaine and sedative use among those who added the cannabis, compared with those who used opioids alone. No increased pain reduction was reported.

"Importantly, while the co-use of substances generally is associated with poorer outcomes than single substance use, little work has examined the impact of mixing opioids and cannabis," said Rogers.

Opioid misuse constitutes a significant public health problem and is associated with a host of negative outcomes. Despite efforts to curb this increasing epidemic, opioids remain the most widely prescribed class of medications. Prescription opioids are often used to treat chronic pain, despite the risks, and chronic pain remains an important factor in understanding this epidemic.

Cannabis is another substance that has recently garnered attention in the chronic pain literature, as increasing numbers of people use it to manage chronic pain.

"There's been a lot of buzz that maybe cannabis is the new or safer alternative to opioid, so that's something we wanted to investigate," said Rogers, who said the idea for the study evolved from a conversation with Zvolensky. Rogers was studying opioid use and pain management when they began discussing the role of cannabis in managing pain.

"The findings highlight a vulnerable population of polysubstance users with chronic pain and indicates the need for more comprehensive assessment and treatment of chronic pain," said Rogers.

Adults who mix cannabis with opioids for pain report higher anxiety, depression: They have more mental health issues than those who use opioids alone

Not a good mix: A researcher has found that adults who combine prescription opioids for severe pain and cannabis report elevated anxiety and depression symptoms, with no increased pain reduction.

www.sciencedaily.com

 

[mr peabody]

Mind Medicine Inc. cofounder JR Rahn with "Shark Tank" star and investor Kevin O'Leary.

Pharma startup aims to turn LSD into an FDA-approved medicine for anxiety disorder

by Will Yakowicz | Forbes | 1 April 2020

Mind Medicine, a New York-based psychedelic drug development company, that counts Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary and Toms Shoes founder Blake Mycoskie as investors, has acquired the exclusive rights to eight clinical trials that are exploring the medicinal properties of LSD. One of the studies is an ongoing, placebo-controlled Phase 2 trial of LSD for the treatment of anxiety disorder.

The deal gives Mind Medicine a 10-year exclusive collaboration with the laboratory of professor Dr. Matthias Liechti, one of the world’s leaders in psychedelics pharmacology and clinical research at University Hospital Basel in Switzerland. Mind Medicine will also get exclusive worldwide rights to data, compounds, and patent rights associated with the research on LSD and other psychedelic compounds.

Mind Medicine cofounder JR Rahn, a 32-year-old former Uber employee, says his company’s mission is simple: “We are going to develop these drugs as FDA-approved medicines. We are going to focus on the data and clinical trials and develop IP that will help us create federally-legal medicines” he says. “We need to get the average person to realize that these are not evil drugs—they can be used as medicines and be successful at treating unmet medical needs.”

Rahn says that Dr. Liechti will also help the company prepare micro-dosing study of LSD as a potential treatment for adult attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). “Micro-dosing” is a term that refers to the practice of taking small, non-psychedelic doses of psychedelic drugs. It’s an outright trend in Silicon Valley as people look for ways to be more creative, deal with stress and self-treat anxiety and other maladies.

“Over the past decade we have amassed the largest collection of clinical trials around LSD; we have been studying the pharmacology and potential medical uses of LSD and other psychedelics for many years in the laboratory, in patients, and in healthy volunteers,” Dr. Liechti said in a statement.

If the thought of taking acid to treat anxiety gives you, well, anxiety, researchers have found that the drug can be harnessed to reduce anxiety disorder symptoms in humans. LSD was discovered in 1943 by Sandoz chemist Albert Hofmann. A few years later and through 1966, Sandoz provided LSD to psychiatrists and researchers to study its effects and potential as a treatment for anxiety associated with terminal cancer, alcoholism, opioid use disorder and depression in conjunction with therapy. In 1968, after LSD became synonymous with the counterculture revolution, it was banned by the U.S. government, Sandoz stopped making the substance and it entered the black market.

Mind Medicine is one of many companies trying to repurpose psychedelic molecules as the next blockbuster drug. Companies like Compass Pathways, which is backed by billionaire Peter Thiel, is running an FDA-approved clinical trial on psilocybin to treat depression. ATAI Life Sciences, based in Germany and backed by former billionaire Michael Novogratz, invests in and acquires companies like DemeRX, which is studying the psychedelic root iboga and how it could help treat addiction.

Mind Medicine is also exploring an ibogaine derivative to treat opioid addiction. Dr. Stanley Glick, who invented 18-MC, a form of ibogaine without its intense psychedelic effects, joined Mind Medicine last year and is preparing the company’s Phase 2 study targeting opioid withdrawal and opioid use disorder. Ibogaine has a long history in West Africa, where people have been using it for rites passages for hundreds of years.

During the past year, Mind Medicine raised over $30 million from investors, including ABC’s “Shark Tank” star Kevin O’Leary and Toms Shoes founder Blake Mycoskie, before going public on Canada’s NEO stock exchange through a reverse takeover in early March. It also trades over the counter in the U.S.

Its market cap might only be $155 million and its stock is trading around 50 cents, but Rahn says the potential reward for a company like his could be capturing a multi-billion dollar market. Anxiety disorders affect 40 million American adults, which is about 18% of the population, according to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America.

O’Leary says he was skeptical when he was first approached to invest. He says he’s never done recreational drugs and opposes anything illegal, but his mind was changed after realizing the company will focus on the FDA drug development pathway. (O’Leary says he invested only after Rahn shook his hand and promised that the company would not pursue the recreational market.)

“Once in a while, you hear an idea that is a game changer. There haven’t been new medicines for depression, alcoholism, ADHD, or any of that for 35 to 40 years," says O’Leary. “This is a medicinal pursuit with a huge, positive outcome for the human race if it works.”

Rahn knows his company has an uphill battle that will cost hundreds of millions of dollars in an effort to convince the FDA to approve LSD and other psychedelic drugs. He also realizes that he has a cultural battle to fight as well in convincing people that LSD, which has long been used as a recreational drug, is a serious pharmaceutical medication.

“This isn’t the 1960s all over again. I want nothing to do with those kinds of folks who want to decriminalize psychedelics,” he says. “You don’t have to be a revolutionary to bring these drugs to market. You just need to show up to work every day, do the rigorous science, take a pragmatic approach and we’ll get there.”

​

 

[mr peabody]

Project Lucy: LSD Experiential Therapy for anxiety disorders

PR Newswire | 4 Jun 2020

Targeting a Phase 2b psychedelic assisted therapy trial for the treatment of anxiety disorders.

Mind Medicine, a neuro-pharmaceutical company for psychedelic inspired medicines, has officially launched Project Lucy, a commercial drug development program for the treatment of anxiety disorders. The company intends to initiate a Phase 2b human efficacy trial that will focus on experiential doses of LSD, administered by a therapist. This is the first experiential, psychedelic-assisted therapy to be added to the company's drug development pipeline.

With the launch of Project Lucy, MindMed is now preparing a total of three Phase 2 commercial drug trials based on psychedelic inspired medicines, making it one of the most advanced and largest drug development pipelines in the psychedelics industry.

MindMed Co-Founders and Co-CEOs JR Rahn and Stephen Hurst said, "Today's announcement demonstrates our team's strong capabilities to efficiently execute on our vision of building a synergistic platform that can take an idea and turn it into a later stage clinical trial with the sense of urgency investors expect and patients deserve. Having the first mover advantage on a diverse pipeline of later-stage commercial drug trials in mental health is important for MindMed as a company, but the learnings we obtain from this pipeline also helps us push the frontier of psychedelic inspired medicines."

