Microdosing & Neuroplasticity: Can the Brain Hold Onto the Changes?

0:00Hi, this is microdose u and I'm Dr. Denise. I'm a doctor of psychology. I got a terrific question I wanted to go over with you today and it's really like a two-part question, but they're definitely related. And so the question was, if this is so helpful, why do you keep microdosing? Like if it's you've healed and there's been permanent change, why would somebody continue? And the second kind of connected question to that is, well, how do you know that there's been permanent healing, that there really has been rewiring? So I often will talk about groups of people that we work with, that I know that directly we can kind of, you know, really answer those questions. And I'll talk about what I've read, I'll talk about real world data, and that all supports one about to say. And yet, what I thought I would share is what I've experienced. I don't often talk about my

1:00direct experience, although I think it so clearly shows the answer to these questions. And that it is the common trend. So it's not a one-off, it's not unique to me. It is what happens. And so when you experience something over and over in yourself and you know it in your bones, in your brain, in your body, that's really a very powerful indication of what's happened. So about, I would say a year and a half or so into microdosing. So never going back about five years, but a year year and a half into that. I was in the middle of moving, sold a home, bought a home, I was driving back and forth like an hour plus each way. I was getting a little, you know, sort of had a bit of a deadline to get out of the former home. And so there was a lot of intensity, a lot of activity. And I was driving, you know, back and forth, back and forth. And this one particular day I had

2:00already done that twice. So I had gone, you know, and come back and gone and come back. And so I was on the last leg of that final, would turn out to be the final trip for that day. And I'm on an interstate and I'm driving. And I was very aware that while I was fine, I was sort of, that was going to be my last trip. And that it had been a very enough driving for one day and that I was good to stop and continue. The next day, and as I was driving on this major interstate, all of a sudden there was a lot of rain, like the kind of rain where it's hard to see. There was steam on the road. If that was making it hard to see, there was a lot of traffic, I think partially because of the weather, partially because there was a little bit of a commuter time, a lot of cars on the road. And what really got my attention, I was paying very close attention, my hands on the wheel, and I was aware that, you know, I'd been paying attention anyway, but I was aware that there was really a little extra going on in that moment. And what really grabbed my attention were some drivers

3:06that were not respecting the conditions of the weather. And so I was very aware of, you know, sort of the increase in the danger. And there were some really like people not respecting the road conditions and increasing the risk of unsafe driving situation and potentially an accident or something urgent, emergent happening. And I felt, again, I had my hands on the steering wheel as I would. And I was, you know, paying attention to all of this. And I literally felt my hands kind of squeeze a little of that white knuckling moment. And that I noticed that I could feel the tension. You know, when you when you have that increase in adrenaline, you might notice your breathing gets a little shallow, a little quicker. It appears, meaning, and you might feel tension. You might do that kind of constricting. There might be a little like kind of, oh no, oh no, kind of feelings. What I noticed, and the reason I come back to this frequently, and I have talked about this before.

4:06So if this sounds familiar, it's because I have spoken to you before about this. What I noticed in that moment of the intention, the like slight grip on the steering wheel, the adrenaline feeling physiological adrenaline increase. I felt it kind of go up. And then I felt it kind of level off. And then kind of go down. And the driving conditions remain concerning. So in that moment, what I was, and it's so stuck with me because it wasn't that I was sitting there thinking, okay, come on, you need to like stay calm and you have choice. What you're going to do in response to difficult situations, which I will always say, I was not actually thinking that. What I was very aware of was I was watching a couple of these drivers, and I was getting a little like, why are you driving like that? That's really ridiculous. Like this is exactly where there are accidents, like, respect the road conditions and the weather. So I was annoyed that and focused on that actually in that moment, not, oh, I need to sort of, you know, keep some perspective and stay calm.

5:12So it wasn't that the thinking was helping in that moment. The physiology leveled off. It did not go to the normal one it would expect in a situation like that where there's concern and increase adrenaline and risk and just tension happening. I would have before, microdosing, I would have definitely had more of that adrenaline and probably stayed somewhat tense and noticeably tense for longer. So in that moment, I just remembered thinking that microdosing really helps because I went up, noticed that, but it didn't escalate all the way up, went to kind of a mid-range and then leveled off and then kind of came down and stayed there. Despite the circumstances being still concerning, I was connected to that. I was definitely paying attention. It wasn't that I was I was however grounded and calm and one of the funny things that I remember thinking at that time

6:12was, oh, good thing I microdosed today. That's where my microdoses really helping me and the funny thing was realizing in the next moment that I had it microdose, that it had been a couple of days. So there was this permanent change that is not limited to just the day and time that you're microdosing and that was a year and a half after microdose starting, my microdosing and my healing. So now I want to give you two more quick examples. One was fast forward a couple years later, more recent time. I experienced some vicarious trauma. My adult son had, and again, you may have heard me talk about this in previous episodes, my adult son had, and he's fine and everybody's fine, there was a fire, a complete loss, everything burned, everything gone, the only thing he didn't lose was his car and the clothes on his back. And everybody was fine, even some it was in an apartment building and even some people that had pet, everybody got out and out of scratch on anyone, no first responders

7:15from the five-fire department, nobody was harmed in terms of physically. Psychologically, emotionally, they were all devastated, they lost everything, everyone lost everything, everything that they owned, except for whatever was the clothes on their back. And so my son was actually, he lives a few hours from here, he was put out of work, covered thankfully, they did not want, he does kind of a high-risk job, they didn't want him working, given that this had happened, it didn't have a place to live, he had none of his belongings, and so of course it's very disruptive, unapractical, nature never mind an emotional psychological nature, so he came here, and stayed here, actually on an offer about two weeks while he was dealing with this, and I was kind of helping him with some practicalities, very capable young man, and yet there was a lot to deal with, and so of course I appropriately, you know, would help him out. So it was not a direct trauma to me, specifically, my home was fine, and yet very much to a close family member who was

