✨Psychedelics & Mental Health #Vol4
Discover more from The Mental Balance Newsletter & Podcast
✨Psychedelics & Mental Health #Vol4
this might be the revolutionary cure for depression in this decade
🌱 Hey Reader,
In this edition I will be trying something new — I’ll add my own personal inklings, visuals & walk you through the magical world of psychedelics.
Notably, if it’s to be the “groundbreaking therapy of tomorrow” and the only field conducting extensive research during COVID I wanted to jump in on this. Bringing you information from a lot of articles, newsletters, podcasts and videos I binged on!
There's still so much to cover that I'll probably write another delving deeper into some other concepts.
Yours,
Vidhi 💫 We will cover the following :
How these magic substances affect us 🧠
Publications of 2020 📜
Legally accepted norms 👮♀️
Stocks and Investments 📈
Additional resources for the curious minds 💭
Writing this has been as fascinating and gripping for me as I hope it is for you, if you think someone else is might be as excited, mind sharing this?
Let’s dig in. //
🙏 Introduction
💫 Roland Griffith’s experiments have shown startling results. Participants shake off persistent depression, quit smoking after decades of failed attempts, and even, in the case of people facing life-threatening cancers, transcend the fear of death.
The above image pops up, first thing when you browse John Hopkins Center for Psychedelic Research (the #1 in the field) — Spooky? Too Vodoo? If you know me personally, you’d know that this fascinates me! But I respect you being spooked out, so let’s go in with an unbiased opinion on what science holds for us here, shall we?
🌱 What’s a Psychedelic?
It is a chemical or plant that can alter your perception, mood, and cognitive processes
Some of the common ones include Psilocybin (magic mushrooms), LSD (the rave party drug), Ayahuasca (the ceremonial Amazonian substance), and DMT
🔗 Historical Links: ancient rituals, the Greek era, and the mid-60’s
💫 “One basic dimension of behavior… compellingly revealed in LSD states is ‘portentousness’— the capacity of the mind to see more than it can tell, to experience more than it can explicate, to believe in and be impressed with more than it can rationally justify, to experience boundlessness and ‘boundary-less’ events, from the banal to the profound.”
😱 Reactions
of course, all bodies react differently so you might either have a good or a bad trip depending on your environment, preparation before the intake, people around, brain state, psychological history, family tree, etc
Physiologically: Temporarily increases BP, Heart rate, body temperature, hormones such as cortisol (the stress hormone) and oxytocin (warm, fuzzy feelings)
Mentally: Altered sensory perceptions, visually complex images, or fractal patterns (like the kaleidoscope)
Emotionally: Unusually open to others, increased trust, concern for others, sense of connectedness, loss of ego, and profound positive emotions
During: You might experience paranoia, anxiety, certain moments of extreme discomfort, and misplacement (near-death feelings). With ayahuasca, you might vomit to the worse
After effects: Involves a lot of self-introspection, pleasant state of mind & affects the relationship with self and others. Can also be very adverse depending on how your brain reacts
These are all based on people’s experiences, a lot of research ongoing and needed to justify this with claims
🌱 Brain, brain, brain
If you’re like me, this was the MOST exciting piece of information for me ✨
The explosion of communication throughout the brain:
Among regions that wouldn’t normally have much to do with each other
The breaking down of older established connectivity patterns
The disintegration of the Default Mode Network (controls everyday cognition & thought patterns):
Alters the self-conscious
Impacts the claustrum (The mysterious region of the brain, “hidden away” but believed to be the seat of consciousness responsible for awareness):
Resulting in ego-dissolution: wherein a person is no longer a distinct entity but a part of the greater whole (the thing Steve Jobs keeps talking about)
How claustrum communicates with brain regions involved in hearing, attention, decision making, and remembering
😀 Evident & Promising Research
Published in 2020: (all these trials are done with a lot of initial screening & rapport building in the presence of clinicians and therapists)
Psychedelic Treatment with Psilocybin Relieves Major Depression:
Roland Griffiths talking about it here
Profound changes in consciousness in a controlled environment & setting
67% showed a 50% reduction in depressive symptoms (in 1 week) & 71% (in 4 weeks)
Tim Ferris supported the funding of this campaign (His history here)
Emotions and brain function are altered up to one month after a single high dose of psilocybin
Increases emotional and brain plasticity, reduction in anxiety even after 1 month
Long lasting effects are promising to help relieve symptoms for those suffering severely
Psychedelics appear to increase brain “plasticity”, which, broadly speaking, implies an accelerated ability to change
This year also: What it will take is a major multi-center study and this is now underway, being conducted by COMPASS Pathways (funded by Peter Thiel). The results should be available in 2021 and, if positive, psilocybin might be allowed as a medicine a couple of years after that.
🚔 Legal things
incase you need to know or try
FDA approved Ketamine Nasal Spray to treat depression
Denver, Oakland, and Santa Cruz have decriminalized the use of psilocybin
Oregon has legalized psilocybin’s use under clinical supervision
💰 Stocks & Investments
cause why not
Champignons Brands ($SHRM) and MindMed ($MMED): IPO’d in the Canadian Market in 2020
A lot of companies running towards FDA approval, a great time to be an early investor (Market Value: $100B)
First psychedelic EFT: In Canada
As the story of the psychedelic gains momentum, some of the top companies to watch include:
💫 CYBIN Inc. (NEO:CYBN), Mind Medicine Inc. (NEO:MMED)(OTC:MMEDF), COMPASS Pathways (NASDAQ:CMPS), Numinus Wellness Inc. (TSXV:NUMI), and HAVN Life Sciences (CSE:HAVN)
🧠 Brain Food
to quench your curiosity
LSD, psilocybin, DMT is Schedule 3 drugs in 🇨🇦 while Schedule-1 in the 🇺🇸 = faster approval and implementation in 🇨🇦 > 🇺🇸
Retreat Centers if you’re now eager to try this yourself for some brain cleanse or newness: Jamaica 🇯🇲 , USA & be a part of these trials at John Hopkins
Above is the worlds first image on LSD: (taken when patients eyes were shut so this is just the mind visualizing) [Placebo]
Podcasts if you’d like to listen while you do your chores:
// FIN
Goodbye, until next week! 🌱