As part of MindMed's decision to add an experiential therapy for anxiety disorders to its clinical development pipeline, MindMed has established a project taskforce that is preparing a briefing package for a potential IND (Investigational New Drug) with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). MindMed's Project Lucy task force is working to prepare and analyze data relevant for the discussion with the FDA relating to the potential opening of an US IND for the treatment of anxiety disorders.

Previously, the company acquired exclusive, worldwide data rights to eight completed or ongoing clinical trials from the University Hospital Basel evaluating LSD based on over 10 years of research. MindMed plans to assemble and use this data as part of its briefing package to the FDA.

MindMed also received the data and worldwide rights to an ongoing Phase 2 trial for anxiety disorders administered by the world leader in psychedelics pharmacology and clinical research, Dr. Matthias Liechti, and psychedelic therapy expert, Dr. Peter Gasser. Such data and knowhow will help build MindMed's understanding of LSD for anxiety disorders and its platform for LSD as a prescription medication for serious mental health conditions.

Many mental health disorders appear to be interconnected which presents a unique opportunity to MindMed to innovate and create a novel treatment paradigm. As an example, approximately 50% of ADHD patients also suffer from anxiety disorders. Furthermore, up to 90% of patients with General Anxiety Disorder also have symptoms of another mental health problem, such as depression or substance abuse.

The World Health Organization estimates that 284 million people are living with anxiety disorders globally and it is the most common mental illness in the United States. MindMed sees a large opportunity to evaluate the interconnectedness of mental health disorders and create a novel treatment paradigm that incorporates both experiential dose psychedelic-assisted therapy and non-hallucinogenic take-home medicines being developed in its microdosing division.

MindMed Launches Project Lucy Focused on LSD Experiential Therapy For Anxiety Disorders

/PRNewswire/ -- Mind Medicine (MindMed) Inc. (NEO: MMED OTCQB: MMEDF), the leading neuro-pharmaceutical company for psychedelic inspired medicines, has...

www.prnewswire.com

 

[MountainTrails]

University of Wisconsin

Combining therapy with psilocybin results in a large reduction of depression and anxiety

by Beth Ellwood | PsyPost | 18 Jun 2020

A recent meta-analysis published in Psychiatry Research provides tentative support for psilocybin in the treatment of depression and anxiety.

Researchers have made important advancements when it comes to the treatment of depression and anxiety, including both pharmacological and behavioral interventions. Nevertheless, existing treatments often have ill side effects or are ineffective for certain patients, pointing to the need for more treatment options. Study authors Simon Goldberg and his team wanted to investigate one possible new treatment option.

“Researchers have recently resumed investigating psychedelic compounds as a novel treatment approach,” the authors say. “One such substance is psilocybin, a plant alkaloid and 5-HT2A receptor agonist.”

Goldberg and associates conducted the first meta-analysis to examine clinical trials investigating the effects of psilocybin among individuals with heightened anxiety or depression.

The analysis included four studies published between the years 2011-2018 and a total of 117 subjects. Three studies took place in the United States and one in the United Kingdom. The samples had an average of 29 participants, and were largely female (58 percent) and White (86 percent). All participants had clinically relevant anxiety or depression symptoms, or a combination of both.

One trial had a single-group, non-controlled design where all participants were administered a dosage of psilocybin. The three remaining trials employed a random design where roughly half the participants received a psilocybin dose and half received a placebo (the control group). In addition to the drug treatment, all four studies incorporated behavioral interventions and support throughout the trial.

Results of the meta-analysis indicated that participants in all four studies showed large reductions in anxiety and depression after receiving psilocybin dosages. Furthermore, the effects of psilocybin were significant even at the six-month follow-up. For the three double-blind studies comparing placebo and psilocybin conditions, the effects of psilocybin on anxiety and depression were also found.

While the results provide support for psilocybin in the treatment of anxiety and depression, the authors discuss several limitations with the analysis. First, as only four studies were included, the observed effects may not be reliable. Additionally, most studies had a high risk of bias, including detection bias caused by insufficient blinding of participants.

One possible avenue for future research is in the treatment-resistant population. “Additional large-scale studies examining the effects of psilocybin on treatment-resistant depression may be warranted, as only one of the four studies focused on this population,” the authors say.

“Nonetheless,” the researchers conclude, “the current meta-analysis suggests psilocybin in combination with behavioral support may provide a safe and effective treatment option for reducing symptoms of anxiety and depression. This is an area for additional careful, scientific study.”

Combining therapy with the psychedelic drug psilocybin results in large reductions in anxiety and depression

Psilocybin is a hallucinogenic compound found in so-called “magic mushrooms”. A recent meta-analysis published in Psychiatry Research provides tentative ...

www.psypost.org

 

[mr peabody]

Psilocybin could help people with anxiety*

by Anderson Cooper | CBS | 16 Aug 2020

Psychedelics are now being studied seriously by scientists inside some of the country's foremost medical research centers.

Study participants at some of the country's leading medical research centers are going through intense therapy and six-hour psychedelic journeys deep into their minds to do things like quit smoking and worry less.

And early results are impressive, as are the experiences of the studies' volunteers who go on a six-hour, sometimes terrifying, but often life-changing psychedelic journey deep into their own minds.

Carine McLaughlin: (LAUGH) People ask me, "Do you wanna do it again?" I say, "Hell no. I don't wanna go do that again."

Anderson Cooper: It was really that bad?

Carine McLaughlin

Carine McLaughlin: Oh, it was awful. The entire time, other than the very end and the very beginning, I was crying.

Carine McLaughlin is talking about the hallucinogenic experience she had here at Johns Hopkins University, after being given a large dose of psilocybin, the psychedelic agent in magic mushrooms, as part of an ongoing clinical trial.

Roland Griffiths: We tell people that their experiences may vary from very positive to transcendent and lovely to literally hell realm experiences.

Anderson Cooper: Hell realm?

Roland Griffiths: As frightening an experience as you have ever had in your life.

That's scientist Roland Griffiths. For nearly two decades now, he and his colleague Matthew Johnson have been giving what they call "heroic doses" of psilocybin to more than 350 volunteers, many struggling with addiction, depression and anxiety.

Anderson Cooper: Can you tell who is going to have a bad experience, who's gonna have a transcendent experience?

Roland Griffiths: Our ability to predict that is almost none at all.

Anderson Cooper: Really?

Matthew Johnson: About a third will-- at our-- at a high dose say that they have something like that, what folks would call a bad trip. But most of those folks will actually say that that was key to the experience.

Roland Griffiths and Matthew Johnson

Carine McLaughlin was a smoker for 46 years and said she tried everything to quit before being given psilocybin at Johns Hopkins last year. Psilocybin itself is non-addictive.

Anderson Cooper: Do you remember what, like, specifically what you were seeing or?

Carine McLaughlin: Yes. The ceiling of this room were clouds, like, heavy rain clouds. And gradually they were lowering. And I thought I was gonna suffocate from the clouds.

That was more than a year ago; she says she hasn't smoked since. The study she took part in is still ongoing, but in an earlier, small study of just 15 long-term smokers, 80% had quit six months after taking psilocybin. That's double the rate of any over-the-counter smoking cessation product.

Roland Griffiths: They come to a profound shift of world view. And essentially, a shift in sense of self that I think--

Anderson Cooper: They-- they see their life in a different way?

Roland Griffiths: Their world view changes and-- and they are less identified with that self-narrative. People might use the term "ego." And that creates this sense of freedom.

And not just with smokers.

Jon Kostakopoulos: Beer usually, cocktails, usually vodka sodas, tequila sodas, scotch and sodas.

