What Are You Hungry For? Navigating Appetite When On Psychedelics

Consider this: “I have a history of disordered eating and notice that when I am on psychedelics that I have a decreased appetite. I find this triggering after having done so much work to repair trust with my hunger and fullness cues.”

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This is a great question for anyone who is navigating eating disorder or disordered eating recovery and who are curious to weaving in plant medicines for their recovery. Having a decreased appetite when in the psychedelic journey something people may experience.

If we have been working for a long time on no longer restricting or dieting, and eating regularly without deprivation, it can be triggering when in an altered state to notice a change in the rhythms of your appetite, and observing that your appetite is lower than usual.

The effects of psychedelic drugs vary depending on the person. Factors such as the type of psychedelic and dosage can affect one’s appetite in different ways. It is possible to experience an increase or a decrease in appetite depending on what the psychedelic was and how much was consumed.

This shift in appetite occurs because psychedelics that target the serotonin receptors that alter the neural circuits are linked to mood and appetite.

As such, during a psychedelic experience it is possible to have a change in hunger or fullness cues, but it can be helpful to remember that once the experience wears off, the automatic biological processes, including digestion return to normal.

If you find yourself in a plant medicine journey, in an altered state, and you notice that there is something trigging about having a decreased appetite, with the support of the medicine, you can reflect on these triggers, diving into the emotions, fears, and needs that our bodies may hold when we sense a decrease in appetite.

We can work with our learned patterns of food intake and eating behaviours, as well as the wounds that our ancestors may have passed down around food scarcity or food abundance.

Additionally, it is important to nourish ourselves well before and after a psychedelic journey. The material that can come up in these journeys can be challenging, confronting, and require a lot of energy from the body-mind to process. Good nutritional support will help us prepare, digest, and integrate the experiences in regulated ways. This may require additional support, such as consulting an anti-diet dietician and HAES-oriented nutritionist.

 These medicines are powerful and they can shine light on how we relate to food, appetite, and our sense of fullness and emptiness in multidimensional ways.

When you notice a decrease in appetite, reflect on what you may be hungry for.

We are all hungry for something. We are all hungry for a need to be met. And an eating disorder is pointing to a deep and important need.

Those needs may revolve around the need to feel safe, to belong, to be understood, to connect, to feel regulated, or to restore a sense of worth, dignity or purpose.

In some ways, the eating disorder is an attempt, albeit maladaptive, to try to meet those needs.

Possibly those needs were never met when we were younger, or we never had role models around us to show us how to meet those needs in positive ways, or our needs were not understood or attuned to in ways that considered our sensitivity.

And so, we learn how to try meet those needs ourselves and somewhere along the way, we figure out that the eating disorder and its behaviours can somehow meet that need.

the ways in which the eating disorder works means that the need is not met in a sustainable or healthy way, nor does it address the need from the inside out – so we are always left empty, hungry. The need isn’t truly met. We never feel satisfied.

Take some time to reflect on, underneath the eating disorder, what is your soul hungry for? What need is asking to be met?

And what kind of food or soul-nourishment are required for that hunger to be met and digested with a sense of satisfaction?

Is the “food” a hug, a listening ear, nature, stillness, movement, a safe container, a boundary, emotional expression, or loving and attuned support?

And what is required for that soul food to be on your plate, right in front of you for you to drink in? 

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