Psilocybin, the psychoactive substance found in mushrooms, has been attracting the attention of scientists and people with mental health issues. CBC’s Nick Purdon meets Canadians who swear by microdosing, and the researchers trying to understand why it works.

Harriet De Wit is a professor of psychiatry and behavioral neuroscience at the University of Chicago, and she says that in microdosing, you take “very low doses, about one-tenth of what you would need to have a psilocybin trip.” In her research, she’s been looking for the right dosage for psilocybin to be helpful as a medicine. To get a full, psilocybin-induced experience, the average person takes about 3.5 grams of shrooms. For a microdose, you’d start with less than that—perhaps around.3 grams—and slowly increase your dose until you find the right effect. URL https://thirdeyemicrodose.com/

Mindful Mini-Doses: Enhancing Wellness with Mushroom Microdosing

Many people who microdose report feeling more energized, creative, happy and connected to the world. And while it’s hard to prove that the psychedelic drug really is the cause of these feelings, it does seem to help people who are struggling with depression, for example. In a study, a group of people who took low-dose psilocybin reported improved well-being and more positive changes in their brain waves than those who didn’t take the drugs.

Other research isn’t as convincing, though. One study looked at 953 psilocybin microdosers and 180 non-microdosers for 30 days, measuring mood, wellbeing, mystical experiences and personality. The participants were also asked about their expectations of microdosing and were compared to results from before the study to gauge expectancy bias.