8:17here, and we were dealing with things, and I was watching all of this go on, so there was definitely an intense level of ficarious trauma, and what I recalled at that time, very, very specifically, was noticing that again, I did not have that adrenaline, I mean initially I felt like, oh my god, thank god he's okay, and you know, what a horrible situation, life is going sideways, again, that kind of thing, his life has been threatened before, what I noticed though, is the thought that this was actually not a threat to his life, that while it was certainly urgent and life changing and turned everything upside down, I did not have that adrenaline increase, I was attentive, and I definitely had an increase in stress, what I'm talking about is that sort of spiraling, spinning, nonstop, you can't sleep, maybe you can't eat, kind of stress, I did not have that, I slept fine, I was able to eat, and I was able to feel very grounded in my being knowing that this was very different,

9:21than when his life was threatened, if you have heard me talk about that, he did, and he's fine now, but he did struggle with a life and death illness about 10 years ago, very, very difficult, and he's lucky, and he's fortunate that he's fine, and he's totally fine, and he will remain totally fine, and so what I was aware of when this fire happened was this little moment, and I'll say it was a little small tea trauma moment, the trauma was big, but the experience within me, this little reminder of oh, this is like oh my gosh again, something horrible, and right away that's why I called small tea, I went, I heard the voice inside of myself, say, but his life is not threatened, he's fine, this terrible, and it's upside down, and really turning life sideways here, and yet it's very different than his life being threatened, he's going to be totally fine, and did not have the adrenaline increase as I normally would, the third example, again more recently, same adult son called me and

10:28he's fine, also I'll say that, telling me that he was having some similar symptoms to when he was diagnosed with this very serious life threatening illness that he had about 10 years ago, and he was having some kind of similar symptoms, the most severe symptoms now, but reminiscent, and I heard again in my head, he is going to be fine, I also heard what if, what if these tumors, he had these tumors, and he's had what if they're back, even though there's pretty much no chance that that would come back, his medical team has said none, no chance, no chance, and yet I said to him, I heard what if it's back, and then I recalled what the medical team said, and again I noticed that the adrenaline went up a little bit, but not super high, and I heard the next thought in my head was, yeah, that's highly unlikely, and it's normal that I would worry about that, even though it's not medically possible, like at all we've been reassured, and yet it makes sense that because it's

11:30sounded similar on some level, that I brought right back to 10 years ago, and so it makes sense that I have that thought, the next thought was, well, if it was back, even though it's not going to be back, if it was, what we would do what we had to do, and again I noticed the adrenaline did not increase. Now I'll tell you the second part of what happened with that, I was helping him find a specialist, because he can't just go to any regular provider, he has to go to a specialist that's experienced in this very rare medical history, and it's a very, but most even some of the experts have not, so he needs to really find somebody, and of course he can go back to his medical team, although it is a bit of a distance from where he lives now, so we were looking for someone a little closer, and he does have to go to a major city, so we were looking in that city, and the first thing I read helping him, he's looking, I'm looking, the first thing I read is, while this, you know, this is a, usually not something, you know, that it's not an adulthood illness, it's

12:32usually during teenage years, which is exactly what happened to him, that in very extremely rare cases, it can come back. As soon as I read that, my eyes did exactly that, I went, oh, I thought I never had to worry about this again, and here it is in black and white, that it could be back, and again, this is how I know there's permanent rewiring, I felt that, my eyes went wide, I felt the adrenaline, and it did not go into that, oh no, like that sort of like you catch your breath, and you kind of constrict, I felt a little adrenaline, and again, just like driving years ago, and I sort of felt it go, well that would be really terrible, and that's really awful, and we'll deal with it, he'll deal with it, I'll find my way, as I always have. So this is now, you know, five plus years since I've been micro-dosing, and I would say that this is a really, and like I already said, this is the trend, this is the overwhelming trend that people report

13:34this over and over, and that it's not just clearing up, say, prior trauma, or it, which we would say, PTSD, residual trauma, depression, anxiety, physical health issues, all of these reasons that anybody would be looking to heal and rewire, it's not just clearing up the past and rewiring, it's also helping you deal in the current, with anything new that comes along. So the second part of the question, why, you know, Dr. Denise, why do you keep micro-dosing? Part of it is because life continues to happen, I want to continue to maintain my good health physically and psychologically, here's the other part of it, not only do I feel better and deal with the issues and the challenges from the past, or anything currently that comes up, thankfully not too much right now, what I notice is that I try things I never used to, I do things in a different way, and so I really believe that

14:35rewiring, upgrading, and evolving is a lifelong process, so it's not just, oh, I want to heal things that need to be rewired, I want to keep growing, and why would I ever stop that? There's no risks, there's no downside, so of course I keep micro-dosing because I keep enjoying evolving and upgrading, which why would I not want that? I want that for the rest of my days in my life, so I hope that answers the question, let me know if particularly if you're someone that has been micro-dosing for a bit of time, let's say six months a year minimum, and let me know if you've had examples, I'm really interested, you know I want the real world data, I'm really interested to know if you have experienced particularly like that physiological example where you noticed that you did not have that level of increase in your adrenaline, and particularly if you've had new things happen and

15:35you noticed, boy you had a different perspective and it went differently than maybe before you were micro-dosing, I'm very interested in that, so let me know, thanks, see you soon.