The Untold Benefits

My post content

We're living in an interesting time for psychedelics. After decades of being demonized as part of a political "war on drugs", there's a resurgence in interest in the mental health benefits of psilocybin mushrooms. This new renaissance was partially spurred on by increased mental health awareness during the pandemic, inspiring new medical research and an ever-growing push for decriminalization in many places.

Knowledge of these mushrooms benefits is nothing new...many indigenous peoples in places where they naturally grow have rich histories of traditional use. Even as modern western science struggles to catch up, many cultures that may lack written language have deep intimate knowledge of their local flora and fauna, passed down by oral tradition. Destruction and suppression of this knowledge is also nothing new...the Spanish invaders did their utmost to eliminate the spiritual mushroom use by the native peoples of what would later become Mexico. Their mission to convert the local population to Christianity left no room for other gods. Nevertheless, these traditions continued in secret, until the Mazatec curandera Maria Sabina chose to break their code of secrecy, and shared their sacred mushroom ceremony with ethnomycologist R. Gordon Wasson in 1955. This, along with the discovery of LSD, sparked the last psychedelic renaissance of the 1960s.

People recognized the potential benefits to mental health back then, too...but research would be quashed by Nixon's declaration of war on drugs, putting mushrooms, cannabis, and mescaline cacti in the same illegal category as addictive substances like cocaine and heroin. People advocating for these natural plant medicines have spent decades in prison, yet meanwhile, our society is in the grips of an opioid addiction crisis fueled in part by legally prescribed painkillers in the wake of the oxycontin boom and the advent of the deadly potent fentanyl.

Sometimes in the face of new problems, people revisit old solutions, and find there is hope on the horizon. The psilocybin molecule is only one atom different from serotonin, and shows promise as a natural alternative to prescription serotonin system modulating medications for a host of mental health issues including depression, anxiety, and PTSD. It has demonstrated the ability to help break addiction cycles, restore lost memories, and open up new intuitive paths towards working through psychological and emotional traumas. Ancient peoples knew all of this.

Even as the benefits of psilocybin as a drug continue to uptrend in the media, there's one therapeutic factor they don't account for, and that is the cultivation of the mushrooms themselves. In my years of helping people learn to grow, I've seen many start growing because they wanted the medicine, but keep growing because they found the entire process to be beneficial. Learning the sterile technique required to grow the intended fungus, and not mold or bacteria, develops mindfulness. Learning the growth cycle from germination through colonization and eventual fruiting develops patience. Nurturing another life form successfully from birth to its culmination in the form of its reproductive fruiting bodies builds an intimate relationship with empathic bonds, and not enough can be said for the mental stimulation gained from learning something new.

Basic mushroom cultivation blends cooking and gardening with just a pinch of science to tie things together, but more often than not, learning these basics opens up a new awareness and interest in all fungi, nature, and science. It fosters motivation to understand and improve upon the initial basics of growing, as well as motivation to explore, discover, and forage in nature. Motivation itself is a rare and difficult thing with depression, and the cycle of routine and reward in mushroom cultivation has a profound effect on the lives of people that engage in it. The excitement of seeing your first mushroom pins pop up in a grow is positively electric, and returns undiminished with every repetition. The many strange and varied phenotypic expressions possible provide no end to entertainment, and there are many mushroom hobbyists that enjoy growing without even consuming anything they grow.

As far as consumption goes, nothing compares with the taste of your own fresh garden grown tomato...and the same thing applies to the mushrooms. While flavor isn't necessarily what they're known for, there are definite advantages to having access to fresh mushrooms compared to buying them dry. When you grow them yourself, you can know where they've been and how they've been cared for and handled. Fresh mushrooms also have a host of secondary alkaloids and terpenes that are lost in the drying process, and provide a significantly different experience than dry. You also have the choice of a wide variety of different genetics to grow, giving you options for not only the visual aesthetics of the fruits themselves, but also the ability to better predict dosage and the outcomes of experiences. And back to the flavor thing...fresh psilocybin mushrooms can be cooked into food just like the store bought white button mushrooms, and are much more pleasant to eat that way than when they're dried sticks in a sandwich baggie.

If you don't live in an area where psilocybin mushrooms grow naturally, the best way to find them is to grow them yourself. Even If you do live in an area where they grow naturally, growing them indoors is still more consistent and reliable, and then finding them in nature when they pop up is an added bonus. I've started and stopped so many different hobbies in my life, but for the last 25 years, this one has kept me engaged and entertained like nothing else...10/10 highly recommend.