Exploring Plant Medicine: Mushrooms
The mental health crisis is escalating, as is the amount of pills prescribed to fix it. Perhaps it’s time we look back to the not-so-basic basics: nature. The oldest cave paintings depict plant medicine in healing and spiritual rituals–what our ancestors knew, science is now explaining.
Until recently, psychedelics have had little space in the world of sophisticated science. However, psychedelic research is experiencing a revival and exploring the benefits of psychedelic use in psychiatric disorders, addiction, PTSD, and depression. Advancements in psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy and studies at John Hopkins and New York University recorded significant decreases in depression and anxiety even six months after a single psychedelic trip. The cure for the mental health crisis has been right under our feet all along. The Mushroom Retreat has been transformational for many people.
How does it work?
1. Increases Amygdala Activity
Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, SSRIs, are the most common antidepressants. They work by decreasing activity in the right amygdala, the area that gives emotions meaning and controls happiness and fear responses, and stunting emotional responses.
Studies show psilocybin, the psychoactive alkaloid in hallucinogenic mushrooms, to be as much as four times more effective than SSRIs. Structurally, psilocybin is very similar to serotonin, and binds to serotonin receptors in the brain to increase serotonin. Instead of dulling the emotions, psilocybin increases activity in the right amygdala, encouraging willingness to accept and process emotions.
2. Resets the Ego
The claustrum religion is a thin sheet of neurons deep in the cortex of the brain that reaches out to all other regions and contains our sense of self. In those with depression, this region is over-connected, correlating with unhealthy views of, and obsession with, the self.
The ego is formed when we’re about five years old and holds our self-image, self-esteem, and self-identity. It’s associated with the default mode network, a mechanism filters all information it decides is irrelevant and arranges boundaries and dualities to simplify reality.
Psilocybin decreases activity in the claustrum and calms activity in the default mode network. This allows much more sensory information to reach the consciousness, generating the feeling of intense love and connectedness associated with the psychedelic experience. It resets well-worn thought pathways in the brain to allow experience of an unbiased reality and reformulate habilitual thoughts. The breakdown of perceived boundaries and dualities is the spiritual experience of “ego death.”
3. Creates New Connections
MRIs show that psilocybin sprouts links across the brain, creating a hyperconnected brain linking regions that were previously unconnected. The image above shows a “normal” brain, and the the brain scanned while on psilocybin. Notice the incredible amount of new connections! This action “unsticks” patterned thinking in depression and many individuals experience profound shifts in their perspective afterward. In PTSD, depression, and other disorders, this opening up and reorganizing the brain takes the individual out of previous, stuck, thought experiences and enables healing from within.
Interested?
Unlike standard antidepressants, which come with a long list of side effects, psilocybin has a very low risk profile. When administered by a knowledgeable person in a safe space, psilocybin mushrooms can release you from depression or other mental disorders. If this is something that interests you, reach out! We would love to assist you with any questions you might have or inquire to join our Mushroom Retreat in Mexico.