Jon Kostakopoulos was drinking a staggering 20 cocktails a night and had been warned he was slowly killing himself when he decided to enroll in another psilocybin trial at New York University. During one psilocybin session, he was flooded with powerful feelings and images from his past.

Jon Kostakopoulos: Stuff would come up that I haven't thought of since they happened.

Anderson Cooper: So old memories that you hadn't even remembered came back to you?

Jon Kostakopoulos: I felt, you know, a lot of shame and embarrassment throughout one of the sessions about my drinking and how bad I felt for my parents to put up with all this.

He took psilocybin in 2016. He says he hasn't had a drink since.

Anderson Cooper: Do you ever have a day where you wake up and you're like, man, I wish I could have a vodka right now or beer?

Jon Kostakopoulos: Never.

Anderson Cooper: Not at all?

Jon Kostakopoulos: Not at all, which is the craziest thing because that was my favorite thing to do.

Jon Kostakopoulos

Using psychedelic drugs in therapy is not new. There were hundreds of scientific studies done on a similar compound - LSD - in the 1950's and 60's. It was tested on more than 40,000 people, some in controlled therapeutic settings like this one. But there were also abuses. The U.S. military and CIA experimented with LSD sometimes without patients knowledge.

Fear over rampant drug use and the spread of the counterculture movement, not to mention Harvard professor Timothy Leary urging people to turn on, tune in and drop out, led to a clamp down.

In 1970, President Richard Nixon signed the controlled substances act and nearly all scientific research in the U.S. Into the effects of psychedelics on people stopped. It wasn't until 2000 that scientist Roland Griffiths won FDA approval to study psilocybin.

Roland Griffiths: This whole area of research has been in the deep freeze for 25 or 30 years. And so as a scientist, sometimes I feel like Rip Van Winkle.

Anderson Cooper: And once you saw the results…

Roland Griffiths: Yeah. The red light started flashing. This is extraordinarily interesting. It's unprecedented and the capacity of the human organism to change. It just was astounding.

Anderson Cooper: It sounds like you are endorsing this for everybody.

Roland Griffiths: Yeah, let's be really clear on that. We are very aware of the risks, and would not recommend that people simply go out and do this.

Griffiths and Johnson screen out people with psychotic disorders or with close relatives who have had schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. Study volunteers at Johns Hopkins are given weeks of intensive counseling before and after the six-hour psilocybin experience; the psilocybin is given in a carefully controlled setting one to three times. To date, they say there's not been a single serious adverse outcome.

A psilocybin session

We were told we couldn't record anyone participating in the study while they were on psilocybin because it might impact their experience, but we were shown how it begins – without the psilocybin.

You lay on a couch, with a blindfold to shut out distractions and headphones playing a mix of choral and classical music – a psychedelic soundtrack with a trained guide, mary cosimano, watching over you.

Everything is done the same way it was for the LSD experiments scientists conducted in the 1950s and 60s. Some of the most dramatic results have been with terminal cancer patients struggling with anxiety and paralyzing depression.

Kerry Pappas: I start seeing the colors and the geometric designs and it's like 'oh this is so cool, and how lovely' and, and then, boom. Visions began.

Kerry Pappas was diagnosed with stage III lung cancer in 2013. During her psilocybin session, she found herself trapped in a nightmare her mind created.

Kerry Pappas: An ancient, prehistoric, barren land. And there's these men with pickaxes, just slamming on the rocks. So…

Anderson Cooper: And this felt absolutely real to you?

Kerry Pappas: Absolutely real. I was being shown the truth of reality. Life is meaningless, we have no purpose. And then I look and I'm still like a witness, a beautiful, shimmering, bright jewel. And then it was sound, and it was booming, booming, booming. Right here right now.

Anderson Cooper: That was being said?

Kerry Pappas: Yes. "You are alive. Right here right now, because that's all you have." And that is my mantra to this day.

Kerry Pappas

Michael Pollan: It seemed so implausible to me that a single experience caused by a molecule, right, ingested in your body could transform your outlook on something as profound as death. That's-- that's kind of amazing.

Author Michael Pollan wrote about the psilocybin studies in a bestselling book called "How to Change Your Mind." As part of his research, he tried psilocybin himself with the help of an underground guide.

Anderson Cooper: The kind of things that cancer patients were saying, like, "I touched the face of God." You were skeptical about when you hear phrases like that?

Michael Pollan: Yeah. Or, "Love is the most important thing in the universe." When someone tells me that I'm just like, "yeah, okay."

Anderson Cooper: So you don't go for some of the phrases that are used?

Michael Pollan: No. It gives me the willies as a writer. And I really struggled with that cause during one of my experiences I came to the earth-shattering conclusion that love is the most important thing in the universe. But it's, that's Hallmark card stuff, right? And um, so…

Anderson Cooper: And yet while you were on it and afterward…

Michael Pollan: It was profoundly true. And it is profoundly true. Guess what? Um…

Anderson Cooper: There's a reason it's on a Hallmark card.

Michael Pollan: There is a reason. And one of the things psychedelics do is they peel away all those essentially protective levels of irony and, and cynicism that we, that we acquire as we get older and you're back to those kind of "Oh, my God. I forgot all about love." (Laugh)

Pollan said he also experienced what the researchers describe as ego loss, or identity loss - the quieting of the constant voice we all have in our heads.

Michael Pollan: I did have this experience of seeing my ego-- burst into-- a little cloud of Post-It notes. I know it sounds crazy.

Anderson Cooper: And what are you are without an ego?

Michael Pollan: You're, uh… (Laugh) You had to be there.

Michael Pollan

Researchers believe that sensation of identity loss occurs because psilocybin quiets these two areas of the brain that normally communicate with each other. They're part of a region called the default mode network and it's especially active when we're thinking about ourselves and our lives.

Michael Pollan: And it's where you connect what happens in your life to the story of who you are.

Anderson Cooper: We all develop a story over time about what our past was like and who we are.

Michael Pollan: Right. Yeah, what kind of person we are. How we react. And the fact is that interesting things happen when the self goes quiet in the brain, including this rewiring that happens.

To see that rewiring, Johns Hopkins scientist Matthew Johnson showed us this representational chart of brain activity. The circle on the left shows normal communication between parts of the brain, on the right, what happens on psilocybin. There's an explosion of connections or crosstalk between areas of the brain that don't normally communicate.

Anderson Cooper: The difference is just startling.

Matthew Johnson: Right.

Anderson Cooper: Is that why people are having experiences of-- seeing you know, repressed memories, or past memories, or people who have died or?

Matthew Johnson: That's what we think. And even the perceptual effect, sometimes the synesthesia, like, the-- the seeing sound.

Anderson Cooper: People see sound?

Matthew Johnson: Yeah, sometimes.

Anderson Cooper: I-- I don't even know what that means.

Matthew Johnson: Right, yeah. (LAUGH) It's-- it's--

Michael Pollan: Maybe the ego is one character among many in your mind. And you don't necessarily have to listen to that voice that's chattering at you and criticizing you and telling you what to do. And that's very freeing.

It was certainly freeing for Kerry Pappas. Though her cancer has now spread to her brain, her crippling anxiety about death is gone.

Kerry Pappas: Yeah, it's amazing. I mean, I feel like death doesn't frighten me. Living doesn't frighten me. I don't frighten me. This frightens me.

Anderson Cooper: This interview frightens you, but death doesn't?

Kerry Pappas: No.

