What’s Better for Cognition: Nootropic or Psychedelic Mushrooms?

The brain matters. Cognition is important for people who seek to improve their memory focus, creativity, perception, problem-solving, decision-making, and higher-level thinking. One’s level of cognition affects their daily life and interactions, including work and productivity.

Two powerful wellness products for cognition are nootropic mushrooms and psychedelic mushrooms. While one is for brain health and immune support, the other changes perception in subtle ways. Both can help a user be more resilient against stress and rewire their brain over time.

Is only one truly better for cognition, or are they relatively equal in somewhat different ways? Bear with us to learn whether nootropic mushrooms or psychedelic mushrooms take the cake for brain power, mental health, and other benefits.

How Nootropic Mushrooms Work

You best know mushrooms as food, but there are several mushrooms that have benefits that go beyond merely being a tasty part of dinner. The key nutrients they provide also offer mental, emotional, and physical benefits that fight cognitive decline, support the immune system, reduce inflammation, and more. As such, they are functional mushrooms.

Nootropics is a subject that includes three types:

• Pharmaceutical drugs
• Wellness supplements in the form of herbal products and natural plant extracts
• Human-made or synthetic substances

Interchangeable with adaptogenic, nootropic substances describe certain properties. While nootropics are compounds that make your brain function better, adaptogens are compounds that help you reduce and deal with stress better. 

Also, adaptogens usually refer to herbs, roots, and mushrooms, and nootropics can be naturally occurring or synthetic. That is why you will often see adaptogens and nootropics include many of the same things – like mushrooms.

As a health or wellness supplement, nootropic mushrooms provide the important nutrients users can’t get by just cooking and eating the raw mushrooms. Instead, the ideal way to take nootropic mushrooms is by creating an extract or tincture for fast absorption and no loss of its bioactive compounds. 

You can often find nootropic mushrooms labeled as “smart mushrooms,” “cognitive enhancers,” “nootropic,” or even just the specific mushroom(s) the product refers to. 

Some of the most popular nootropic mushrooms are:

• Reishi
• Cordyceps
• Lion’s Mane
• Turkey Tail
• Chaga

Neurotransmitter Activation

There are 2 main neurotransmitters nootropic mushrooms activate: Serotonin and dopamine. Serotonin is the happy chemical and dopamine is the feel-good chemical. You also get a release of both chemicals during activities like exercise, which is why some people use nootropic mushrooms just for that.

Cognition and Immune System Support

Nootropic mushrooms can improve reaction time and recovery time during exercise as well as energy levels. But its main appeal has always been for its brain-boosting benefits for things like studying, analyzing, brainstorming, thinking outside the box, and especially memory, learning, and decision-making. 

An extra benefit of nootropic mushrooms that are also adaptogens is that they protect the brain and support the immune system. By reducing inflammation in the body and providing antioxidants, they fight free radicals and infection, and encourage better sleep and daily energy. Depending on the mushroom, they have certain bioactive compounds with specific effects, so those are just a few general examples. 

Psychedelic Mushrooms: A New Productivity Booster

In today’s world, where we have an ever-expanding array of substances, “psychedelic mushrooms” can refer to either one of 3 things:

• Hallucinogenic mushrooms: Either referring to psilocybin mushrooms, which are illegal at the federal level in the United States, or amanita (usually amanita muscaria), which is often legal but classified as toxic by the FDA. Amanita requires a careful processing to remove as much of the harmful compound of ibotenic acid as possible. 
• Synthetic or semi-synthetic substances: May or may not be combined with nootropic mushrooms, these psychedelic mushroom products can be used for the purposes of recreation, microdosing for productivity and creativity, or both. They mimic the effects of real psychedelic mushrooms, but without the same chemical structure and legal issues. 

Neurotransmitter Activation

The main neurotransmitter psychedelic mushrooms in any form activates is serotonin. For the synthetic or semi-synthetic mushrooms, they target the same serotonin receptors psilocybin does – serotonin 5HT2A. 

It’s more than just “the happy chemical” in general. With these specific receptors, the brain better communicates between nerves and neurons, as well as areas of the brain that are weak or don’t communicate much with each other. 

Serotonin 5HT2A is important for mood, sleep, appetite, and immune support. It’s not only in the central nervous system of the brain, but it’s also in the bones and gut. There is a gut-brain relationship where the health of the gut affects the person’s mental wellness. 

Perception and Productivity

Cognition, emotional stability, and perception are the main benefits of psychedelic mushrooms in the practice of microdosing. It’s the taking very small amounts of the substance to give the effects on a smaller, easily controllable experience. 

Subtle shifts or changes in perception lead to more productive behavior. When you feel better about something instead of stressful, worrying, or dreading it, it’s easier to get motivation to do it. Not only that, but to focus on it and smoothly move from one task to another. 

The decision to microdose psychedelic mushrooms over nootropics – or even in addition to nootropics – comes with the desire to want to perform better in many areas of life. Although it focuses on improving cognition, there are immune and physical benefits that can encourage the user to adopt better lifestyle choices and habits. Hacking the biomatrix, sotospeak, to think and do better at things that are inherently difficult, tedious, or demanding. It’s also about being able to get deeper into existing useful habits or practices or integrating new ones. 

Comparison Table

Ready for a Subtle Shift in Perception?

Microdosing psychedelic mushrooms came before nootropics, but both supplements are about equally popular these days. Each has their own positive effects on the brain, including the ability to use more of the brain. It’s especially true for  the central nervous system and the forebrain, where higher-living thinking and executive decision-making happens. 

Psychedelic mushrooms differ in their targeting of the serotonin receptor that promotes overall wellness and greater emotional stability in times of stress or where focus or creativity are necessary. If you want to try microdosing psychedelic mushrooms, Mindless Mushrooms by Real Botanicals might be right for you.

You might be interested in “Sleeping on Shrooms: What Is It Like?“