“Microdosing for Health, Healing & Enhanced Performance”
On my long journey home recently to the United States from Cairo I had a chance to dive into “Microdosing for Health, Healing and Enhanced Performance” - the brand new, much-awaited book from authors Jordan Gruber, JD and Jim Fadiman, PhD.
Many of you will recognize Jim Fadiman’s name as one of the early psychedelic researchers in the Timothy Leary/Richard Alpert era, the author of “The Psychedelic Explorer’s Guide,” and one of the earliest citizen-scientist researchers in the microdosing field, as he and his colleague Sophia Korb collected thousands of personal accounts & data points in their efforts to collect and learn from participant experiences. “The Fadiman Protocol” is a popularly known microdosing protocol named after Jim and advocates dosing on a 1-Day on/2-Days off schedule.
Jordan - his longtime friend and writing partner - has likewise devoted himself to exploring, learning and delving deeply into the field of microdosing in preparation for this book. A steady presence in my friend & colleague Dana Harvey’s Flourish Academy online gatherings - many of which center upon microdosing education, best practices and approaches - I can attest first-hand Jordan has invested years of curiosity & exploration - listening to people coaching others, pursing countless hours of research, and learning from participants sharing their real world accounting of practice - to bring forth this body of work.
Their new book just hit shelves - definitely worth the wait! - and I’m excited to share some of the highlights & my favorite aspects. This is a beautiful contribution to the field - a testament to the organic & mycelial growth of microdosing for healing - and I hope that - much like Michael Pollan’s “How to Change Your Mind” (2018) - their book will serve as another distinct cultural marker that ushers in a whole new wave of mainstream awareness around microdosing practice.
1 - I LOVE that the book at all times leads with People’s Real Lived Experiences. Yes, the authors include all-the-things - touching on the history, the science, safety, legality, the research - however the work leads and is grounded in many thousands of personal accounts, anecdotes and individual stories. If you are curious about what microdosing can do, what kind of conditions it can support, what people’s real experiences are like, you’ll love discovering microdosing’s immense, surprisingly diverse potential shared in this book.
2- I appreciate how the authors emphasize the deeply personal & nuanced aspects of practice. We can create consistent frameworks, protocols, containers and dosing guidelines, but a great deal of your experience will be based on a variety of unique factors and characteristics. So much of our mainstream medicine models and culture attempt to smush highly individual experiences into standardized, uniform instructions and outcomes, and I love that the authors speak to the beautiful diversity of factors and experiences.
3 - At just under 300 pages, this book is hefty: RICH, thorough and covers a lot of ground, especially in detailing the many intentions, conditions, and reasons one may benefit from microdosing practice. And honestly, it could have been even longer! Microdosing - especially alongside supportive lifestyle practices, coaching, guidance and therapy - has a remarkable range of benefits across the spectrum of healing: mental health, physical healing, nervous system regulation, spiritual development and personal growth. Can one simple practice really be this beneficial for this many things? Yes, I’ve seen first-hand that it can, and this is just scratching the surface of all we don’t know yet!
4 - Long-COVID related conditions - I’ve seen dramatically in my practice and personal life how many clients & colleagues suffer from long-lasting and debilitating long-covid/related conditions, and I so appreciate the special mention given to this subject by Jim & Jordan. I don’t see the public taking long-haul COVID as seriously as we should, as much continues to be suppressed & silenced by mainstream media and tech platforms. The acknowledgement the authors make for those suffering from long haul symptoms is powerful & important, as is the knowledge and awareness that microdosing can help support many in their recovery.
5 - “CUT THE CRAP” - One of my most-favorite parts of the book is when the authors highlight Davivid Rose, one of the earliest modern acolytes of microdosing LSD. Giving away microdoses in the early 1980s before he was caught and shut down by law enforcement, his opening instructions & guidance to microdosing practice was: “First and most importantly, CUT THE CRAP.” In other words, be ready to face yourself, check yourself, and humble yourself… otherwise you run the risk of inflating your own BS. This is an aspect of psychedelic practice that is not mentioned often enough, and I so appreciate the authors naming it and bringing it into the conversation. Psychedelics are “non-specific amplifiers” and tend to enhance or ‘bring out’ more of what you already are, what your life is already focused upon… So if your intentions include to become more grateful, more creative, more empathetic and compassionate, the medicines can truly bring out these beautiful, life-affirming qualities. However, if you’re already ego-centric - narcissistic, power-hungry and devoid of self-awareness or empathy - it’s just as likely that psychedelics will amplify those less-than-desirable human characteristics.
We see a perfect example of extreme psychedelic-fueled megalomania on the world stage presently (I’ll let you guess) and are losing some of the brightest lights in the field due to this; several of my most-loved colleagues and guides in the psychedelics field have stepped away entirely - not because of the medicines themselves - but because of the disappointing display of psychedelic-amplified greed, personal grandiosity and delusional ambition by some in the space.
A very, very important and not-talked-about-enough aspect of a successful microdosing practice is self-honesty, a readiness to face your own BS and willingness to ‘cut the crap’ - it’s a vital part of receiving all you can from the gifts of the medicine and harnessing their healing potential in service to a greater, higher awareness and our collective evolution.