It turns out most of the 51 cancer patients in the Johns Hopkins study experienced "significant decreases in depressed mood and anxiety" after trying psilocybin. Two-thirds of them rated their psilocybin sessions as among the most meaningful experiences of their lives. For some, it was on par with the birth of their children.

Kerry Pappas: To this day, it evolves in me.

Anderson Cooper: It's still alive in you--

Kerry Pappas: It's still absolutely alive in me.

Anderson Cooper: Does it make you happier?

Kerry Pappas: Yeah. And-- and I don't necessarily use the word happy.

Kerry Pappas: Comfortable. Like, comfortable. I mean, I've suffered from anxiety my whole life. I'm comfortable. That, to me, okay. I can die. I'm comfortable. (LAUGH) I mean, it's huge. It's huge.

*From the article here :

Psilocybin Sessions: Psychedelics could help people with addiction and anxiety

Study participants at some of the country's leading medical research centers are going through intense therapy and six-hour psychedelic journeys deep into their minds to do things like quit smoking and worry less.

www.cbsnews.com

 

[mr peabody]

A portrait of late Swiss chemist Albert Hoffman Packages is seen on a collection of LSD blotting papers
shown during an exhibition entitled "LSD, the 75 Years of a Problem Child" in Bern, Switzerland.

Psychedelics change how you read faces. That may help alleviate anxiety*

by Derek Beres | BIG THINK | 18 Jun 2019

Even more intriguing is the reason: recognizing facial expressions.​

• A new systematic review states that serotonergic hallucinogens help users recognize emotions in facial expressions.​
• Sufferers of anxiety and depression often only read negative emotions in other people's faces, adding to their malaise.​
• While more research is needed, psychedelics could prove to be a powerful agent in battling mental health disorders.​

If you want to know what someone is thinking, don't listen to their words. Instead, watch their face. Recognition of emotions in facial expressions (REFE) is one of our animal superpowers. Expressions predate language as a major form of communication and often tell a much more honest story than the string of sounds emerging from mouths.

Learning by watching someone's facial and bodily pantomimes plays an important role in our social heritage. Context matters as well. Plenty of room for error exists should you misdiagnose. Yet higher-order emotions, such as empathy, rely on understanding the experiences of others. This begins by comprehending facial expressions that you too have lived through.

This human trait is what makes a new systematic review of eight prior studies on psychedelics so interesting. Published in Therapeutic Advances in Psychopharmacology, a team at the University of Sao Paulo discovered that LSD and psilocybin reduce the user's recognition of negative facial expressions thanks to modulated amygdala activity.
For those that experience trouble reading emotional states, such an intervention could be a boon. Previous research shows that sufferers of anxiety and mood disorders have trouble reading facial expressions.

With anxiety disorder—a mental condition I spent a quarter-century battling—an intensive focus on negative emotions overrides other forms of expression. The sufferer internalizes negative cues, reinforcing their overactive nervous system. Recognizing positive emotional cues becomes a chore. You question everyone's motives, and they always skew adversarial, at least in your mind.




How LSD and shrooms could help treat anxiety, addiction and depression

Fortunately, improving REFE has a therapeutic effect. Depression, for example, is alleviated faster through REFE than antidepressants. Since pharmaceuticals often have damaging long-term consequences, using a natural, skillful intervention (such as learning to better read faces) is low-risk, high-reward medicine.

The authors write that while MDMA has been shown to improve REFE, so does a class of serotonergic hallucinogens that act on the brain's serotonin system: LSD, psilocybin (mushrooms), DMT (in ayahuasca or its more fast-acting isolated form), and mescaline. As tryptamine derivatives, these substances bind to serotonin-1a receptors (resulting in a feeling of contentment) and serotonin-2a receptors (resulting in the "mystical experience"). This potent combination results in both an alleviation from the drudgery of self while also boosting sensations of satisfaction and ease.

The therapy is holistic—it's no longer only about you. A sense of universality of shared experience emerges. Postdoctoral fellow Rafael Guimarães dos Santos says of the study:

"Altering emotional processing by modifying facial emotion recognition could be one of the mechanisms involved in the therapeutic potentials of ayahuasca and other serotonergic hallucinogens."

Collecting a total of 62 studies that fit their search criteria, dos Santos and team settled on eight for their review. While the initial data collection included research on a variety of psychedelics, they ended up using only studies that investigated LSD or psilocybin.

Mazatec psilocybin mushrooms dried and ready for consumption May 14, 2019 in Denver, Colorado.

There were a few issues, causing the team to add the disclaimer that their review might not provide clinical significance. The studies reviewed were small; some did not use placebo (although, to be fair, you know if you receive a placebo during a study on psychedelics). Still, the authors conclude:

"The studies reviewed showed that a single dose or a few doses of LSD or psilocybin was associated with a modified pattern of recognition of negative emotions that could be interpreted as beneficial, since several of these studies showed that these modifications were correlated with increases in positive mood and/or anxiolytic and antidepressant effects."

Since there is a correlation between depression and increased responses in the amygdala, your brain's fight-flight-freeze center, that serotonergic hallucinogens tamp down the negative response mechanism is worth noting. Other brain regions are also influenced by psychedelics, but the loosening of depression and anxiety appears to be centered in that almond-shaped set of neurons.

Another explanation might be that psychedelics inspire in us a sense of awe. They can certainly be overwhelming, yet they are also humbling. Instilling humility appears to be a primary therapeutic effect of serotonergic hallucinogens, which is likely why they have shown efficacy in treating addiction.

Feeling part of a larger whole is the opposite of anxiety, which can reach existential heights in severe cases. Psychedelics appear disorienting to the novice, yet with time and guidance they are quite instructive. American society is catching on to their potential, with Denver decriminalizing mushrooms and Oakland doing the same for all "natural psychedelics."

Quieting the fear response is an important therapeutic agent in many diseases. We know that, for many people, current antidepressant regimens are not working. It's time for larger-scale studies to give psychedelics the chance they deserve.

*From the article here :

Psychedelics change how you read faces. That may help alleviate anxiety and depression.

There were a few issues, causing the team to add the disclaimer that their review might not provide clinical significance. The studies reviewed were small; some did not use placebo (although, to be fair, you know if you receive a placebo during a study on psychedelics). Still, the authors...

bigthink.com

 

[mr peabody]

What you should know about microdosing for anxiety

by Anna Wilcox | DoubleBlind | 19 Jun 2020

The lowdown on microdosing LSD, psilocybin, and DMT to ease anxiety.

While Silicon Valley tech workers didn’t invent microdosing, they may be responsible for turning it into a trend: The practice is often touted as a biohack for creativity, inspiring new ways to pump out code, design interfaces, or harness the entrepreneurial spirit. But, microdosing psychedelics may have real benefits that go beyond the reflective walls of San Francisco high rises.

A “microdose” is a dosage of a psychoactive substance that is too low to produce a noticeable intoxicating effect. Psilocybin mushrooms, LSD, and cannabis are the three most commonly micro-dosed substances. Anecdotally, the reasons why consumers microdose are many: Anxiety, creativity, and depression all make the list.

Yet, while consumers report many benefits to microdosing, the topic has long eluded the scientific community that’s responsible for putting these reports to the test. The 1971 Controlled Substances Act criminalized the possession, cultivation, and processing of many drugs, psychedelics included. The act, however, does a lot more than criminalize the possession of these substances. It also forces scientists to jump through immeasurable hurdles to access psychedelics for research.

But that doesn’t mean that some researchers don’t try.

Microdosing for anxiety

Every once in a while, researchers are given express permission to move forward with psychedelic studies. Fortunately, the rising popularity of microdosing is spurring a push for real scientific research on the topic. Five years ago, there were virtually no studies on microdosing psychedelics. Yet, in the time since, academic journals published nearly 400 different papers on the topic.

