Microdosing For Anxiety: Risks, Benefits, & the Transformational
ANXIETY IN TODAY’S WORLD
Many of us are familiar with the experience of anxiety—sweaty palms, racing heartbeat, and frantic thinking. The prevalence of anxiety in today’s world is significant: as the most common mental health challenge in the United States, anxiety disorders are diagnosed in around 40 million adults in the United States per year. Even if you are not among the 31.1 percent of the population who has struggled with an anxiety disorder across their lifetime, perhaps you have experienced occasional bouts of anxiety in response to everyday stresses.Anxiety is often a rational reaction to a chaotic and unpredictable world, and stems from a combination of genetics, neurochemistry, and life events. At its best, anxiety helps us anticipate and prepare for danger. In excess amounts, however, anxiety loses its self-protective mechanism, interferes with everyday functioning, and impedes us from enjoying life to its fullest.
Despite the prevalence of this condition, only about one-third of individuals with anxiety disorders end up receiving treatment. Mainstream mental health interventions typically consist of psychotherapy, psychiatric medication, or both. Now, a growing body of research is pointing to the efficacy of psychedelic substances, such as LSD and psilocybin, in relieving anxiety and other mood disorders, such as treatment-resistant depression, bipolar disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
YOUR BRAIN ON ANXIETY
On a neurological level, anxiety correlates with impaired pattern separation, “a process by which similar experiences or events are transformed into discrete, non-overlapping representations,” according to a 2012 review by Nature Neuroscience.Put another way, those with anxiety may become fearful in neutral situations, if aspects of the neutral scenario resemble a prior, unsafe situation. Impaired pattern separation makes it difficult to discern between actual threats and non-threatening stimuli that simply remind us of a previous threat. The result is an overly generalizing, hypervigilant mind perpetually stuck in anxious mode.One theory posits that impaired pattern separation results from reduced neurogenesis—the process by which new neurons are formed in the brain. Without a diversity of neural connections, it becomes easy to overgeneralize and to default to limiting, anxiety-provoking beliefs, such as, The world is always scary, or Things have gone wrong for me in the past, so this next thing will probably go wrong, too. Neurogenesis is closely linked to neuroplasticity: the brain’s potential to grow, organize, and rearrange neural networks in response to its changing environment. The more new neurons that are created through neurogenesis, the more equipped the brain is to rewire itself in an adaptive manner through neuroplasticity.
The parallel processes of neurogenesis and neuroplasticity facilitate our capacity to process information, retain memories, and confront challenges. This type of mental fitness and flexibility helps us to shift habitual thought patterns by consciously reprogramming the brain from anxiety to emotional stability through mindful action.