Psychedelic substances, like psilocybin, LSD, or DMT, are often used for different mental health purposes. For instance, microdosing mushrooms provide a range of mental health benefits, like reducing anxiety and depression, increasing focus and energy, improving general well-being, and so on. At the same time, microdosing mushrooms for PTSD was recently suggested, but is it a promising treatment or just another myth? This article will try to discover popular questions about microdosing mushrooms PTSD.
What is PTSD?
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is determined as a mental health disorder that typically appears after a traumatic experience. This experience can involve a perceived or actual threat of injury, disaster, or death. PTSD is likely to appear in people who have lived through physical or sexual abuse, accidents, natural disasters, military combat, etc. This disaster occurs as a specific response to neuronal and chemical changes in the brain via the experienced threatening events.
Symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder vary from patient to patient, but most often, the disaster signs are likely to disrupt regular activity and human ability to function. Common PTSD symptoms include seeing flashbacks and unpleasant memories of the event, nightmares, negative thoughts about yourself, frequent panic attacks, depression, distorted feelings of blame or guilt, and others. Currently, PTSD treatment usually incorporates certain medications and a therapy called cognitive-behavioral. There are two FDA-approved antidepressants to treat this disorder – paroxetine and sertraline.
How can microdosing psilocybin treat this disorder?
Microdosing psilocybin to treat PTSD is one the most talked-about uses of magic mushrooms, but how do they help deal with this disorder? One professor of psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine has explained this issue. Patients with PTSD have some communication, trust, and closeness problems because of their post-traumatic events. This makes it difficult for them to get the necessary help during traditional talk therapy. The compound in magic mushrooms called psilocybin is likely to affect neurotransmitters in the human brain, which can evoke trust. This way, using magic mushrooms can be helpful for patients with PTSD to open up during therapy.
Additionally, microdosing psilocybin can aggrieve the emotional response that a patient has to the source of their traumatic experience. It is a pledge to confront a trauma effectively without being triggered by it. At the same time, patients can find this practice helpful for improving self-empathy. It is another essential aspect of healing from post-traumatic stress disorder.
Microdosing mushrooms can be a promising way to treat PTSD in veterans who suffer from this disorder more often than others. Still, there is a lack of scientific research to confirm the actual action of microdosing shrooms for PTSD treatment. Approving the medical use of psilocybin is in demand, especially for those suffering from severe mental health conditions.