How many grams of mushrooms should I take?

Determining the appropriate dosage of mushrooms (psilocybin mushrooms, commonly referred to as “shrooms”) is a crucial consideration to ensure a safe and positive experience. The potency of mushrooms can vary widely depending on the species and growing conditions, so it’s important to start with a low dose if you’re new to psychedelics or unsure about your tolerance. Here are some general guidelines based on dosages typically used for recreational or therapeutic purposes:

1. **Microdose (sub-perceptual dose):** Typically ranges from 0.1 grams to 0.5 grams. This amount is intended to provide subtle benefits such as improved mood, focus, and creativity without causing noticeable psychedelic effects.

2. **Low dose:** Around 0.5 grams to 1 gram. At this level, effects may include mild euphoria, slight visual distortions, and heightened sensory perception. It’s a good starting point for beginners to gauge their sensitivity to mushrooms.

3. **Moderate dose:** Approximately 1 gram to 2.5 grams. This range can produce more pronounced psychedelic effects, including altered perception of time, enhanced creativity, and introspective thoughts. It’s suitable for those with some experience seeking a deeper experience.

4. **High dose:** Above 2.5 grams. High doses can lead to intense psychedelic experiences, profound visual and auditory hallucinations, spiritual insights, and ego dissolution. These doses are recommended for experienced users who are prepared for a potentially overwhelming experience.

When considering the dosage, it’s crucial to take into account your individual sensitivity to psychedelics, your setting (environment), and your mental state. It’s also advisable to have a trusted friend or sitter present if you’re taking a higher dose for support and safety.

MICRODOSING

Microdosing is the act of regularly consuming low, sub-hallucinogenic doses of a psychedelic. Long term microdosing has been reported to improve mood, increase of energy, boost creativity, improve troubling or emotional menstrual periods, lead to healthier choices (food choices, exercise, yoga), improve focus, reduce anxiety and stress (to only scratch the surface).

The term ‘microdosing’ can be broken down into these three components:

The low dose use of a psychedelic (dose)
A schedule of multiple dosing sessions (protocol)
The intention to improve well-being and enhance cognitive and/or emotional processes (intention)

1. FINDING YOUR DOSE

Many people report landing on 125 mg for their ideal dose. If the immediate effect is too much, we recommend dropping your dose to 75 mg, if the immediate effect is entirely unnoticeable, experiment with going up to 250 mg (or higher). Give yourself time to explore and do not compare your dose to the next person – do what feels right to you.

Note: Taking your microdose on an empty stomach will increase its effects.

What to Expect When Microdosing

Microdosing should just help shift you into the zone of “me, but on a great day”.

Generally, the immediate effects last 4 – 6 hours but it’s common to experience an ‘after glow’ the next day. Some people enjoy the day after as much, if not more, than the dose day.

On your dose days: The effect of a microdose is subtle yet noticeable. You should be able to go about your daily routine without any impairment. It’s common for people who microdose to report the following on dose days: music sounds better, they’re more empathetic, more energetic, they pause to think before they speak, they’re more aware of their surroundings (especially nature), their focus feels sharper and they are able to stay on-track.

On your non-dose days: Many microdosers report experiencing an afterglow the day immediately after a dose day. The introspective effects in particular tend to draw out into the next day. Two days of non-dosing will bring you back to baseline.

With time: As you microdose, pay attention to whether your baseline is rising. Over time, many people notice broader improvements in mood, experiencing overall stronger focus and memory, feeling more inclined to live a healthy lifestyle, becoming more engaged and present — this list is very expansive.

125 mg / 250 mg / 75 mg refers to the amount of magic mushrooms per capsule.

Note: Be mindful of microdosing with stimulants such as coffee, energy drinks and ADHD medications.

2. FINDING YOUR PROTOCOL

We recommend picking two days every week to microdose. For example, every Saturday and Tuesday morning.

Depending on your experience, you can increase the frequency. You have the flexibility to choose whatever schedule aligns with your personal goals and lifestyle. The only rule we recommend is to take at least two days off per week. Popular protocols include Dr. James Fadiman’s 1 day on, 2 days off, repeat. Another popular protocol, developed by Paul Stamets, recommends 5 days on, 2 days off, repeat.

We recommend taking your first microdose on a day where you do not have many responsibilities (like a Sunday) to explore the effects in a comfortable environment.

Another recommendation is to take a one-week break after two months of microdosing. This will allow you to observe the differences you’re experiencing.

3. INTENTION SETTING

Before entering into a microdosing protocol it is important you understand why you are doing it in the first place. Is it to be more present? Improve your mood or memory? Feel happier? Have better focus? The reasons why will be deeply personal to your individual experience. Once you find your intention, remind yourself of it daily (we like to write it on a sticky note and hang this somewhere we look at often).

It is also important to follow your usual day-to-day routine while microdosing. The entire purpose of the experience is to enhance your normal everyday life through the addition of microdosing.

A helpful tool to create an optimal microdosing experience is journaling. This will help you document the effects you were intending to feel, and the ones that may surprise you. This will also allow you to notice the different effects on dose days and non-dose days.

Some unexpected effects users often note are: sleeping better, feeling more inclined to eat well or be more active, and a more positive reaction to challenging situations.