6 - ADHD. As the authors point out, the rate of ADHD diagnoses has been off-the-charts in recent years, especially among women and girls. In my experience, many of these diagnoses serve the pharmaceutical industry far more than people when we continue to treat symptoms as “disorders" and pigeon-hole people as “disordered” or “disabled” rather than ask the deeper, harder questions or call out the cultural conditions creating & perpetuating the symptoms. Microdosing helps bring the body and spirit - particularly our energetic bodies and nervous systems - back into balance, especially when paired with lifestyle and somatic/energetic practices. Many people are delighted to discover that their sensitivity, openness, anxiety and inability to fit into society’s 9-5 cookie cutter - the things that originally landed them in a psychiatrist’s office - are actually blessings and gifts rather than a curse to be medicated & numbed over. As neurodivergence and nervous system dysregulation symptoms increase in the coming years, we’ll need new, natural, and empowering methods to help bring people into equilibrium - microdosing has the potential to be a powerful ally in this area.
7 - LSD vs. Psilocybin Microdosing - For many years Jim’s research interest focused on LSD, but - given psilocybin’s wide availability and natural accessibility - his work came to include mushroom microdosing as well. Since both medicines have unique, remarkable healing properties, I love that the book addresses and includes both. Another great reason to work with an experienced coach and guide is to help you determine which is the best microdosing medicine for you to practice with based on your unique goals and spirit - many people will benefit, over time, by working with *different medicines. (We will begin introducing & featuring distinct microdosing medicines in our new Medicine Keeper Sessions, bimonthly virtual workshops to help expand your knowledge about different substances… the next one will be All About Amanita Muscaria on April 9th, free for our Community Members or $22 for the public.)
8 - Fun, Little-Known, Insider Facts - I love that the book includes lots of neat insider-scoop that is less well-known in the mainstream. Did you know your liver & gut health will affect your practice? What’s the deal with “lemon-tekking?” Is red-green color blindness a contraindication? What about tinnitus & microdosing? You’ll enjoy so many nuggets on these lesser-known topics around practice!
9 - Antidepressants & SSRIs vs Microdosing - This is a hot and growing topic in the field, as more and more people come to microdosing practice to support them with their mental health, naturally and with far less side effects. The authors recognize this growing trend and cite research showing that antidepressants - while helpful to some - can often do more harm than help, especially when used long term. They also rightly point out that prescription medications work very differently than microdosing does, and they should not be compared or substituted for one another, apples to apples. I know I have personally seen a massive uptick in the number of people wishing to microdose in order to help them taper off of long-term, chronic reliance on synthetic drugs, and I think we’re only seeing the tip of the iceberg to what will become a massive popular movement away from addictive prescription drugs, alcohol and synthetic toxins of all kinds in the coming years.
10 - Longevity, Brain Health & Preventive Healing - Similarly, I think we’re also just at the baby-beginning of utilizing microdosing to support healthy aging and maintain a youthful, neuroplastic, creative mind and perspective over time. Alzheimer’s, dementia, narrow-mindedness, cognitive decline… all have been proven to be intertwined with a ‘calcified mind’ marked by routine and rigidity. Microdosing - I believe - is a fountain of youth, helping us maintain mental flexibility and shed heavy resonances in favor of lighter, brighter, more radiant energy. And when you feel better on an energetic level, this cascades into everything else in life… from what you choose to eat, who you engage in relationship with, how you view and operate in the world, the faith & trust you carry in life. Jim and Jordan speak to this in both the many personal anecdotes shared as well as in their predictions for the field moving forward.
Lastly, one of the most meaningful elements of the book for me is the author’s exploration around the question or demand for scientific “proof” that microdosing “works.” I - and many of the guides I work beside in our professional program - have had our work dismissed, disparaged, scrutinized, criticized or worse because of the perceived lack of “scientific evidence” proving that microdosing works. We live in an era were science reigns supreme and the double-blindo/placebo-controlled research study is considered to be the gold standard in developing evidence that a substance or practice has a “real” effect. However, the authors do a masterful job at addressing - and questioning - this standard, and whether it really is the best way to go about proving whether microdosing works for people. Their preference for Real Life evidence is powerful, as is the reality that these substances have been used as part of religious sacrament, rites of passage, spiritual exploration, physical and emotional healing, and much more for millennia. Fungi have existed on earth far longer than homo sapiens, adapting and evolving across mass extinction events. Nature needs to “prove itself” to man about as much as a fish needs a bicycle, and those of us dedicating our lives to this work know that it’s just a matter of time until science catches up to what nature already knows. More scientists and researchers are turning their attention to microdosing (many pointing out that many prescription medications and antidepressants have never met the scientific standards of effectiveness yet are widely and indiscriminately prescribed) and additional microdosing studies are underway. Until the ‘proof’ comes in, the direct accounts, witnessing, personal experience and real world results of microdosing those of us in the field see everyday are undeniably real, significant and - perhaps most important - lasting. Time will tell, and I’m personally betting on nature every time.
Perhaps the greatest strengths of the authors is bringing information about microdosing in a way that’s highly practical, engaging, real-world and directly meaningful to people’s everyday experience of life. If you’re a beginner new to practice, a curious-but-cautious type, or someone contemplating supporting others in microdosing practice for health, healing and bettering their lives, you’ll benefit and enjoy the rich, diverse subject range and down-to-earth approach of the authors. As Jim and Jordan share: “Microdosing may turn out to be the most remarkable and widely used healing and wellness-enhancing modality to emerge from the psychedelic revival.” I couldn’t agree more! Purchase your copy HERE.
