Finding Your Perfect Microdose 🍄🟫
The medicine has called you. You’re ready to begin. You joined a program, found your coach, have your high quality sourcing sorted… Now What?? 😅 When you’re first starting out in a microdosing practice, one of the important things to know up front is that there is very little 'standard' or 'uniform' in this practice. Our human mind - especially in this modern moment - loves to grip onto certainty, instructions, and a 'just tell me what to take' mindset. But with this practice - with nature-work, energy work, spirit work - there is so much nuance and individuality involved that arriving at your perfect dose is just as much of an intuitive art as it is a hard science.
Especially for beginners to practice, I’d love to share some patterns I've witnessed when it comes to dosing. There are few hard and fast rules that will apply to everyone, always, but I’ve learned some distinct overall trends while supporting over 1200+ people of diverse backgrounds and biological ages in practice.
Attributes/Characteristics of individuals who thrive with a very low microdose (under < 100mg) - Open-minded, love novelty, longtime meditators/practitioners of contemplative practices, artists & creatives, younger adults (< 35 years old) healers especially bodyworkers and energy medicine professionals, people who tend to be 'other-focused’... often to a fault, empathic, sensitive, animal lovers - the type of people animals and children naturally flock to - very connected to nature - happiest memories are in nature and very connected to nature as a child, women over 60+, flexible, humble, sharing comes naturally, grateful, considerate in nature, listen and share space easily. Easily express emotions, especially grief and tears. When they get out of balance or upset, they tend to harm themselves (withdraw, isolate, overeat, self-shame, people-please) rather than harm others. Can get overwhelmed easily. Nervous system gets dysregulated by crowds/modern life and may have a lot of physical symptoms related to nervous system imbalance. “Feelers.” When faced with a new idea, experience or viewpoint, they are curious. They hold less fear & rigidity in their body, and embrace change and novelty. People who tend to show appreciation and express gratitude easily seem to especially thrive with microdosing, often at lower doses.
Attributes/Characteristics of individuals who thrive with a moderate/higher microdose (200-300+mg) - Rigid, repetitive, habit-oriented (one day is nearly identical to every other), highly intellectual/mental, always thinking/over-thinking, not very connected to their body or emotions - they live in their head, dogmatic, know-it-all's, looping in mindset (tell the same stories over and over) men over 60+, self-referential, people who have never done any mind/body or physical practices, people prone to addictions or obsessions, heavily repress emotions, antidepressant users - especially SSRIs, people on a lot of synthetic medications, those on the autism spectrum. Academics, ‘information collectors,’ researchers, and people who are always ‘trying to figure things out.” Live from the neck-up and very disconnected from their body. “Thinkers.” When faced with a new idea, experience or viewpoint, they can be dismissive, defensive, recalcitrant, controlling. They hold more fear & rigidity in their body, and try to control their environment and people in their lives.
Attributes/Characteristics of individuals who tend not be successful with microdosing at any dose - People with highly incoherent energy (synthetic drug use, poor diet (tons of fast food/processed food), patterns of chronic lying - especially to oneself - and manipulating others.) People who are very uncomfortable and unfamiliar with any range of emotion. When they get out of balance, they tend to harm others (lash out, hostility, road rage) I’ve also noticed unequivocally that people who are really naturally generous, appreciative & grateful tend to excel at microdosing, whereas people who rarely express these qualities often struggle to achieve the results they desire from practice.
Remember, earth medicine practice is a mirror… a reciprocal relationship and energetic exchange. It’s been fascinating to witness how often a grateful, generous heart is a strong and reliable indicator that mushrooms - even in tiny amounts - will return that generosity in the form of gifts across the spectrum of healing.
Bodyweight: So, does it matter? I have found that bodyweight is not a reliable predictor of dose; it is one factor, but I recommend considering it to be a contributing factor among many others. I believe we see a lot of practitioners recommending dosing by bodyweight because 1/ they don’t have a lot of direct personal experience guiding individuals in practice 2/ it’s human nature to attempt to create uniform standards in a field it’s impossible to do so and 3/ they are erroneously treating microdosing like a standardized pharmaceutical prescription, i.e. treating mushrooms as if they are an antidepressant and everyone is the same.
