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If you regularly use certain drugs or medications (including magic mushrooms containing psilocybin), your body may develop tolerance. This means that after repeated administration, the effects of a drug are no longer as obvious because the body gets used to the substance. You need more and more to notice the effects.
Tolerance is not the same as addiction. Tolerance is a neurobiological mechanism of the body (or rather the brain) in which it adapts to the situation. Substance addiction is a condition that is both physical and mental, where you have become dependent on a substance. Unlike drugs such as cocaine, psilocybin is not physically addictive. Psilocybin is even used to treat addictions (e.g., alcohol, cigarettes, stimulants and opioids).
One of the reasons psilocybin is not addictive is precisely the fact that the body becomes desensitized to the substance fairly quickly. After psilocybin is converted to psilocin in the liver, it passes the blood-brain barrier and activates serotonin receptors. If you use psilocybin often enough, the brain causes the number of available receptors to decrease.
You can imagine this as a room with hundreds of open doors. If you throw a magic mushroom through one of those doors, suddenly a large number of those doors will just slam shut. Over time, it doesn’t matter how many magic mushrooms you ingest. There are no more doors to throw them in through, so the active ingredients can no longer have an effect.
The question is, of course, what all plays into developing tolerance to magic mushrooms. How much time passes before the receptors become sensitive again and you can feel all the effects to the fullest again? As mentioned, no research has been done on this, but many discussions can be found on sites such as Reddit, Erowid and Shroomery. This data was analyzed and the answer is that it depends on several factors.
On average, it takes about four to seven days to develop tolerance to psilocybin. But many people report that they can experience another powerful trip as early as two days after a dose. Others indicate that you should wait at least two weeks. Opinions differ, however. In fact, there are also users who report that they can get high for several days in a row without noticing a change in the effects.
We can also look at microdosing and then the picture changes even more. One microdosing routine is the Stamets Stack. This involves taking a very low dose of psilocybin for five days in a row (in combination with niacin and Lion’s Mane). After that, take nothing for two days. If this does not involve tolerance, you may wonder if this tolerance is not caused by high doses and not low ones. But even microdosing often uses a routine to prevent tolerance.
How quickly and how long tolerance lasts is likely to depend on a variety of factors, including weight, age, genetics and neurobiology. If you want to avoid a decrease in sensitivity to psilocybin, taking four to seven days of rest between doses is probably the wisest thing to do.
Are there also risks associated with developing tolerance to psilocybin? Basically, no. It’s more how you handle it yourself more. Indeed, it is a common mistake, made by novice and experienced psychonauts alike, to take more magic mushrooms if they do not feel effects coming on. Sometimes it may take longer for you to notice something from your ingested mushrooms, due to having a full stomach, or the ingested mushroom species may take a little longer for the effects to emerge.
But if you use magic mushrooms on a regular basis and you haven’t taken tolerance into account, taking more can give you a difficult or bad trip. In some cases, it is even possible to develop HPPD (hallucinogen persisting perception disorder). This chronic condition involves continuous visual disturbances that can interfere with your normal daily functioning. It is rare, but it is a good reason not to use magic mushrooms too often and beware of tolerance.
Mushrooms are safe to use, but it is always a good idea to exercise caution with psychedelics. Provide a pleasant set and setting, arrange a trip sitter and keep track of when you used magic mushrooms last time. If you are going to a festival and want to use magic mushrooms for several days, take a lower dose (1 or 2 grams). This will help you cope better with the unpredictable environment, the many impressions you take in and prevent psilocybin tolerance.
