Oh yeah, man, there's a lot of information to suggest that psychedelics are viable treatments for anxiety. For example, psilocybin treatment was demonstrated to reduce both short-term state anxiety and long-term trait anxiety in a
study evaluating its efficacy for end-of-life anxiety in cancer patients. It even
reduces amygdala reactivity to negative stimuli. Anxiety management is a huge motivating factor for my own personal interest in psychedelics.
Yes, I'm aware of these studies. I've always interpreted the anxiety relief observed in terminal patients from a result of a "coming to terms" with their situation, which is something I can easily see happening with psychedelic assisted therapy. And that's more or less what I meant when I said "existencial relief" in my last post. I was referring to that short/long term lowering of anxiety that results
from a psychedelic experience, but not necessarily
during a psychedelic experience, as I don't find psychedelics to be particularly anxiolytic. In fact I find it more or less easy to get anxious while on the psychedelic state if I don't take proper care of the "set and setting" factor.
In the case of lowered amygdalic response to negative stimuli, I relate it to the ego softening psychedelics induce. When I'm tripping, sometimes I just don't care as much about negative stuff because I don't feel it can really affect me, probably because I don't really feel like I'm too much of "myself", lol. And I've always assumed that is what facilitates the honest and unhindered introspection psychedelics induce. I can think about, for example, the current problems in my life or my own personal flaws, and look at them from an outsider perspective (Pretty sure most people who have tripped can relate to that feeling). I suppose the physiological correlate to that is a lowered amygdalic response to the "negative stimuli" of being confronted with an ugly truth ? That's how I integrated that paper into my own experience, anyway.
Also, since we are talking about it, psilocybin is probably the psychedelic which therapeutic potential has the been most documented, but at the same time I would say is one of the less physically stimulating, which could mean that the therapeutic effect of psychedelics is independent from their motor stimulation. I personally think that the rocketing/fidgeting/nervous movement is actually
a result of anxiety or excess energy, and it's not exactly therapeutic but closer to a "coping mechanism", a way of spending disordered psychic energy that would otherwise become anxiogenic.
This quote from a
review on the relationship between exercise and mental health also caught my attention:
"
As an additional benefit it seems that a subject learns to associate the usual physical symptoms of sympathetic activity and hyperventilation with a normal healthy state, rather than with anxiety, thereby interrupting the feedback loop between the physical sensations and the cognitive appraisal - usually the basis for a panic attack."
I've definitely independently wondered if the sympathetic activity boost of psychedelics could have a similar effect, and it's interesting to see that people are thinking about that with respect to physical exercise as well.
This, however, I definitely agree with. I think that the altered state can sometimes serve as a sort of "exposure therapy", and I've experienced an enhancement of my own capacity for dealing with anxiety since I started tripping. I can recognize it better, and I've learned to manage it better since I've experienced anxiety and its physical symptoms while on psychedelics.
Relevantly, in cognitive-behavioral psychology, some therapists use hyperventilation as a way of activating sensations associated with anxiety and panic attacks. Sometimes this actually triggers a panic attack in people with generalized anxiety disorder. But then they try to isolate the symptom and dissociate it from the psychologic phenomena, and work on tools for controlling the cognitive process associated.
