Recommendations for MICRODOSING

Here are some guidelines that can help you get the most benefit from your Microdosing experience. There are many approaches to microdosing, so please only take these as suggestions, and overall, listen to your body!

You’ll experience the most benefit from taking your dosage on an empty stomach, or along with food. If you dose after a meal, the effects may be delayed or diminished . It’s up to you to decide the best time of day to try it, personally I like to take mine in the mid morning because I feel I’m the most productive then.

It’s generally advised that you stick to a schedule for microdosing. Taking a day or more off is important. It allows your tolerance to reset, and gives you the ability to fully embrace the medicine the next time you dose. It gives us a chance to reflect on our experience, a return to baseline. Overtime, noticing these baseline changes can tell you whether microdosing is working for you, and in what ways.

One of the most popular dosing schedules, “The Fadiman Protocol” is where you dose for one day, followed by two days off. This is designed to allow you to observe the effects that microdosing offers, and to compare and distinguish between on, transitional, and off days. It’s recommended to stick to this schedule for 1-2 months, followed by a 2-4 week break.

Mycologist Paul Stamets recommends adding lion’s mane and niacin to your microdose regimen to maximize the positive effects on the brain, often referred to as “The Stamets’ Stack” for four days a week, followed by three days off. He recommends following this schedule for a month, followed by 2-4 weeks off.

The Microdosing Institute recommends an every other day dosing schedule for treating depression, anxiety, adhd, and other health related conditions. They’ve studied using this dosing schedule as a medicinal tool that yielded maximum benefits for treating these conditions.

Or, you can follow a more intuitive dosing schedule, where you choose to dose whenever, taking a day or more off after dosing for any number of days.

I started with 5 days a week followed by 2 off. After a few weeks I began to feel as if I needed it less, so then I stuck to the Stamets’ dosing schedule of 4/3, and some 4/2’s for a few months. Overtime, I cut my dosage down as well. Now, I dose 3 or 2 days on followed by 1 or 2 days off. I recently took a whole week off and have enjoyed having the ability to choose how to handle my mental health with natural medicine. After learning about the recommendation of one day on one day off to best treat a multitude of conditions I had turned to microdosing for, I may alter my dosing schedule once again, so I suppose overall I’ve had success with intuitively dosing.

Your body has ways of telling you your dosage is definitely too high (initial irritability/agitation, tiredness or heavy and emotional are common if this is the case) or maybe a little too high (undesirable amounts of euphoria or feeling stoned or heavy in the body, feeling less functional than normal).

If you aren’t experiencing the benefits you are seeking, you can try changing your dosage. For someone who is just starting out, I recommend reading about psilocybin and deciding what dosage you think is ideal to start with. I suggest starting with the microdose multipack so you can gradually increase your dosage, or decide on set small amount like 50mg or 100mg, starting with one, on the following time you dose, try 2, or even 3. You’re typically looking to find a sweet spot where you feel benefits like increased focus, better mood, energy; without feeling *high or impaired in going about your daily activities. Once you’ve tried them to know how you react, it’s entirely possible to work or drive on days you dose.

What if you try it and you don’t feel any different? I recommend giving yourself a day in between trying a higher dosage to see if that’s a better outcome.

If you’re taking other medicines, they have a potential to interfere or block the effects of microdosing. Common antidepressants (SSRIs/SNRIs) that work by interacting and regulating your serotonin receptors, can often decrease or block benefits of psilocybin. There are other medications that may or may not interfere, I’d say based on feedback I’ve gotten that Wellbutrin and Xanax are suspect to dulling effects as well. Fortunately, adding psilocybin to a regular intake of a SSRI/SNRI isn’t likely to cause serotonin syndrome according to initial studies on the matter, you just may need to take a much higher dosage, or if you’re able to work with your doctor or current care team, work together to decrease your usage of the antidepressant in order to experience how psilocybin alone works on your brain.

Most reading I’ve done suggests to try microdosing without the usage of other mind altering substances, right down to caffeine and cannabis, so you can know how it alone makes you feel. Sometimes the boost in energy can replace your coffee, for example. I’m a huge hypocrite here- I microdose with my coffee AND cannabis in the AM every damn time, but those have been a part of my routine for years and I don’t think affect my affinity for additional entheogenic healing.

Many people enjoy introducing other habits or practices into their microdosing regimen, such as journaling, meditation or breathing practices, positive affirmations, yoga, a change of eating or drinking, or just the agreement to be easy on yourself as you allow the medicine to work.

Overall, it’s not for everyone. Although it’s called magic mushrooms, it can’t magically transform your life, in a lot of cases. Sometimes, just not immediately. But if you commit to making positive changes, as the medicine shows you how to improve your outlook as you choose to prioritize your mental health, healing is possible.