[NEW EPISODE] Paul Austin on Microdosing Psychedelics and Social Innovation

“The mission of Mind Body Health & Politics is to expand consciousness, stimulate thought, enhance mental and physical health, and encourage community.” — Dr. Richard L. Miller

I'm thrilled to share with you my recent interview with Paul Austin, founder and CEO of The Third Wave, a pioneer in the field of microdosing, and a friend of the show. We had a fascinating conversation about the adverse effects of microdosing and psychedelics in general, as well as how to avoid the errors made by Big Pharma in concealing the side effects of their drugs.

Paul shared the results of his n=1 personal experiment, microdosing LSD for nine months. He talked about the positive changes he noticed in his personality, creativity, and overall well-being. However, he also emphasized the importance of responsible and mindful use of psychedelics.

In our discussion, Paul highlights the need for more research and longitudinal data on the long-term effects of microdosing. He raises thought-provoking questions about how to communicate and educate people about true health and well-being, and how to create systems that support holistic health.

Thank you for being a part of our community, and we hope you find this conversation enlightening and thought-provoking.

Tune in for this healthy conversation at TalkRadio.nyc

Show Notes

Segment 1

On this episode of Mind, Body, Health, and Politics, Dr. Miller is joined by Paul Austin, founder and CEO of The Third Wave. To start the episode off, Dr. Miller asks Paul to share his self-experimentation of micro-dosing LSD and if there were any updates since he was on the show last. Brian explains what protocols he follows when micro-dosing, what he specifically feels when he is experimenting with LSD or any other similar drugs, and the amount he takes. 

Segment 2

Moving forward in their discussion, Dr. Miller tells a story about his research and data for a book he is writing. From there, Brian shares any stories he has about the adverse effects he has witnessed or experienced and some tips for those who may partake in psychedelics. Brian also briefly goes into some of the legality complications of partaking in psychedelics and drugs, along with the emotions that come with these complications. 

Segment 3

After a quick ad break, we return to Dr. Miller and Brian talking about the adverse effects of different dosages from normal to micro-dosing of psilocybin and LSD. Brian highlights that in micro-dosing research data for it are minimal long-term, so Brian is only able to give the information they have now until more research can be done. They wrap up this portion by discussing the way people think when using products like this and how they can potentially help. 

Segment 4

As the episode comes to an end, Dr. Miller and Brian finish their discussion by talking about whether or not humans are doing a good job taking care of themselves. Brian shares his thoughts as to why more and more people are overweight or obese in the United States and what Brian recommends people can do to better themselves, along with what the United States needs to do in order to help. 

Transcript

Welcome to Mind Body Health and Politics. I'm your host, Dr. Richard Lewis Miller. The mission of Mind Body Health and Politics is to enhance your physical and emotional well-being and encourage community.

I say encourage community because I believe that human beings are basically tribal animals and we live the healthiest, we have the most fun, and they're most effective when we associate in our tribes, when we know one another, when we have intimate relationships with one another, when we decrease anonymity and we get to see and be seen.

We're friendly tribal animals. We love doing things together. Look at all the things we do, whether it's watching games or playing games or sewing circles or playing poker or going out and bicycling together or eating together. We really love eating together. Humans love getting together in a small circle and sharing food.

That's been going on for all of recorded history. We also must remember though, that a very small percentage of us are not cooperative, collaborative animals. A very small percentage of who we are are predators. And they are a very different tribe. For predators would have the rest of us live as subjects rather than as citizens.

They would control us. They believe that the strong are meant to lead and the rest are meant to follow. It's very different from what our founders wanted when we started this experiment as a democracy and a republic. And if we want to keep this experiment going in democracy and in republic,

We've got to stay aware and we've got to vote and really stay awake. And I know that's asking a lot at a time in history when 60 percent of us are living paycheck to paycheck. It's an unacceptable reprehensible situation that's been created which needs to be changed.

But even during this period of change and transition, we must stay awake and vote so that we have an opportunity to maintain our democracy and our republic and not go the way of so many other countries in the world, which are descending into dictatorships with tyrants leading the people as subjects.

In the words of one of my great heroes, Thomas Jefferson, eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. One person who's expressed his liberty very strongly by self-experimenting with psychedelics and then building a program for teaching others how to experiment with psychedelics safely. With us today is pioneer Paul Austin. Welcome to Mind Body Health and Politics, Paul.

It's good to be back. Thanks for having me back on the show, Richard.

Yes. We talked about it right before the show that we, we began interviewing you as you were just beginning with and had completed your famous experiment where you took micro doses of LSD twice a week for nine months. Give us just a little refresher on the outcome of that self-experimentation.

So I started this in July 2015. I was living in Budapest at the time. I think it was 24. And I had a few years prior to that done higher doses of of LSD. I thought, interesting, maybe this is a way to elongate that afterglow. And with that experience I had, or experiment, I had two core intentions.