But, quality research is still in short supply when it comes to exploring the effects of microdosing for anxiety, or any other mental health condition. In some studies, anxiety was actually listed as a side effect of microdosing psychedelics, along with general discomfort and neuroticism. Yet, these are also common side effects of full-dose psychedelics, as well.

There are some glimmers of hope, however. Several reviews suggest that microdosing psychedelics may, in some instances, improve mood, enhance focus, and perhaps foster creativity. (These reviews are largely based on anecdotal reports from people who already microdose psychedelics.) Trials of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy are also promising. Researchers have already explored MDMA, psilocybin, LSD, ketamine, and many other psychedelics in the mental health setting.

There are a few caveats about microdosing for anxiety that are worth mentioning, however, which include certain aspects of the psychedelic experience that cannot be quantified by Western science. It’s difficult to put a value on ego death, for example, or to fully define the meaning and personal significance of that kind of experience.

In a sense, microdosing may be equivalent to taking medication, while a full-blown psychedelic experience may reconfigure your relationship to anxiety and trauma.

Psychedelics can inspire what famed researcher Roland Griffiths calls “the mystical experience,” which is a spiritual experience similar to a religious epiphany or state achieved by deep meditation. But, these experiences are usually occasioned by high doses of psychedelics, not small ones.

It’s possible that a sudden spiritual epiphany caused by a full dose of a psychedelic drug may engage the root cause of anxiety in an entirely different way than microdosing. In a sense, microdosing may be equivalent to taking medication, while a full-blown psychedelic experience may reconfigure your relationship to anxiety and trauma.

Currently, no scientists have studied the spiritual implications of microdosing, nor have they studied whether or not consistent microdosing can encourage a spiritual openness that’s similar to that achieved by full-dose psychedelic-assisted therapy.

How often should you microdose psychedelics for anxiety?

For most consumers, microdosing psychedelics does not mean taking a small dose every day. As preclinical animal trials and interviews with regular microdoses suggest, microdosing is most often intermittent. That means consumers will take one small dose every three or four days, for up to several months at a time.

Microdosing intermittently rather than daily may help avoid developing a tolerance to any given psychedelic, at least according to user reports. “Tolerance” occurs when a consumer gradually becomes less sensitive to the effects of a psychedelic, rendering many of the spiritual and cognitive benefits moot.

Microdosing LSD for anxiety

Scientists have already proven that, when taken with an open mind in the right setting, LSD can inspire long-term relief from anxiety and depression. Back in 2014, scientists completed the first placebo-controlled trial of LSD since the 1970s. The study was completed in Switzerland and sponsored by MAPS, an independent research organization that’s currently leading the global initiative in psychedelic research.

The trial explored the effectiveness of LSD-assisted psychotherapy in 12 patients facing life-threatening illnesses. By the end of the study, patients not only reported better moods and reduced anxiety overall, but experienced relief that continued for 12 months.

But, here’s the catch—in this study, patients didn’t microdose. Almost all trials of psychedelics in clinical settings thus far have been full-dose. As mentioned above, a full-dose experience is very different from a microdose experience; the latter does not inspire hallucinations while the former does.

A microdose of LSD is considered one-tenth of a normal dose, which is around 10 micrograms. For most consumers, measuring out exactly 10 micrograms is a near-impossible task. So, many dedicated microdosers slice tabs of acid into eight or more pieces in an attempt to control their dose.

Thus far, there is only one double-blind human study that looks at the effects of microdosing LSD. However, the study did not look expressly at anxiety. Instead, it discovered that microdosing LSD does, in fact, change the way that consumers experience time. More specifically, it makes time feel slower so that seconds seem to last longer.

More informally, however, survey investigations by psychedelic researcher Jim Fadiman have found that many microdosers take LSD to alleviate symptoms of anxiety and depression. But, there’s a catch here, too. Of the 418 people who Fadiman interviewed, those who microdose LSD for anxiety alone had the most trouble. As Vice reports, anxiety can be an unwanted side effect of an LSD microdose.

Microdosing mushrooms for anxiety

Like LSD, full-dose psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy was successful in treating depression and anxiety caused by life-threatening illness. In a landmark study by Roland Griffiths, psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy inspired improvements in the outlook, mood, and anxiety levels of cancer patients—improvements that held up 12 months after treatment.

The profound changes caused by psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy are linked to the spiritual experiences that the substances inspire. A microdose of magic mushrooms, which is approximately 0.33 grams, is not likely to cause the profound mystical experience associated with the full-dose of the fungi. But, that doesn’t mean that microdosing mushrooms for anxiety is without benefit.

In 2018, Czech researchers compared the effects of microdosing psilocin to ketamine, in rats undergoing a stressful maze test. Psilocin, along with psilocybin, is one of the psychoactive components in magic mushrooms. The research, while limited and highly experimental, did find that low doses of both substances had a mild anxiolytic effect.

Unfortunately, however, scientists have yet to study mushroom microdosing in a clinical setting. However, both the internet and survey studies are ripe with anecdotal accounts of people who experiment with microdosing. In one review, a self-described microdoser explained:

“I have had very positive results from infrequent psilocybin microdosing. I have found fast and relatively long-lasting relief from depression and social anxiety doing this, as compared to other pharmaceutical options I’ve been offered.”

Microdosing DMT for anxiety

DMT is another psychedelic of interest to mental health researchers. DMT is found naturally in many different plants and it is the primary molecule that contributes to the active effects of ayahuasca. When taken on its own in a full dose, DMT inspires an intense but relatively short-lived psychedelic experience. Along with LSD and psilocybin mushrooms, DMT is considered an entheogen. The molecule’s reputation for inspiring a strong quasi-religious experience has even earned it a special nickname—“the spirit molecule.”

Amazingly, scientists have actually completed one preliminary experiment on microdosing DMT for anxiety and depression. A team led by University of California Davis researcher Lindsey Cameron published the first study on DMT microdosing in 2019. But, the early study wasn’t completed in humans. Instead, the team tested the effects of chronic, low-dose DMT on rats.

In the trial, Cameron and her team gave rats microdoses of DMT that were far too small to induce hallucinations. Then, the scientists forced the rodents into situations that would normally trigger anxiety and depressive behaviors in rodents. They then continued to administer these ultra-low doses of the psychedelic every third day for three months. The results were positive: Microdosing DMT appeared to ease fear and depression-like behavior during stressful events.

Of course, experimenting with rodents is a far cry from meaningful trials and pilot programs of DMT in human therapy. Normally, positive results in an animal test would pave the way for future clinical trials in humans. But, with psychedelic research, things aren’t that easy.

Thanks to the legal restrictions imposed by the Controlled Substances Act, scientists are more or less limited to animal studies when researching these compounds. To graduate to human clinical trials would require special permissions, loads of red tape, or moving research initiatives outside the country. These same barriers are not present for scientists performing research and development on new synthetic pharmaceutical compounds.

What You Should Know about Microdosing for Anxiety

While Silicon Valley tech workers didn't invent microdosing, they may be responsible for turning it into a trend: The practice is often touted as a

doubleblindmag.com

 

[mr peabody]

Single dose of psilocybin found to reduce anxiety for nearly five years*

by Chris Moore | Jan 14 2020

A new study has found that a single dose of psilocybin can significantly reduce cancer patients' fear of death can last for years.

Nearly five years ago, a team of researchers conducted a landmark trial exploring whether psilocybin, the compound in magic mushrooms that makes us trip balls, could reduce anxiety in patients suffering from lethal forms of cancer. Since then, researchers' interest in exploring the therapeutic potential of Psilocybe cubensis has skyrocketed.

