Microdosing Ayahuasca Vine for Stress and Anxiety
Microdosing is an avenue more and more people are exploring for obtaining the benefits of various plants and substances in safe and effective ways. Ayahuasca vine contains a set of alkaloids with the potential to aid in relaxation and relief of stress and anxiety. When incorporated into a prepared protocol, microdosing ayahuasca vine can have a highly beneficial effect on the body and mind.
Microdosing is the practice of ingesting small amounts of a substance to experience sub-perceptual effects. While the ayahuasca vine is not as psychedelic as taking the ayahuasca tea blended with a DMT-containing plant like chacruna leaf, it is still psychoactive in large amounts. By taking a microdose, you’re not likely to experience any psychoactive effects. Rather, you can experience the therapeutic and energetic benefits of this master plant, and incorporate it into your daily life in a way that you can integrate.
No single plant medicine is a heal-all in and of itself. To maintain health and happiness in body, mind, and spirit, we need to activate various lifestyle factors to keep our motors in tune. When combined with these different positive lifestyle choices, plant medicines such as ayahuasca vine can be incredible catalysts for further relief from the stresses and anxieties that burden us. These powerful plant allies have been recognized for centuries as containing physically, spiritually, and emotionally curative properties.
Unlike pharmaceuticals, which come with a host of side effects and can be physically addictive, alternative plant medicines such as ayahuasca vine are all-natural, non-addictive, and contain fewer negative side effects. Ayahuasca vine, also known as Banisteriopsis caapi, contains a unique combination of alkaloids known as the harmala alkaloids. It’s these alkaloids, in addition to the mysterious energetic and spiritual properties of this ancient plant that make it a great ally in combating stress and anxiety.
Stress and Anxiety in the Modern World
There are many different kinds of stress, including physical, mental, emotional, and environmental stress. The most harmful forms of stress involve the stimulation of the sympathetic nervous system, also known as the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. Chronic stress induces the secretion of adrenalin when the “fight or flight” response is triggered in the human nervous system. While this system is useful in survival situations, it is often overly-triggered, and our adrenal system becomes taxed over time.
Anxiety is closely related to stress. It is the racing heart-beat, erratic thought patterns, sweaty palms, or feeling of general dis-ease or discomfort that creeps up and creates a stifled feeling in the body and mind. There are various different anxiety disorders and ways that anxiety manifests for people.
In my view, stress is an almost ubiquitous factor in most people’s lives, whether they realize it or not. In this time of turmoil and profound transformation that the world is going through, if you’re even just mildly aware of the news, you’re likely to feel the subtle gridlines of anxiety throughout your day on some level. The added effects of digital disconnection, working to pay the bills, and the amusingly difficult task of becoming an emotionally aware human being, make keeping stress levels low a real challenge sometimes. For those that are particularly prone to anxiety or stress disorders, it can be doubly challenging.
Plant medicines are tools to help you on the path to creating more balance and harmony in your life. Microdosing is a way to approach plant medicines that may feel more gentle for some, or simply more practical in fitting with their daily life.
How do the Harmala Alkaloids Help with Stress and Anxiety?
Ayahuasca vine contains the harmala alkaloids, namely harmine, harmaline, and tetrahydroharmine (THH). These compounds are monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs), meaning they prevent monoamine oxidase from breaking down certain neurotransmitters. In essence, ayahuasca vine will allow certain neurotransmitters to stay in your body longer. These neurotransmitters may include serotonin and dopamine, both known to promote feelings of calm, wellbeing, and peace.
THH has been shown to increase the levels of serotonin in the brain. This neurotransmitter helps to regulate mood and is closely linked to depression. Ayahuasca vine is mellowing, soothing, and balancing to the mind and body, making it an excellent ally for stress and anxiety.
Create Ritual and Ceremony with a Plant Medicine to Soothe Stress
In addition to the promising chemical constituents of B. caapi vine, it is also considered a sacred plant in the Amazonian tradition. Sacred plants are usually treated with a different level of reverence or importance. By actually putting the effort into creating a ritual or ceremony around microdosing with ayahuasca, you will be incorporating a lifestyle choice that ripples into every other dimension of your life.
Ceremony is an opportunity to slow down, be with yourself, and find a deeper moment of connection. It could be five minutes a day that you turn your phone off, sit down in front of an altar, and just breathe with your plant medicine while speaking a prayer or intention. Perhaps it’s 15 minutes where you write out your thoughts and feelings, smudge your room, and ask for guidance while taking your ayahuasca vine drops. Whatever ceremony is for you, making space for it daily or weekly will create a healing container for you to slow down and retrain your nervous system to be at peace.
When you put your bare feet on the earth, the negatively charged electrons from the earth enter the body and neutralize positively charged free radicals. This relationship of polarities helps to bring our bodies electrical fields into balance. Plant medicines are nature. They re-connect us with the harmonic, rhythmic pace of the earth. When working with microdosing the ayahuasca vine, take the opportunity to do some earthing and feel your connection to the nature spirits.
There are several different therapeutic modalities and approaches that people can use to relieve stress and anxiety, but in my mind, no approach would be complete without the emphatic inclusion of nature and plant medicines.
How to Microdose with Ayahuasca to Reduce Stress
How is stress showing up in your life? Is it mental, emotional, physical or even spiritual? Start by identifying the most relevant forms of stress in your life currently. Recognizing stress is the first step to reducing or eliminating it.
If your stress is mental or emotional, then microdosing with ayahuasca can help. Identify the main sources of mental or emotional stress in your life, and write about them in your microdosing journal. When taking your ayahuasca vine drops, meditate on these factors and invite the plant to assist you in shifting these patterns. Whether the stress is related to relationships, anxiety, patterns of control, worry or fear, bring them to your microdosing practice and offer them up to be transformed, or released for your highest good.
If you are having existential fears, confusion about your purpose, or challenges regarding your value and virtues, then your stress may be more spiritual in nature. These kinds of stressors obviously relate to the mind and emotions as well, but they may be more afflictions of the spirit. Ayahuasca is a very spiritual plant that can support you in opening to higher dimensions and guidance. Open yourself to spiritual guidance while taking your daily drops.
To learn more about how to start a microdosing practice, read the full article here.
Why Microdosing May Be Preferable to a Full Ceremony
An ayahuasca ceremony is a life-changing experience that is often compared to having years of psychotherapy condensed into one night. These pivotal ceremonies can alter the course of one’s life, and open them to otherworldly insights and dimensions. If you feel called to working with ayahuasca, I definitely recommend that you experience this plant in full ceremonial fashion at some point in your life.
However, there are plenty of benefits to microdosing instead of participating in a full ayahuasca ceremony. Microdosing can be a less high-maintenance way to connect with this plant. To experience the full depth of an ayahuasca ceremony, it is recommended to go on an extended dieta, and the process itself is usually best experienced when in a supported container with a shaman or guide. Microdosing is an experience that is easier to integrate, requires less preparation, and is generally more accessible and less expensive than participating in a full ceremony.
Microdosing with ayahuasca vine is a very approachable way to start to get to the roots of your stress, and actually support your neurochemistry to be in a more relaxed and synchronous state. In addition, the practice of creating ceremony in your daily life will in and of itself be a stress-relieving activity. By taking your healing into your own hands and calling on the wisdom of plant teachers, you can gradually grow towards living a more balanced, calm, and joyful life.