One was to reduce my alcohol intake. because I was not drinking a lot necessarily, but I was reliant on alcohol in some ways to help with social connection as humans have been for thousands of years. But I thought this is sort of an ineffective and toxic drug. Why not use something else that's more healthy and sustaining?

So I tried microdosing with LSD and that was one of the core intentions. And the second intention was at that time I was building my first business. And I had heard that lower doses of LSD could help with focus and productivity and what's called a flow state.

And so I would essentially microdose one day during the week, like a Tuesday or Wednesday. And the intention of that day was more to focus, to work, to create. And then I would typically microdose on like a Friday or Saturday.

And towards the tail end of that, I would have some sort of social gathering or, you know, connection. And it would just help me to be more vulnerable and open up. And so what I found from that experiment was twice a week for a long period of time was sufficient.

It definitely helped me to learn and adapt and execute against those intentions. And, you know, LSD is, it has an intensity. To it and so after doing it for nine months what I came to realize was probably be good to take a break and reset sort of my system.

And so I gave it you know three four five months off I forget the exact amount now and before I started reagate reengaging again and you know nowadays I microdose. Well, I just took LSD on Sunday, like a microdose on Sunday, but I will microdose with psilocybin mushrooms.

I'll microdose on occasion, sort of on a more intuitive basis. And I just find that, especially if I'm maybe going through a challenging situation or stuck in a little bit of a down mood, it can help really lift me up and add a sparkle to my life.

Now, for those of you who haven't heard his story before, I'm going to ask Paul the following question, which I already know the answer to because we've done through this before, but I want you to hear it from his lips.

Tell us about some of the personality changes that you noticed that you took note of during and after the nine month period, because there were some very significant things you noticed.

One thing that I noticed is I was more open, generally. I was more willing to connect, to communicate, to be extroverted. Extroversion was a big aspect of it. I grew up quite introverted and still consider myself to be an introverted individual, but microdosing in that way really helped me to develop and open up my more extroverted side.

I think The second thing is it really helped me to open up my creativity. That I wasn't necessarily blocked, but I didn't necessarily think of myself as a creative visionary or innovator. And when I started to work with LSD in these microdoses pretty consistently,

I noticed that, you know, I get out my journal and a pen, and I could, you know, write for 45 minutes an hour, hour and a half, and just come up with all of these ideas and thoughts and perspectives. that otherwise wouldn't have been accessible or available to me.

And then I would say the third thing is, energetically, I just, LSD is very stimulating. So I noticed that after microdosing a couple times a week for nine months, I just naturally I had more energy, I made better choices about the food that I ate, I drank way less alcohol, I exercised more often.

So there appeared to be some sort of impact on I would, you know, my energetic levels to really stay active and involved and take good care of myself. And all that to say, I was quite healthy before I played. I was a college athlete. I had been watching, you know, what I ate for a while.

But microdosing LSD really helped me to just further refine and I would say optimize how I approach life.

Now you referenced Jim Fadiman before, and many of us recognize that Jim has perhaps the most extensive collection of information from people who have microdosed, maybe of anybody on the planet. He has thousands of anecdotes of people evidently emailing him.

In his book, The Psychedelic Explorer's Guide, Jim suggests that the best protocol for taking microdoses of LSD is one day on and two days off, or roughly twice a week. And that's pretty much what you follow, that protocol, in order to let the neurotransmitters build back up on the two days off. Is that correct?

So with any classic psychedelic like psilocybin, which is a tryptamine, LSD, or mescaline, which is a phenethylamine, there's a 48-hour window of tolerance, meaning that if you take a LSD microdose at 9 a.m. on a Monday and you try to do it again at 9 a.m.

on a Tuesday, you're not going to notice anything because the serotonergic receptors have not reset yet. And the reason Jim emphasized two times a week instead of every other day is because LSD tends to be very stimulating. And this starts to get into the nuance between LSD and psilocybin mushrooms.

There's another gentleman, Paul Stamets, who many of your listeners may be familiar with, who talked about microdosing mushrooms four days on, three days off. So this is the second main microdosing protocol that came off. But that's because he was talking about psilocybin, which is much less stimulating.

There's a lot less dopamine that's produced with psilocybin compared to LSD. So Jim's protocol, the way that I've landed this is Jim's protocol twice a week, one day on, two days off, is ideal for LSD microdosing. Paul Stamets protocol, which is four days on, three days off, or every other day, is ideal for psilocybin microdosing.

I myself have tried LSD microdosing every other day, And within about two to three weeks, I start to feel too stimulated, almost like I've tipped into more of a manic phase or mania.

What is the subjective feeling like? Is it somewhat similar to maybe having too much coffee or having taken an amphetamine? Is it that kind of stimulation or is it something else that you can put some words to?