One question I receive often from beginners is: “I’m highly sensitive - to everything! Does this mean my dose should be really low?” Sometimes. If you’re someone who is very sensitive, and - importantly - if you THINK you are someone who is highly sensitive, then I usually recommend starting out on the low side as you can always go up. But I’ve also seen self-described highly sensitive people occasionally need a higher dose if they tend to be highly perfectionistic, rigid, self-critical over-thinking types - so the answer is “sometimes.” It really depends on so many factors and why it can be so helpful to have a coach or guide parse out some of these more nuanced traits. Overall, I have seen microdosing & mushrooms in particular highly beneficial for sensitive people - as I shared above, sensitivity and empathy are strong indications to me that someone will have a positive experience with practice.
Lately I’ve been seeing some scientists and academics poo-poohing microdosing, questioning its effectiveness, and expressing strong bias in favor of high dose psilocybin therapy along the lines of “why would you even bother with microdosing?” In my witnessing & experience, these individuals often possess the characteristics that make one a poor candidate for microdosing. In other words, they are probably correct in their assessment that microdosing wouldn’t do much for someone like them. However there is quite a bit of arrogance built into the notion that everyone will share your singular experience.
For example, there is a reason why the popularly known “psychedelic guys of the 1960s” would require a zillion mega-high dose trips to arrive at a mystical destination or place of higher consciousness. However, I’ve witnessed a 70+ year old female artist with a fifty year contemplative practice get to the same destination on a single gram of mushrooms. The more rigidity, heavy intellect, conditioning, ego, fear, shame, self-loathing/self-reference and repression you hold (often masquerading as professional arrogance and drive for attention) the more you may tend to need a heavy handed dose or powerful medicine experience to blast through your more rigid ego, dense intellect and calcified energetic structures. And there is nothing problematic about this until you begin to assume that this is the standard default and will be true for everyone.
For many on the other end of the personality and energetic spectrum, they may never need to work at exceptionally high doses because it’s not necessary for them. If you’re already very open, ‘other-oriented',’ humble, selfless, sensitive, empathic and empathetic, you may likely achieve the same results from much less “push” from the medicine. Many people who are very open - already quite neuroplastic and bendy - will thrive with cycles of microdosing and mini-moderate doses of 500mg or 1-2g. You read and hear less about these types of people and cases because, well, these people tend to be less inclined to take up space or seek attention. In many ways, they require less mushroom because they are more “like” the mushrooms already!
Over time, the more self-awareness you hold - the more you know yourself and develop your intuition - the more you will be able to zero in on the perfect dose for you. It’s not ‘better’ or heroic to require more medicine, in fact, the more you develop your relationship with the medicine - with yourself, with spirit - the less medicine you’ll need. One of the most problematic aspects of corporate for-profit modern medicine as it applies to earth medicines is the emphasis on ‘standardization’ in order to ‘scale.’ Microdosing - in particular - defies easy categorization or one-size-fits-all framing… which I think is a really positive thing as it helps shift us into a new way of thinking, promotes the creation of a personalized, intentional relationship, and encourages interacting with the medicine. The ritual becomes less an act of swallowing a pill and more a deepening into a co-creative relationship and embodied experience, just as nature intended.
Ready to begin? JOIN our international Global Microdosing Community for just $22 (rate goes up this Monday - join soon to lock in founding pricing!) — or apply for our Spring Microdosing Immersion. In these intimate small group cohorts, you’ll experience six immersive weeks directly with Kayse alongside a dynamic group of kindred spirits - 2 Seats Remaining - apply HERE. Are you a Professional or aspiring guide supporting others in microdosing practice? Join our new Professional Program + Mentorship Circles HERE.
