CBD and Cannabis are well known and documented at this point for their health benefits, but did you know that psilocybin, or magic mushrooms, have many of the same benefits and even more when it comes to mental health issues?
Like cannabis, psilocybin can be used for pain, to improve anxiety, as well as cancer and other end-of-life psychological distress.
Unlike Cannabis it can also be used to treat depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, quitting smoking, alcohol addiction, cocaine addiction, and
Overall Benefits Of Mushrooms
Mushrooms are one of the world’s coolest plants. Well that’s not exactly true! Mushrooms aren’t plants at all because plants use photosynthesis to make food, wheras mushrooms use enzymes to break down nutrients that they get symbiotically through other plants. Mushrooms can be many acres large with their underground roots reachout out like a vast web, attaching to other plants, or trees, or rotting logs etc…to create a network.
Mushrooms can be poisoness, highly beneficial and full of important minerals, calming, delicious, or mind-blowing.
With Magic Mushrooms we have hardly tapped the surface! Studies have just started on this amazing fungi, and so far it’s had many positive effects. At the Sticky Hippy, we have many clients that effectively use them as a micro dose for anything from anxeity to depression, or to try and come of addictions to other drugs.
Psilocybin & Quitting Smoking
In 2016 a smaller study at John Hopkins found a significant benefit from using shrooms to quit smoking.
There are almost 6 million tobacco deaths worldwide each year, and quitting smoking is one of the more difficult addictions to control.
John Hopkins found that 2-3 moderate to higher doses of psilocybin combined with cognitive behavioural therapy ( CBT), resulted in substantially higher 6-month smoking abstinence rates than are typically observed with other medications or CBT alone.
Migrain & Cluster Headaches
A 2017 study of online forums found that shrooms were highly effective at stopping or minimizing cluster headaches and migrains for people who had found no relief elsewhere.
Generally there were two approaches:
- Use about half the amount for a recreational dose you can feel the headache or migraine coming on, or
- Frequent microdosing small amounts as a preventative measure.
Decrease in Depression and Anxiety for those with life threatening Cancer
Another 2016 study found “substantial and sustained decreases in depression and anxiety in patients with life-threatening cancer” through the use of psilocybin.
They tried both a large dose at 22 mg/70 kg, and a smaller dose on 1 mg/70 kg. The conclusion? “Participants attributed to the high-dose experience positive changes in attitudes about life, self, mood, relationships and spirituality, with over 80% endorsing moderately or higher increased well-being or life satisfaction.”
This study was done as a comparison to a study that used a lower dose of shrooms and had found no measurable change.
The key here seems to be that the “mystical experience” aspect needs to be triggered to get long-lasting postive benefits.
If you are in this situation, we definitely do not recomend doing anything like this on your own. Make sure you are with people who know what they are doing, and work up to an amount that works for you.
The study had actually started out with larger doses, and brought them down, because there was vomitting and harsher experiences.
There is still so much we don’t know about shrooms
Psilocybin’s ability to “interconnect” in the ground to other living things, may be the link to it’s abillity to interconnect systems in the brain. There is still so much to learn about this amazing fungi, but that also means that you have to do your own experiments, on strains, on amounts etc…
Here’s How We Use Psilocybin
We created a “how to microdose” guide here.
Microdosing is a great way to try out different strains of shrooms (some are more potent than others) and find a working dose for you! Small doses can sometimes give you the boost you need, without having to melt your face and see god ( fun too, but not for everyday).
Our Unicorn Poops chocolate almond microdose, and Cloud 9 chocolate marshmallow nuggets are the perfect micro-dose already dolled out for you.
Here’s why it’s great to take mushrooms with chocolate.
We also offer natural grown strains of mushrooms in our Mix and Match so you can test and try at your own pace.