Microdosing with psilocybin is not the ultimate be all, end all!

There’s surprising news about microdosing with psilocybin that I just saw and want to share with you. It came from a study that somehow slipped past me when it was published last October.

I saw it a couple of days ago when it showed up in the newsletter of one of my favorite sources, Lucid News, (Essential Psychedelic Journalism).

The study itself is one of the largest looks at microdosing with psilocybin (and LSD) to date. Over 1,400 participants tracked their day-to-day experiences, reporting on mood, focus, creativity, and overall wellbeing.

And the main takeaway?

Pretty straightforward: people feel better on the days they microdose. On those days, they report they’re more creative, more connected, and more productive.

But those effects don’t seem to stick around.

And this is the thing that blows it out of the water: there’s no strong evidence of lasting change beyond the dosing day. No magical “afterglow” carrying into the rest of the week as has been popularly touted.

If you’ve been following the narrative that microdosing with psilocybin is this subtle, cumulative tool for long-term transformation, this could be disappointing.

But here’s where I think we need to slow down before we draw conclusions.

Common microdosing protocols, such as the Stamets and Fadiman methods, intentionally include non-dosing days to limit the rapid tolerance psychedelics can create, where repeated use in close succession reduces their effects.

The study is measuring microdosing as a standalone activity. Just the substance. Take a small amount, go about your day, report how you feel.

And within that frame, the results make sense.

If you take something that slightly alters your perception, your mood, your attention, you’ll probably feel that while it’s active in your system. Then it fades. That’s not controversial. That’s just how most things work, from caffeine to, well, most medications.

In my work, microdosing isn’t approached as a stand alone “take it and see what happens” intervention. It’s embedded within a broader process that includes intention-setting, nervous system conditioning, guided reflection, emotional processing, and structured integration over time.

The same is true when we work with cannabis. It’s not about the substance in isolation or chasing a particular state. It’s about how it’s used deliberately inside a framework where people are actively engaging with what comes up, rather than just experiencing it and moving on. You can read about the experiences of others here.

The dose is only one part of it. The more important dimension is what we do with what becomes available… how we notice it, sit with it, and translate it into insight and behavioral change.

Without that foundation, you’re dealing mostly with just a temporary state shift. That’s why in my work, and in other psychedelic integration approaches in this space, microdosing is rarely used in isolation. It’s paired with intention, reflection, and structured integration so that whatever becomes more accessible actually gets worked with, rather than simply experienced.

What’s interesting is that this dynamic isn’t limited to microdosing with psilocybin.

Research is showing that even with full-dose psychedelic experiences – let’s take psilocybin, for example, we’re seeing a similar arc. There’s often a powerful initial shift. People come out of a journey feeling like something fundamental has changed, and sometimes, it really has.

But then time passes.

Weeks, maybe months later, that sense of transformation can soften. Old habits creep back in. The clarity fades. Not completely, but enough to notice.

When this happens, the desire to return to that state of clarity and openness can draw people back to repeated psychedelic experiences to hold onto what feels like it’s slipping out of reach.

To be clear, this study is valuable. It gives us a more grounded understanding of what microdosing does in the short term. It helps dial back some of the more inflated claims.

If there’s a takeaway here, it’s not that microdosing “doesn’t work.”

It’s that microdosing with psilocybin, by itself, may not be designed to carry the full weight of long-term change.

It can open a window, shift perspective and create a bit of space.

But what you do with that space is where the real work happens.

And, in my world, that applies whether we’re talking about microdosing or full psychedelic experiences.

The idea that a substance alone will create lasting transformation, without any kind of integration or support, is more of a cultural hope than a reliable outcome.

This study challenges assumptions that microdosing with psilocybin can quietly catalyze big breakthroughs on its own. But it also, unintentionally, highlights perhaps the most important piece, and that is how these substances are used, what they’re paired with, how people may want to engage with the experience over time, and why psychedelic integration may be the most overlooked part of the conversation.

And that part of the story is still very much unfolding.

Which, depending on how you look at it, is either frustrating… or an invitation to approach this work a little more thoughtfully.

I’m curious where you land on this, please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.

With Love,

Becca

P.S. If any of this resonants, especially the part about how experiences fade without a process to partner with it, that’s exactly what we focus on in my emotional release work.

I invite you to get a taste through my monthly Elevation Ceremony. It’s a gathering for making sense of what’s coming up for you, and engaging with it in a way that you can process and release it. Next month’s gathering is now open for registration if you feel called to join. Cannabis is optional. Your presence is what matters.