Do You Need a Hero’s Dose? Exploring Psychedelics for Eating Disorder Recovery
When it comes to psychedelics and healing, the dose often garners significant attention. However, transformative healing isn’t always about taking a hero’s dose. For those navigating eating disorder recovery, smaller doses offer unique benefits that support safety, agency, and self-trust — essential components of sustainable healing.
The Case for Lower Doses
A “hero’s dose” (5 grams) refers to a high dose of psychedelics that often induces profound and immersive experiences. While these journeys can be powerful, they’re not the only path to meaningful transformation. For many, especially those healing from eating disorders, smaller doses can provide a safer and more empowering space to explore emotions and patterns.
Why Smaller Doses May Be Beneficial:
Increased Agency: You maintain the ability to set boundaries, decide what to explore, and pause if needed.
Practice Self-Regulation: Lower doses allow you to build emotional self-efficacy by navigating feelings at your own pace.
Strengthen Self-Trust: By staying within your window of tolerance and in your body (and not getting blasted off), you learn to trust your body and its signals.
Higher doses can sometimes be a bit more challenging to assert one's agency as sometimes the medicine comes on strongly. If there is inner work to do around practicing self-regulation, developing emotional self-efficacy, and stating boundaries, then it might be supportive to play with lower doses for some time.
You can roam around “the neighbourhood” of the emotion and sit at its edge where you feel comfortable without needing to go all in. You can just take a peek into the emotion. There is a lot of wisdom that resides in these places. You don't need to process all of the emotions in their fullness all at once. Slow and steady is where sustainable, integrated healing occurs.
Balancing Safety and Depth
While the dose matters, it’s the setting and set that hold greater significance in determining the quality of a psychedelic journey.
Key Questions to Consider:
Mindset: Are you feeling anchored and clear in your intentions?
Emotions: Are you navigating resistance, uncertainty, lots of grief or high anxiety currently? How safe do you feel in your body?
Setting: Is the environment safe, comfortable, and conducive to healing?
Support: Are you journeying solo, with a trusted facilitator, or in a group setting where you feel held and supported? Do you have people around you to support you after the journey, like friends, family or a therapist?
Preparation: Have you taken the time to reflect on your goals, intentions, and readiness for the journey?
Trust Yourself: When you feel into a dose, what number does your body tell you is the right amount?
The Role of Safety in Healing
For those with eating disorders, a sense of safety is critical. Psychedelics can uncover vulnerable parts of ourselves, and if the environment or dose feels overwhelming, the protective mechanisms in our psyche may block deeper healing.
Ways to Enhance Safety:
Work with a trained facilitator who understands trauma and eating disorders.
Start with a dose that feels right for your body, even if it’s a micro or mini-dose.
Create a soothing and secure physical environment.
Use embodiment practices to ground yourself when big emotions arise. It is very helpful to cultivate tools before the journey so it becomes like muscle memory — you know what to reach for when moments of challenge come up.
Sustainable Healing: Quality Over Quantity
Healing isn’t about forcing change or overwhelming the nervous system. Sustainable transformation happens slowly and incrementally, where all parts of you feel safe and aligned in the process.
Why Less Can Be More:
Lower doses allow for integration — the digestion of emotions, memories, and insights at a manageable pace.
Smaller doses often provide access to subtle but profound layers of healing that may go unnoticed in higher-dose journeys.
These journeys support presence and embodiment, creating lasting and meaningful change over time.
Embracing Flexibility and Curiosity
Whilst the dose plays a role, the amount of medicine you consume has less significance when you consider your own mindset, the safety of the space, the relationship with the facilitator, and the preparation you put in before the journey has even begun.
Taking a high dose doesn’t have to be the end goal. I’ve had some very deep experiences on “lower” doses that I could not have accessed on higher doses.
Quality over quantity.
Sustainable change is when we can stay present and embodied in the experience, rather than overriding our current capacity. This is the beauty of working with micro, mini or lower doses. Healing happens when we are present and embodied through it all, with all parts on board for the journey.
Psychedelic healing is a personal and evolving process. Whether you’re exploring microdosing or considering a facilitated journey, staying open and curious about what your body needs in the moment is key.
Remember, there’s no “one-size-fits-all” dose or experience. Listen to your intuition, honor your limits, and focus on what feels safe and supportive for you.
Want To Connect Further?
Navigating eating disorder recovery with psychedelics requires intention, preparation, and care. If you’re ready to explore this path, I offer 1:1 coaching that focus on eating disorder recovery, psychedelic preparation, and integration as well as group microdosing programs.
Discover the healing potential of small, intentional steps — because sometimes, less truly is more. If you feel curious, you are welcome to reach out to schedule a free 20-min call with me to discuss options and ways of working together.
Access my FREE 7-day microdsoing course for eating disorder recovery. Learn about how small doses can make a tiny impact for your healing and recovery.
Photo by Mehdi MeSSrro on Unsplash