Several clinical trials in the last half-decade have concluded that psilocybin can effectively treat anxiety, depression, and other conditions. That's why the federal government is now seriously considering legalizing this natural psychedelic as an adjunct to therapy.

In the original 2016 study, researchers gave a single dose of psilocybin to 29 people suffering from life-threatening forms of cancer. Each of these patients was previously diagnosed with anxiety and/or depression as a direct result of their illness. Six months after taking this single dose, between 60 and 80 percent of patients reported a significant reduction in symptoms of depression and anxiety.

Years later, the original research team followed up with patients from the original study to see if the positivity generated from the psilocybin experience was still in effect. Out of the surviving 16 patients, 15 agreed to take additional psychological assessments between 3.2 and 4.5 years after the initial study.

“Reductions in anxiety, depression, hopelessness, demoralization, and death-anxiety were sustained at the first and second follow-ups,” the authors wrote in the follow-up study, published in the Journal of Pharmacology. At the second follow-up, 4.5 years after the original study, 60 to 80 percent of patients still showed signs of decreased anxiety and depression. “Participants overwhelmingly attributed positive life changes to the psilocybin-assisted therapy experience and rated it among the most personally meaningful and spiritually significant experiences of their lives.”

The authors also asked participants to describe how their psychedelic experience changed their outlook on life. “I experienced such overwhelming love in my psilocybin experience that it gave me new confidence,” according to one subject. “I think the extreme depth of love I felt changed the way I relate to others. It gave me a feeling that I have a right to be here and to enjoy life.”

Another participant said that “the psilocybin experience changed my thoughts about myself in the world... I see myself in a less limited way. I am more open to life. It has taken me out from under a big load of feelings and past issues in my life that I was carrying around.”

“These findings suggest that psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy holds promise in promoting long-term relief from cancer-related psychiatric distress,” the study concludes.

The authors note that the study does have its limitations, especially due to its small subject pool. But that doesn't take away from the study's positive implications. “Nonetheless, the present study adds to the emerging literature-base suggesting that psilocybin-facilitated therapy may enhance the psychological, emotional, and spiritual well-being of patients with life-threatening cancer.”

*From the article here :

A Single Dose of Psilocybin Mushrooms Can Reduce Anxiety for Nearly Five Years

A 2016 study found that a single dose of shrooms can significantly reduce cancer patients' fear of death, and a new follow-up study has found that these benefits can last for years.

merryjane.com

 

[mr peabody]

Overcoming anxiety with psychedelic integration

by Bre Jenkins | The Third Wave | 12 Oct 2020

As one of the top three most common mental disorders in the West, anxiety has quite literally become an epidemic. In fact, almost 15 million people are diagnosed with social anxiety disorder in America alone. While symptoms of anxiety manifest across a spectrum, sufferers commonly report being afraid of situations where they might be judged, worrying about embarrassment, or feeling deep concern about offending others.

Despite the prevalence of the problem, most mainstream treatment regimens for social anxiety remain ineffective. As a result, many anxiety sufferers have turned to psychedelics, such as psilocybin, MDMA, and ketamine, to find relief from their symptoms. Although not yet legal in most jurisdictions, psychedelics continue to show promise in the treatment of a wide variety of mental disorders. The FDA has approved psychedelics for several clinical trials that are currently being conducted by top universities across the globe.

With recent studies showing progress in the treatment of depression, PTSD, and anxiety, could psychedelics also be the answer for those suffering from social anxiety?

Psychedelic treatment

The most common treatment for social anxiety has been cognitive-behavioral therapy

(CBT) in association with pharmaceuticals such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). However, new findings show that psychedelics may one day soon be prescribed to treat mental disorders.

In one study, a single dose of psilocybin was found effective to relieve anxiety and depression in cancer patients. In another, psilocybin was reported to reduce the feeling of social exclusion, while simultaneously increasing serotonin levels, even at low doses. For its part, microdosing has also been shown to provide social benefits—such as a greater sense of connection and more extroversion.

Clearing the way for psychedelics in psychotherapeutic treatment, the FDA has already approved ketamine for treatment-resistant depression and clinics all around the U.S. are offering ketamine as a treatment for depression and other mental disorders. Meanwhile, MDMA enters its Phase Three clinical trials, and may soon follow in the footsteps of ketamine as an FDA-approved therapeutic treatment for PTSD and possibly other psychological disorders. A recent study of MDMA specifically in the treatment of social anxiety found promising results in patients with autism.

LSD may also stage a comeback as the Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelics Studies (MAPS) completes its first double-blind, placebo-controlled study since the early 1970s of the therapeutic use of LSD in humans. With evidence growing around the benefits of psychedelic-assisted therapy, treatment for anxiety and other mental disorders are increasingly showing promise.

Long-lasting change

All that said, it’s becoming clear that psychedelic medicine is most effective as a tool for healing and transformation, and most likely to produce long-lasting benefits, when used in combination with an intentional program of integration. While psychedelics can produce deep realizations and self-understanding, this doesn’t spontaneously translate into sustainable results. For that, integration is required—a commitment to engage in the inner work necessary to assimilate our learnings into our daily lives.

Psychedelic integration allows us to reevaluate our non-ordinary states to gain deeper insights and understanding that we can then apply to our lives to drive positive and lasting change. Notably, there’s not one “right” approach to psychedelic integration. Some people benefit from self-integration techniques like journaling or meditation, while others prefer to work with an experienced guide or seek more formal support from an integration coach or therapist. No matter what type of integration support you choose, strengthening the perception of your psychedelic experience may not only increase the therapeutic benefits of a psychedelic but produce change that spans across a lifetime.

If you’d like to learn more about the therapeutic uses of psychedelics, you’ll find this information and a whole lot more in our in-depth psychedelic guides.

Overcoming Anxiety with Psychedelic Integration

Recent studies show progress in treatment of depression, PTSD, and anxiety, could psychedelics also be the answer for those suffering from social anxiety?

thethirdwave.co

 

[mr peabody]

LSD may be effective for treating Social Anxiety, study

by Kristi Pahr | LUCID | 11 Feb 2021

LSD has long been known to enhance our connection to other people, causing an increase in empathy, compassion, and trust. Because of the difficulty in pinning down the neurobiological mechanism for these changes,researchers have been unable to effectively utilize them for medical treatment of disorders that impact social behavior, like anxiety and some instances of autism spectrum disorder. A recent study, however, may have uncovered the mystery of LSD’s marked effects on social behavior.

The study, which examined the effects of LSD on mice, could shed light on how it may have a prosocial effect on humans. “The results of the study were surprising,” says Dr. Gabriella Gobb, head of the Neurobiological Psychiatry Unit at McGill University in Montreal. “We spent about 2 years in testing animals with low doses of LSD. We did all kinds of behavioral tests, and finally, we realized that the strongest effect was on social behavior.”

The medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) is the area of the brain associated with social behavior and social response inhibition and control. Researchers were able to isolate three components of the mPFC that interact with LSD: the mTORC1 protein complex and the receptors 5-HT2A and AMPA.

Gobbi explains how the findings could translate to human medicine. “In our research recently published on PNAS, we found that low doses of LSD enhanced the social behavior in mice paralleled by an enhancement of AMPA synapses and the mTOR protein,” she explains. “We know that these behavioral tests in mice–already validated for other prosocial substances, like oxytocin–correspond to increased empathy in humans. Moreover, in humans with deficits in sociability, like autism spectrum disorders, there is an impairment of the AMPA and mTOR.”

