How Psychedelics and Plant Medicine Support Embodied Eating Disorder Recovery
For people facing eating disorder recovery, it can sometimes feel like there is a huge mountain to climb. The climb can feel intimidating, unknowable, and full of dread. It is sobering to face the magnitude of an eating disorder.
*
*
*
And yet – and yet – it is a mountain that can be climbed. Yes, there are many peaks to climb, and one will need to take rests along the way, but it can be done.
As we know however, anorexia nervosa, in particular, has the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric disorder, due to both the physical implications of the disorder* and high suicide rates.
There are currently limited pharmacological and therapeutic treatments, and those that are available tend to focus on managing the symptoms rather than tackling the underlying root.
Plant medicines and psychedelics can support going to the root in eating disorder recovery. Firstly, on a pharmacological level, psychedelics target the serotonin system that support mood regulation; this is important since many people with eating disorders or disordered eating struggle with anxiety, depression, OCD, or have some sort of trauma-related issues.
For people navigating eating disorders, there is often pendulum swinging between restriction and bingeing, or malnutrition, or chronic dieting. This has a powerful effect on the serotonin system, impacting mood regulation, clouding our thoughts. We can get stuck in loops and holes, unable to see how to get out.
Indeed, a hallmark of an eating disorder is rigid thinking. Many people tend to have perceptual distortions about their body image and how much they’re eating, and they tend to be inflexible not only around food but around other life decisions in general.
Eating disorders, which stem from trauma and stored up survival stress, often lead to isolation, high degrees of control, trouble accessing emotions, a disconnection from one’s body and the world, and lack of creativity (the higher brain functioning is offline when we are in a survival state).
With the support of psychedelics, one is able see the bigger picture, take healthy risks, be spontaneous, utilize creativity and flexibility to see themselves differently, and the beliefs they hold around their own eating disorder recovery.
Secondly, by shifting away from symptom-focused treatment and rather looking at the root causes that develop changes in self-perception, self-worth, self-compassion, and in one’s somatic organization.
Psychedelics offer a window of breathing room, fresh air, and fresh perspective. With clearer seeing and understanding, one is able to make new choices, and literally shape their lives differently, in ways that feel aligned and true, rooted in worth, deservingness, and authenticity.
Eating disorders are often resistant to treatment due to its “ego-syntonic” nature, meaning many of the behaviours, values and feelings behind the symptoms stem from the needs and goals of the ego.
Softening the ego happens to be a hallmark of the psychedelic experience: In this altered state, people are often able to gain a new perspective on themselves in the world.
Rather than psychedelics acting as a magic drug to cure, they act more like an ally, tool, or resource within a therapeutic framework, that ideally include nervous system regulation tools, and developing somatic awareness that support the deepening of one’s embodied presence.
I think we're in a point in time where we're realizing we haven't really been human for a large part of the human evolution. We have been disconnected from our bodies and living in survival. This is what plant medicines have been trying to show us for so long. It is what our nervous systems have been trying to tell us too.
Looking at eating disorder recovery through the lens of nervous system regulation and heath is the new medicine, and the new way of healing and creating health.
Our system, our DNA, our organs, and our tissue all want regulation. Our body is built for and thrives on regulation.
Our Earth wants us to get out of survival stress so that we can expand our perspectives and start taking care of others and the body of Earth that sustains and nourishes us (indeed, we cannot access empathy and care for others when our physiology is geared towards trying to keep us alive).
Embodied recovery is the process of becoming aware of what is out of balance and opening up to restoring equilibrium, ease, and empowerment. Plant medicine and psychedelics can support that process by shining light on what is off balance so that we cannot just survive but also to thrive, to feel in flow, regulated, empowered, and aligned.
Through this work of psychedelic embodied eating disorder recovery, we begin to notice patterns of dysregulation (which can show up as holding a lot of tension, chronic illness, burnout, anxiety, depression, rigid thinking, fear of change, unable to tell when we are hungry or full, lacking creativity, looping in toxic relationships, shutting down, panic attacks, over-exercising, unable to state boundaries etc etc etc).
By working from the bottom-up, including the body in the recovery roadmap, we give our whole system a voice, including the organs, bones, breath, joints, guts, and our movements a voice.
And over time, we get back to our center energetically, but also on a visceral level, and in the center in our circle (and in our environment). This is what our body craves and needs to thrive: to be aligned in that core center within.
There is no magic pill – it takes time, integration work, practice, and patience. But armed with inspiration and clarity (which psychedelics can offer), there is encouragement and motivation to keep going, to keep turning towards the body, to keep walking, and to keep climbing the mountain of uncovering, discovering, and recovering.
*I am using the word “disorder” as it is an understandable term, however I believe that eating disorder are more like patterns. They are patterns that have been developed to try solve a need that wasn’t met or attuned to. These patterns indicate trauma or chronic stress and at the core of these food and body patterns is a yearning for safety, attunement and love. Plant medicines can remind of these yearnings and that these patterns can indeed shift. Read more about eating disorders as patterns here.