Can Microdosing Psilocybin Truffles Help Curb My Sugar Addiction?
I’ve finally made my way back to the Netherlands. There are a lot of things I like about the Netherlands; biking everywhere, the beautiful canals, legalization of sex work and the fact that you can buy psilocybin truffles in smart shops or even online.
For full disclosure, I’m the CTIO of Red Light Holland, a company selling microdosing kits in the Netherlands, along with free access to a therapist, mindfulness training and and app to promote responsible use of this powerful substance. I’m very excited to be able to try my company’s products for the first time and I’m planning to start a microdosing self-blinding experiment based on recent research papers. In my anecdotal research, asking my friends who have found microdosing helpful, I’ve identified a possible trend. People have told me it replaced their daily cravings for caffeine or sugar. They claimed it allowed them to sustain the same focus without the need for “rewards”.
Generally, I’m really happy and proud of my relationship with most substances. In my cognitive neuroscience studies I was fascinated by how each substance effects our brain and behavior. I learnt a little about what happens in the brains of addicts, how some substances like caffeine or nicotine change the brain and create a dependency. I like to visualize a type of sub-agent being created in the brain, for instance imagine a little cartoon cigarette whispering into the ear of smokers trying to get them to consume more nicotine and becoming really grumpy and angry without nicotine. I’ve made it a point to put a lot of effort to build healthy relationships with substances and with the subagents in my brain and try to live what we consider an iMicro life style, using substances responsibly as a tool for growth to increase creativity, presence focus or fun. For instance I’ll only drink coffee about once a week if I have an early meeting. Half the days don’t consume any caffeine and do my best to make sure I get enough sleep even if I work or party late. However, when it comes to my sugar consumption I'm the first to admit I'm an addict. I motivate myself with cookies and vegan ice cream, eat sugared cereal and sometimes can’t resist a sugared soda. Years ago, in Australia, I was volunteering on an organic farm for 3 weeks. All the food was made in the farm with no added sugar. The first 2 weeks I went through very strong cravings that gradually reduced but the first thing I did when I got out of the farm was to buy a box of Tim Tam cookies and eat them all! I rationalize my behavior and tell myself that since my BMI is very low and I exercise a lot the high processed sugar content of my diet is probably fine. I tell myself I’m an outlier. But my scientist brain knows that is my addict brain taking over and making excuses.
How much sugar is too much sugar?
The science about that is still not very clear. Recommendations of no more then 10% of your daily caloric intake are prevalent and research on increased risk for diabetes or inflammation for people that have a healthy BMI was not conclusive from the papers I read. So my main goal isn’t about the exact quantity I limit myself to but to change the relationship I have with the substance, to reduce my dependency and cravings, to find other ways to motivate myself to complete some of the more annoying tasks of my work which I generally love. I’m hoping microdosing can help me with that.
To help me with this experiment I’m going to be using the iMicoapp our team team built to help people keep track of these types of self improvement explorations with microdosing and I’m also going to utilize the free consultation with our company therapist and expert microdoser Jeff Hamburg to get tips and ideas about best common practices.
I’ll be documenting my journey using the journal in the app and will share my results. I’m noticing some fear of failure in me, but fear is the mind killer. I have high confidence that I will learn many valuable things from the journey even if the sugar monsters in me aren’t transformed.