Posted by Meditating became popular in the West during the 1970s, when certain elements of Buddhist and Hindu culture came from the East. Psychedelics were also popular, with large-dose trips encouraging users to explore their minds and spirituality and examine their personal belief system. With this came practitioners of yoga and meditation.
Later on, psychedelic trips underwent replacement with microdosing. The reason was twofold: Legal restrictions on natural psychedelics, and the impracticality of hallucinogenic tripping. Research preferred microdosing as a high-functioning and therapeutic approach that was not drastic or shocking to users’ minds and avoided negative mental effects.
If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to meditate while microdosing, you’ll find out now. The following is what happens when you’re microdosing and do meditation at the same time.
The Benefits of Meditation
The practice of meditation originates from ancient India. Although you’ve likely seen it in the religion of Buddhism, it was first mentioned in ancient Vedic texts dating back to 1500 BCE. From there via travelers, it made its way to several other countries in various forms.
Mindfulness is like meditating, only the practitioner is going about their day as normally as possible. While mindfulness may be practiced as part of daily life or a set-aside time, meditation Things like active meditation and stream-of-consciousness writing are practices that are offshoots of meditation.
The main difference is that meditation requires stillness. Instead of engaging, body, mind, and breath at once, it asks the practitioner to simply listen to their breath for a set number of minutes. One method is 1 minute for every year of their age. They may or may not combine it with breath practices where inhales and exhales are timed.
Your Brain While Meditating
During meditation, the brain enters an altered state. Something very similar also happens to people praying, such as nuns and monks. Increased serotonin, GABA, dopamine, and a less busier Default Mode Network that reduces self-conscious anxiety and mind-wandering or circular thinking all contribute to make them more positive, relaxed, and open to new experiences and thoughts.
Meditation puts the brain into the following electrical wave patterns:
- Theta (3.5-7.5 Hz): Deep relaxation, emotional processing, and creativity that leads to intuition and insight.
- Alpha (8-12 Hz): Relaxed, calm wakefulness. Improved emotional regulation and relaxed alertness.
These slower waves are in opposition to “normal” wakefulness of high-frequency beta waves – associated with hypervigilance and stress. The turning-off of the DMN leads to better emotional awareness, and a state of calm instead of stress and anxiety. Also, Alpha and Theta are NREM1 and NREM2 stages of sleep, respectively, and both happen before the REM stage of dreaming.
Microdosing Benefits
The effects from microdosing psychedelic mushrooms have a lot in common with those of meditation. For one thing, there’s the release of serotonin. Specifically, serotonin 5HT2A, one of the same neurotransmitters that meditation releases. A similar feeling of emotional stability and well-being happens.
Another thing that happens is that psychedelic mushrooms indirectly release dopamine. They also improve the neurons that work with GABA (a calming neurotransmitter). Let’s think about what happens when these two powerful practices combine.
Microdosing Effects on the Brain
Small changes in perception, mood, and cognition happen to the brain over time while microdosing psychedelic mushrooms. What’s more is that microdosing activates many of the same areas of the brain that meditation does and allows the user to mentally and emotionally “get ouf of their own way” and achieve an easy state of calm and flow.
Microdosing can parallel the effects of full or standard dosing, especially with regards to mental health benefits. It definitely provides longer-lasting benefits than single hallucinogenic trips do. Also, they don’t require many people to set aside a special time for microdosing or step away from their current obligations.
Combining Meditation and Microdosing
The usefulness of practicing meditation while microdosing psychedelic mushrooms is appealing for achieving even greater calm. Also, it may help users on their journey to emotional healing on a deeper level than either meditation or microdosing alone.
Besides this, combining the two practices can allow someone to avoid the distractions of everyday life while enjoying the subtle effects of psychedelic mushrooms in a state of stillness. It encourages greater creativity faster, and the ability to practice offshoots of meditation like active meditation and stream-of-consciousness become easier. Things that require deep concentration or problem-solving ability in daily life are also more efficient; there’s far less mind-wandering and more focus with little effort.
Ready to Start Microdosing?
Think microdosing could be helpful for your lifestyle, hobbies, or work performance? There’s no shortage of legal, non-psilocybin mushroom vendors. So which one should you choose?
Your mushroom vendor should give you a product that doesn’t mess around when it comes to dosing. Especially when it comes to microdosing – we think the more a product is made just for that, the better. A formula with clean ingredients that delivers every time will help you achieve the results you want without a second thought.
That’s why we recommend Mindless Mushrooms by Real Botanicals. As with their other products, they continue their commitment to efficiency, consistency, and transparency.
You might be interested in “Achieving Greater Mindfulness with Mushrooms.”