4. BENEFITS

There are many benefits to microdosing – it’s why we do what we do! Below are the most documented.

To increase the frequency and intensity of desirable states/outcomes, including:

Improved mood
Focus
Creativity
Energy
Flow states
Pro-social behaviour
Mental clarity
Empathy
Relational skills
Athletic coordination
Leadership development
Social abilities

To decrease the frequency and intensity of undesirable feelings caused by various mental states, such as:

Depression
Anxiety
ADD/ADHD
PTSD
Addiction
Psychosomatic issues

5. RISKS

The biggest reported risk surrounding microdosing is in regard to its legality (you can read about this here). Beyond the legal risks of microdosing the treatment has proven to be incredibly safe. How safe? Check out this article and if you want to read the full findings from the 2019 Global Drug Survey you can do that here (mushrooms start on page 93).

6. FLOW STATES

A “flow state” is often described as being in “the zone”, completely immersed in your current experience.

Have you ever been so absorbed in a project you’re working on that an entire afternoon effortlessly passed you by? If so, you were most likely experiencing a flow state.

Studies have shown that psilocybin causes brain waves to shift toward alpha oscillations, which is also seen in the transition to a flow state. Additionally, higher levels of serotonin are found during flow states which psilocybin encourages.

Perhaps most importantly, psychedelics have the ability to quiet the default mode network and foster an opportunity for our brains to make unique connections between areas that don’t usually communicate. This is crucial to accessing flow states.

Since we know that low-moderate doses of psychedelics can induce similar effects to a flow state in the brain, it seems likely that a regular microdosing regimen could begin to shift our awareness in the direction of flow.

7. THERAPEUTIC USE

Anecdotal evidence supports the notion that a regular microdosing protocol can help people struggling with depression, anxiety, PTSD, ADD/ADHD, mood disorders, and/or addiction. Here are some examples:

In 2019, the Harm Reduction Journal published a study documenting the experience of microdosers in a sample of 278 subjects. It was one of the most rigorous studies on microdosing ever completed and supports the anecdotal documents of improved mood, focus, creativity, and the like. We highly recommend you read through their findings.

In several clinical research trials it has been shown that larger doses of psychedelics are effective at treating depression, end of life anxiety, and addiction as well.

If you microdose while attending psychotherapy (we highly recommend), you may find it easier to talk about issues that were previously difficult to access. You may also notice creative insight into yourself, your past, and your relationships that you previously didn’t understand, providing a new avenue for personal growth.

How does microdosing magic mushrooms affect the brain?

Serotonin is one of the most important neurotransmitters, chemical messengers that affect how we think, feel, and act, in the brain. Serotonin has many effects: it acts as a contentment chemical: if you have too little serotonin in your brain, you’ll feel sluggish, have trouble concentrating, and will likely feel depressed; just as if not more importantly, serotonin also is critical for processing information, decision making, and effective problem solving.

Psilocybin, the chemical compound that makes magic mushrooms psychoactive and hallucinogenic, is structured very similarly to serotonin. Because of this, psilocybin interacts with the same receptors in the brain as serotonin does, improving cognitive brain functions involving memory, learning and processing information, and critical thinking and problem solving. It also acts as a mood stabilizer, helping to combat depression and anxiety. These effects of psilocybin are best felt when microdosing, as minute amounts of psilocybin conform to the levels of serotonin and other neurotransmitters typically found in the brain, whereas when taking magic mushrooms to trip, you’re effectively overdosing on serotonin, which causes the feelings of euphoria, lack of anxiety, and increased empathy typically associated with magic mushroom trips.

Microdosing Magic Mushrooms

Microdosing hallucinogens has become increasingly popular within the last decade, as microdosing became more and more popular, to the point of being trendy, among silicon valley startup tech workers and creatives. The reason Silicon Valley startup workers became so enamoured with microdosing is that microdosing allows people to feel the positive effects that hallucinogens have on mood, creativity, concentration, and empathetic and social thinking, without hallucinations that would cause work productivity to decrease; once clinical studies started being done to research the benefits of small amounts of psilocybin in terms of productivity and creative problem solving, microdosing hallucinogens, specifically LSD and magic mushrooms, exploded in popularity.

Microdosing magic mushrooms is a bit different from microdosing LSD, as there isn’t a discrete, knowable exact amount of psilocybin, the compound that gives magic mushrooms their hallucinogenic effects, in each mushroom. When taking magic mushrooms to experience a hallucinogenic trip, that’s not a big deal, as 0.10 grams isn’t going to have a large effect on the trip you will have. But, when microdosing, 0.10 grams can be the difference between no hallucinogenic effects and very mild hallucinogenic effects, and mild hallucinogenic effects are not the desired result. That’s why we recommend microdosing magic mushrooms through capsules, powder, or isolated liquid psilocybin, so that you’re able to be sure of the exact amount of psilocybin you’re consuming.

To consistently microdose magic mushrooms effectively, you’ll want to avoid building up a tolerance to psilocybin, as you’ll be taking tiny amounts of it to achieve your desired effects. Take a microdose in the morning on day 1 to achieve your desired effects, do not microdose on day 2, as you’ll be experiencing the after effects of the microdose, do not microdose on day 3 to take a day where you feel no effects, and then microdose in the morning on day 4.