The Rise And Rise Of Psychedelics Explained By New Study
Don’t knock it till you try it? Or just don’t try it? Let’s see what science has to say.
COVID-19 was the blow that nobody saw coming. In a matter of months, life as we knew it changed drastically, and the little things that we took for granted, i.e. seeing friends, visiting family, shopping, traveling — pretty much everything that gets us through the week — became obsolete. The effect of government-imposed lockdown was devastating to the mental health of many, with people resorting to various forms of ‘therapy’ to cope. A common path taken was anti-anxiety medication, which saw an increase of 34.1% in the US between mid-February and March, peaking when COVID was declared a global pandemic. In addition to this, sales of alcohol climbed drastically, as did the use of psychedelics.
It appears many took to the likes of magic mushrooms (there is a popular strain called golden teacher), truffles, and acid, to escape the mental constraints of their minds, and the literal constraints of lockdown, in order to ‘go in,’ when they couldn’t go out. A decision that science somewhat backs — even if the government (and your family) doesn’t.
Like it or not, psychedelics are rising in popularity, a video by Vice, published earlier this year, states, “the use of magic mushrooms has been increasing by around 40% year on year,” and this recent study might explain why…
“In two prospective studies, using convenience samples of individuals with plans to use a psychedelic, we explored the impact of psychedelic use on experiential avoidance, depression severity, and suicidal ideation, as well as relationships between changes in these outcomes,” this quote, taken from Frontiers in Psychiatry, outlines the aim of the study. The findings of which are pretty interesting, check it out: “Across both studies, repeated measures ANOVAs indicated significant decreases in experiential avoidance, depression severity, and suicidal ideation after psychedelic use.”
In summary, psychedelics (shrooms, LSD, ayahuasca…) were found to have a positive impact on mental health. In an interview with Dazed, Richard Zeiffman explains why, “(psychedelic therapy) helps individuals to be less avoidant and more accepting of their emotions, thoughts, and memories, even though such experiences may be distressing in the short-term.”
Pretty ‘woke’ stuff huh? Maybe the hippies were right after all…
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