Microdosing can bring benefits in many areas of life. Many people use it to support their mental and physical health. But did you know that it can also help you in terms of training? Microdosing before your workout can promote a sense of flow and boost your energy. Find out in this blog how to get more out of your workout with microdosing.
Why microdosing before your workout?
Some people train several times a week and wouldn’t miss it for anything. Others struggle to exercise with regularity or don’t do it at all. Whatever applies to you, microdosing can help you with your training. What exactly is microdosing? Mind-altering drugs can alter our perception; they cause hallucinations, both visual and auditory. But at the same time, they can have a positive effect on our mental well-being, research now shows.
But the additional effects, the hallucinations, make psychedelics impractical to use on a daily basis. And not everyone feels like tripping. That’s why microdosing was invented. Here you take a very small dose (a tenth of a normal dose), allowing you to enjoy the benefits of a psychedelic drug but not suffer the drawbacks. Thus, when you microdose, you can continue to work, study or exercise as normal. And you may also experience benefits from microdosing in terms of training.
The benefits of microdosing in training
Sports ask a lot of you. You need energy, you want to be able to concentrate, you need intuition, insight and coordination. Microdosing can affect your physical and mental well-being and therefore can support a vigorous workout. These are the benefits of microdosing when working out.
Sense of flow
When you really get absorbed in your workout, you enter a state of flow. This is a sense of sharp focus, where you are completely absorbed in what you are doing. You feel good and confident in your own abilities. People also say they are in “the zone.” Your thinking settles down, there is no more fretting, no more disturbing voices in your head distracting you. You can focus entirely on your body and your intuition. Microdosing with psychedelics promotes a sense of flow. Athletes who do a workout while microdosing report that it improves their concentration and that they experience flow more often.
Research from 2020 also shows this. Yoga practitioners used microdoses of psychedelics and their experiences were compared to people who did not microdose. It turned out that those who did microdose were better able to merge into their yoga session, or in other words, they experienced more flow. They reported feelings of openness, more positive emotions and less anxiety.
Better physical performance
Microdosing can also bring positive effects on a physical level. A small study involved 20 people who participated in various sports (from running to yoga to strength training). They reported noticing benefits of microdosing in their training, such as improved coordination, concentration and sensory awareness. This allows for better performance during exercise.
Furthermore, it is possible that microdosing causes you to become more cognitively and functionally flexible. This allows you to react faster and make quicker decisions during exercise. On top of that, psychedelics can also affect your emotions, especially anxiety. Microdosing can therefore reduce feelings of anxiety, both during your training and at competitions.
Recovery from injuries
Sports, of course, also carry the risk of injury, from a sprain to more serious injuries. Microdosing can support recovery from injuries, whether it is muscle pain, sprains, a pulled muscle or a broken bone. Ian McCall is a martial arts expert, and he is convinced of the benefits of microdosing in recovery, especially in traumatic brain injury. These are common in martial arts.
Whether the damage was caused by blows to the head or too loud music, these things can cause plaques to form in the brain, he says. At first, scientists thought there was no way to fix that. But, McCall says, psychedelics can do just that. James Fadiman, well-known advocate for the use of mind-altering substances, set up a study in 2018. This involved 1,000 people who took regular microdoses of LSD for 18 months.
Among the many health benefits reported were the relief of symptoms of traumatic brain damage. Possibly this benefit comes from the fact that psychedelics can support neurogenesis, the growth of new brain cells.
Microdosing for pain management
No pain no gain is a phrase that is used a lot in the sports world. As an avid athlete, you have to be able to stand a little pain. The better you can cope with pain, the more your performance will improve and the stronger and more resilient you will become. At least, as long as, of course, you keep paying attention to your own safety and don’t overstep your boundaries. Research shows that psychedelics can push the limits of pain. So if you are microdosing, you can benefit from this when training.
If you are already an avid athlete, then you can use microdosing to get more out of your training. You may experience the positive effects in your concentration, fitness and recovery. But microdosing can also help you when you don’t exercise. Perhaps you are often too tired or unmotivated to exercise. Microdosing can have a positive effect on your energy levels and mood. When you microdose, you may experience that you feel like moving more and have the energy to do so. Give it a try, check out our microdosing products in our shop.