In the study, researchers injected one group of mice with a low dose of LSD (5 to 20 μg/kg), and another group with a placebo. Some of the mice given LSD were also given drugs that block the 5-HT2A and AMPA receptors. Both groups were then placed in a cage for 10 minutes to familiarize themselves with their surroundings.

After 10 minutes, an unfamiliar mouse was placed in the same cage, and allowed to freely interact with the other mice. The mice treated with LSD alone showed a preference for interacting with the unfamiliar mouse more than mice treated with other drugs or those given a placebo did. These mice also showed a preference for spending time with the unfamiliar mouse over spending time in an empty cage.

Translating these results to human medicine, though, for the treatment of disorders like anxiety or autism spectrum disorders, is likely to take time. “First, these substances should go in Schedule II in order to be used in medicine. Second, we have to demonstrate that LSD is safe and efficacious in diseases like social anxiety or autism by doing clinical trials in hundreds of people,” says Gobbi. “Clinical trials in autism are very complex since social behavior and empathy in humans are difficult to be evaluated and very subjective.”

Gobbi believes there’s still more about the brain that psychedelics can teach us, and that their worth goes beyond opening new treatment avenues. “I am fascinated by the study of psychedelics not only from a therapeutic point of view but because they help us to understand a lot of brain functions still unknown, like the consciousness, the transcendental thinking, the mysticism and the empathy toward humanity,” she says. “All these functions are still a mystery for neuroscience.”

*From the article here :

LSD May Be Effective for Treating Social Anxiety, Suggests New Study - Lucid News

While LSD has long been known to enhance our connection to other people, the reasons why have been hard to pin down - until now. A new study may have uncovered the mystery of LSD’s marked effects on social behavior.

www.lucid.news

 

[mr peabody]

How do Psychedelics help treat Anxiety?

by Nicholas Levich | 15 Feb 2021

Anxiety is a daily struggle for millions of people—about 40 million in the US alone, according to the Anxiety & Depression Association of America. Despite its common occurrence, however, those who struggle with anxiety often feel overwhelmed by their thoughts. There’s a common misconception that anxiety is “all in your head,” and it leads many patients to mask their symptoms—often to their own detriment.
A Background on Anxiety

The solution to anxiety in much of Western medicine tends to involve sedative medications, antidepressants such as Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs), and other pharmaceutical treatments. While we aren’t here to pill shame (you and you alone have the right to decide what is best for you and your body), we also recognize that these interventions aren’t for everyone. Not only that, but they aren’t especially effective for many people and often come with some pretty intense side effects.

Recent research indicates that psychedelic therapy may help people suffering from anxiety. While the research is relatively new, the case for psychedelics and healing goes back thousands of years in human history. At this point, you’re probably wondering how psychedelics can help anxiety specifically? Here, we’ll discuss the potential therapeutic applications of psychedelics for anxiety and how they might work. We’ll also take a moment to talk about dosage, what intentional use looks like, and how to pursue the psychedelic experience safely.

What effect do psychedelics have on anxiety?

There’s a prevalent misconception, especially among people new to the concept of entheogens, that psychedelic experiences make one paranoid or agitated. If this is the case, then one would assume that psychedelics would make anxiety worse for most people. However, the opposite appears to be true, both in traditional psychedelic medicine and in modern therapeutic practice.

Indigenous people in Mexico and Central America, for example, carry on the traditions of psychedelic healing today. Practitioners (and recipients) of this type of healing apply it to various types of conditions, both mental and physical. In the context of this practice, which uses psilocybin mushrooms, the fungus is consumed to connect to a divine source.

While the name of this source varies according to tradition, the principle is the same: a higher connection to energy, spirit, and healing. By healing our minds, practitioners teach us, we can heal our bodies as well. As anyone with anxiety can attest, the mental symptoms of panic often have a very physical manifestation. Intentional psychedelic use helps address symptoms at both levels simultaneously.

This may be due, in part, to the holistic approach of intentional psychedelic use with a practitioner. Some evidence suggests that psychedelic therapy is more likely than conventional therapy techniques to be accompanied by lasting positive lifestyle changes. It is probable that these lifestyle changes support healing in a way that amplifies the measured effectiveness of psychedelic therapy.

Regardless of the mechanism, available evidence suggests that psychedelic therapy may benefit people suffering from anxiety and panic disorders. In fact, scientific studies have shown that a single dose of psychedelics can increase openness, bring out positive personality traits, and therapeutic antidepressant effects.

Recently, the FDA granted the “breakthrough therapy” designation to both MDMA and psilocybin for PTSD and depression, respectively. This designation means that the FDA is expediting the development and review of these psychedelic drugs because they have the potential to treat PTSD and depression better than the therapeutic options currently available. Soon, the FDA may grant the same designation for LSD, which is in various pre-clinical trial stages for it’s potential treatment of anxiety.

Preliminary data suggests that, unlike traditional Western therapies, recipients of psychedelic therapy have better long-term health outcomes. Participants of one study reported feeling better over longer periods compared to those given treatment with benzodiazepines or placebos.
What Is Intentional Psychedelic Use?

Intentional psychedelic use refers to a deliberate experience where psychedelic substances are consumed in a safe and supportive environment with an intended outcome of personal and collective wellness. This could be in a ceremonial circle, with a trip sitter, or in a therapeutic setting—but is fundamentally different than recreational use, which is purely for entertainment.

The importance of intentional use cannot be overstated. Not only is the participant intentionally preparing for the experience ahead of time (hopefully with the aid of a practitioner), but they are then welcomed into the psychedelic experience by a professional practitioner who is there to hold space, be supportive, and ensure participant safety.

For those of you looking to be professionally supported during your psychedelic experience, we offer trip sitting services with our experienced facilitators. These sessions can range from being more ceremonial in nature or purely trip sitting. Regardless, our main objective is to provide you a high level of care while implementing the latest proven harm reduction techniques. To see if our psychedelic guiding services are a good fit, you can schedule a consultation here.
How Intentional Psychedelic Use Works for Anxiety

While researchers are still working to understand the specific mechanisms by which psilocybin and other entheogens help ease anxiety, we do have some insight into their function outside the empirical data available. For this insight, we must look to cultural, anthropological, and anecdotal data and accounts.

True, such accounts are not perfectly quantifiable in the way that empirical science likes things to be. However, empirical science is no more capable of fully explaining the world than any other singular perspective. This is especially true of entheogens, whose tangible influence on intangible factors (such as happiness, fulfillment, and openness), has confounded researchers for decades.

It’s these intangible factors, however, that are so vital to our mental and spiritual health—and our physical health as well. While our largely Westernized views on health and wellness tend to minimize (or outright ignore) the connection between the physical and the ethereal, a growing community of people are recognizing the necessity of the mind-body connection for overall wellness.

If our personal experience is any indication, intentional psychedelic use fundamentally changes how we view ourselves as humans and how we relate to the world around us. This fresh perspective allows us to connect the dots—realizing that our most traumatic events in life were essential parts of our evolutionary process.

This realization creates an environment where inner peace can be authentically cultivated. Perhaps even more important, the psychedelic experience allows us to shift our internal narrative from one of self-hate to that of self-love.

The neurobiology of anxiety

To understand the effect of intentional psychedelic use on anxiety, we must first understand a bit more about the nature of anxiety itself. As anyone who has experienced a panic or anxiety attack can attest, the sensation of sudden terror feels like you might actually be dying. Anxiety isn’t just a disconcerting thought, either. It’s an unstoppable and seemingly inescapable barrage of concerns and problems and potential terrors that overwhelm the conscious mind.

