Can Microdosing Support Eating Disorder Recovery?
As more research studies are coming out to support how microdosing with psilocybin mushrooms can improve mental health and mood, how it can be of benefit for those navigating eating disorders and disordered eating?
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Since many people who experience eating disorders also experience depression, anxiety, stress, mood swings, social anxiety, and other addiction, it certainly seems compelling that microdosing could support eating disorder and disordered eating recovery in positive ways.
Microdosing is the act of repeated self-administration of mushrooms containing psilocybin at doses small enough to not impact regular functioning. Microdose practices are diverse and sometimes include combining psilocybin with substances such as cacao, lion’s mane mushrooms, and/or niacin (vitamin-B3).
A recent study supported by Paul Stamets and others, and published in Nature Journal, summarizes that "psilocybin microdosers demonstrate greater observed improvements in mood and mental health at one month relative to non-microdosing controls".
Considering the big health costs and ubiquity of eating disorders, anxiety, and depression, as well as the sizable proportion of people who do not respond to current treatment options, the potential for another approach to addressing eating disorders deserves substantial consideration.
As of yet, there is no agreed upon treatment for eating disorders. Individuals often know on a cognitive level that their food and body behaviours are limiting them in some way nor supporting their well-being long-term, however there may be resistance, fear, apathy, or lack of motivation to change the behaviours. Additionally, individuals are confronted by food on a daily basis, and so it’s not as easy to adopt the “out of sight out of mind” mentality.
On a collective level, there is also the added pressure of diet culture, the culture we live in right now that is fueled by body comparison, food moralisation and demonization, weight stigmatisation, competition, and discrimination. On a global scale, we are swimming in this energetic soup which and has become the way we have been conditioned to relate to food and our bodies. It can be hard to catch a break when one is navigating an eating disorder.
Microdosing may provide an opportunity for us to get out of that collective soup, question the validity of our inner thoughts, and find inspiration and empowerment to continue walking the road of recovery.
Microdosing, when combined with other healing modalities such as somatic coaching, talk therapy, dream analysis, embodiment practices, and nervous system regulation skill development, can offer a break from the eating disorder.
By working with adjunct therapies that aim to unify body and mind, microdosing has the potential to create spaciousness around the incessant food and body thoughts, allowing for new narratives to be formed.
Through this work, the veils start to life. We may notice that we exist only in our heads and are disconnected from our bodies, or that we don’t know when we are hungry or full, or what food we intuitively want to eat or enjoy eating. With support from microdosing these observations, insights, and questions start bubbling up, leading to increased awareness and choice. As so begins the process of recovery and reconnection.
Plant medicines are here in a big way at this time because we are collectively moving through a huge time of transition. We are walking through a portal that is asking us to shed the old ways of separation and disconnection and to step into new ways of connection and wholeness.
Sacred plant medicine and our own higher consciousness help us remember. They illuminate the fragmented parts within us so they can be integrated back to wholeness. Many people who experience plant medicine share how connected they felt to their bodies, their breath, loved ones, animals, trees, bodies of water, soil, mountains, the Earth.
This is the medicine of connection. And it is the medicine we are needing at this time.
Psychedelics keep us on our path of healing and transformation, encouraging and inspiring us to face our fears and allow others to see us in our process, as we are. They remind us that we are all going through the portal right now and that by abundantly being there for one other is the way forward.
As we leave the cobwebs of diet culture’s competition and comparison behind, ask yourself: What does a world without diet culture look like? This is the future that plant medicine asks us to dream into being.
The potential of microdosing for eating disorder recovery feels exciting and promising. Depending on what future studies discover, we may find ourselves understanding eating disorder recovery and creating recovery roadmaps in different ways.
Whilst these studies and approaches to microdosing research are still new, the continued progressive movement in the field has the potential to indicate how the relationship between microdosing, eating disorders, and mental health – which impacts millions around the world – can be recontextualized and transformed within the current collective understanding.
Eating disorder recovery with the support of psychedelics (and somatic awareness), presents an opportunity to reconnect with what resonates with the heart and aligns with the soul’s deep calling. It gives us the chance to remember why we are here at this time, and why we inherently deserve to be here.
How do you think microdosing can support eating disorder recovery?
New growth can be supported by microdosing in eating disorder recovery
Photo by Justin Dream on Unsplash