These racing thoughts signal the sympathetic nervous system to kick into gear, activating the body’s fear response. While this may feel slightly different from person to person, a panicked feeling when one shouldn’t be panicking is always disconcerting. Physical sensations might include difficulty breathing, pain in the stomach or chest, muscle cramps or spasms, shivering, nausea and vomiting, indigestion, loss of vision, and even fainting.

This fear response is an evolutionary trait designed to avoid dangerous situations and to activate the sympathetic nervous system responsible for our “fight or flight” mechanism in order to survive. Anxiety hijacks this system and causes it to malfunction, tripping the threat alarm where one doesn’t exist—or, at least, not to that level. There’s some evidence to suggest that psilocybin, ayahuasca and other psychedelic therapies can help to rewire the neural pathways in the brain responsible for this phenomenon.

One study, published in the journal Cell Report, found that psychedelics enhance neuroplasticity at the cellular level. Imaging of neurons after psychedelic therapy showed increased number and activity of synapses, or “connections”, between neurons. In a way, calling these parts of the brain “connections” is a bit of a misnomer, and we need to understand them in a bit more detail to appreciate the potential implications of these findings.

For our purposes here, “synapse” is shorthand for “synaptic cleft,” the space between the tendrils (neurites) of one cell and another. Neurites almost touch one another, but not quite. It is within this literal and metaphorical gap that most of our brain activity happens.

These almost-connections are made up of long, branching extensions of the cell, which reach toward the branches of the next, and so on. Messages are transferred from one cell to another by the release of neurotransmitters, or chemical signals within the brain.

Since psychedelic therapy has been observed to increase the number and activity of synapses in the brain, it’s not unreasonable to say that entheogens alter the mind in the most literal of ways.

Existing research shows that, overwhelmingly, this change tends to be for the better. Participants in psychedelic therapy tend to report an enduring improvement in their feelings and symptoms after just one session. This is also true of depression, leading us to believe that psychedelic therapy holds considerable potential for healing.

Dosage: Microdosing vs. Macrodosing

There are two different ways to use psychedelics to treat anxiety: macrodosing or microdosing—we suggest using a combination of both. Macrodosing has received the most attention in the past several decades, and refers to a full dose of psychedelics that induces a profound state of altered consciousness (typically called “tripping”).

As interest in psychedelic therapy has reemerged, some proponents and practitioners have begun to experiment with a technique called microdosing. While this technique also shows promising results, particularly for anxiety, it works a bit differently compared to traditional psychedelic therapies where a full macrodose is consumed.

These differences may make it more ideal for some people, and the evidence for its therapeutic potential is mounting. Microdosing works by using tiny doses of psychedelic compounds—not enough to produce impairment, but sufficient to induce a sense of wellbeing.

For perspective on what constitutes a “microdose,” the practice of microdosing uses anywhere from one-tenth to one-twentieth of a standard recreational dose (i.e. macrodose). In the case of mushrooms, for instance, a macrodose is usually somewhere between 1 and 5 grams, while a microdose is generally around 0.1 gram. Obviously, specific dosages will vary by substance. You can find our full how-to guide on microdosing here.

When taken at these tiny doses, entheogens appear to reduce anxiety, improve our ability to socialize, and boost our mood. Many people who microdose do so to improve creativity, support their ability to focus, and feel more grounded and “present” in daily life. This grounding effect may be especially helpful for people struggling with anxiety, particularly in combination with other therapies like mindfulness and meditation.

Microdosing seems to be especially helpful for anxiety compared to standard psychedelic therapeutic techniques. Because of its lower intensity, microdosing may be particularly good for people nervous about a full “trip.” It can also be a helpful strategy for those seeking an introduction to the power of psychedelic healing, but aren’t sure where to begin. Microdosing is analogous to taking a vitamin in the morning—it’s essentially an anti-anxiety supplement with sub-perceptual effects.

There is some evidence that microdosing may be especially beneficial to people suffering from anxiety and panic disorders. While systematic analysis is ongoing, current results suggest that microdosing is especially well-tolerated among psychedelic therapy techniques. This is true for anxiety as well as other conditions like depression and PTSD.

However, there are certain aspects where microdosing falls short. The primary difference being the lack of a true psychedelic experience. Meaning a macrodose is required for most people to experience a state of truly altered consciousness—which is what provides direct access to the subconscious brain and can result in paranormal experiences, extreme bliss, ego death, and even a sense of oneness with everything.

As you can see, there are pros and cons to each approach. What has worked the best for us and for our clients is combining the two approaches—consuming a macrodose that serves as a full reset, and then following that up with a microdosing protocol that allows the positive changes to be sustained long term.

A quick note on mental health

Unfortunately, the War on Drugs in America has created a lot of misinformation when it comes to psychedelics, particularly with regards to the “bad trip”. You may have heard rumors that even one experience with lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) can make you perpetually trip or permanently insane. Scare tactics like these have been used over the past several decades to demonize psychedelics and deter their use.

Though these rumors are untrue, it is important to note that individuals predisposed to certain mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, may have adverse effects from a psychedelic experience, including psychosis, and that proper mental health screening should be conducted before engaging in any psychedelic activity.

How to pursue the psychedelic experience safely

Research and anecdotal evidence makes it clear that psychedelics are a powerful tool to improve the quality of life of those struggling with anxiety. Though we could always use more studies, the benefits of psychedelics for anxiety appear to be lasting and profound. These effects are attainable through both microdosing and more traditional macrodoses in an intentional setting like therapy or ceremony.

But with such a huge potential comes the personal responsibility to undergo these experiences in a manner that protects your mental, emotional, and physical health.

Psychedelics cause temporary psychological and physiological changes and these altered states can make you extremely vulnerable. Without proper support and harm reduction techniques, you may be exposing yourself to risks that could be easily prevented.

That’s why we created our trip sitting and psychedelic guiding program. These programs include support before, during, and after the psychedelic experience. Our facilitators are experienced practitioners who are classically trained in the use of these substances and integrate shamanic healing principles with proven harm reduction protocols.

Our goal is to provide you the professional support you need to gain the most out of your next psychedelic journey. To see if our guided psychedelic experiences are a good fit, you can schedule an initial consultation with us today.

*From the article here :

How Psychedelics Can Help Treat Anxiety | Psychedelic Passage

We discuss the therapeutic applications of psychedelics for anxiety according to science; including dosage, intentional use, and how to have a safe experience.

www.psychedelicpassage.com

 

[mr peabody]

Will smoking weed affect my anxiety?

VICE

The stronger the cannabis you're smoking, the more likely you are to experience adverse side effects.

Weed and anxiety have always been entwined for me. My experience of getting high amounts to an unpleasantly increased heart rate, imagining that all my friends secretly think I'm a cunt, and berating myself via a cacophony of second-person internal monologues. It took me a bizarrely long time to realize this was not something I enjoyed, but when I eventually did, learning to say no when passed a spliff became the greatest gift I ever gave myself.

Since I never enjoyed weed in the first place, giving it up wasn’t difficult. But many weed users experience a more conflicted relationship with the drug and their anxiety. Weed use can become a symptom, cure, and underlying condition all rolled into one. Using it might worsen your anxiety—in a larger sense—but allow you to feel better in the short-term. This creates a vicious circle in which you're using a substance to alleviate the symptoms it causes.

If weed is consistently making you feel anxious, it might be worth thinking about giving it up altogether.

*From the article here :

Will Smoking Weed Affect My Anxiety?

The stronger the cannabis you're smoking, the more likely you are to experience adverse side effects.

www.vice.com