It feels a little bit more expansive than caffeine, methamphetamines in that there's a stimulating effect, but there's a playfulness that comes in with it. Oftentimes with the overly stimulating drugs like caffeine, amphetamine, methamphetamines, it can feel more like tunnel vision and it can feel a bit constrictive.

With LSD, there was still the sense of energy, there was still the sense of stimulation and movement, but it felt like my overall perspective still could be expansive, it still could be flexible, it still could be playful.

And that's why I loved it so much and why I think it's so great for creativity, because if you can be motivated,

and you can be playful and creative that to me is sort of the perfect combination the perfect marriage because oftentimes we trade one for the other we're motivated we got to get things done but we're overly serious or we're playful and you know we we just want to have fun and sort of dance and create

but there's no structure or rigor to it. And so what I found with LSD microdosing is it's a great middle way between the focus and the playful, which allows for a really beautiful, I would say like productive creativity to come through.

Let's talk about dosage because we know that dosage is directly related to the experience. In microdosing, we're mostly talking about 10 to perhaps 20 or 25 micrograms at a time. Do you agree with that?

Generally speaking, right? I think the caveat always with any psychedelic is your tolerance is not necessarily dictated by, let's say, your body weight. Tolerance can be dictated by if you've previously been on SSRIs, if you have a history of neuroticism.

A lot of people who have no prior psychedelic experience may need a little bit more to start to open up to be more sensitive.

What tends to happen is the more sensitive we become, the more attuned we become to the outside world, the less of an amount of LSD we need to sort of slightly, to get that sort of slight sparkly feeling. So I know some folks who, you know, their microdose is five micrograms.

And like you mentioned, I know other folks where it might be 25, 30, 35 micrograms. So, so much of this is context dependent. And usually the advice that I give is to start low and go slow. that you can always take more.

But as Hunter S Thompson said, once you buy the ticket, you take the ride, you can't necessarily take less. So for folks who are new to this, or simply just want to learn how to work with it better, starting at that lower amount can be helpful and just finding like,

At what point do you notice that things start to shift substantially, right? It's clearly perceptible. You may feel a sense of overwhelm. There may be a lot of emotion that comes up and just go slightly down from that level. So let's say like you take 20 micrograms and you're like,

I'm definitely on LSD right now, like I feel it, I notice it, it's a lot. You know, your microdose might be better at 15 rather than 20, as an example.

So, as we know, Paul, Big Pharma hides results that they think will be unfavorable to sales. They've been caught doing this over and over again in a variety of ways and they don't have a good reputation as a result of that. I think those of us who are studying psychedelic science

need to do just the opposite and I have a lot of agreement from scientists all over the country that it's our responsibility to be totally transparent about everything that we learn about these psychedelic substances. So I'm writing a book called Psychedelics Adverse Effects

and that's part of a major part of why I invited you here today because you have a massive amount of data on people who have taken some amount of LSD and so please let's launch into psychedelics adverse effects and I'm going to start out by telling you a little story

Some friends of mine, a couple, both doctoral level therapists, one an MD, one a PhD, recently took what they thought would be a microdose and they took 25 micrograms as reported to me. The woman got no effect whatsoever, the female. The male was agitated and uncomfortable.

It wasn't a bad trip in terms of wild thoughts and nothing like that kind of stuff, just a sense of internal agitation. And so I don't think that's rare and it could be dose related that they started too high with 25.

Or too low in the case of the woman, right?

Or too low in case of the woman. Point well made. Thank you. So share with me some stories that you have and what people should be attending to with regard to the possibility of adverse effects.

I'll start with my own story. So we already talked about how when I did that initial experiment, it was twice a week for an extended period of time. I took a break. And a couple years later, I moved to New York City. This is about 2017. And for anyone who knows New York, it's a very stimulating place.

It's a very intense place. And without really understanding the context and the environment, fully understanding the context and the environment and how it was impacting me, I started to microdose again. And what I noticed is when microdosing in that level of stimulation, I quickly became overly stimulated. I had a hard time sleeping.

There was a lot of agitation. I was making sort of impulsive decisions like online shopping or things that I would communicate to certain people. And so what I noticed in that

experience is that even at lower doses right with with with high doses it's almost ad nauseum communicated like set and setting matters find a safe place to do it you know be at home find you know have a guide or a friend or a therapist who is there with you

but this is also true for for microdosing that your mindset going into it matters the setting that you do it in matters and if you're already in a stimulating environment it may not be ideal to start microdosing with LSD in that stimulating environment psilocybin Maybe a better microdose or, you know, maybe helpful not to microdose at all.

So, and part of that discernment, because what you're talking about with the friend of yours who did 25 micrograms of LSD is there was a sense of agitation and I hear this quite a bit where people feel like they're sort of stuck in no man's land.

They didn't take enough to really go on a full journey, but they took enough to start to feel it. And so usually, especially with LSD, what I found can be helpful for those moments of agitation is some sort of movement. And that could be breath work. So really moving the breath. That could be a walk.

that could be some yoga or stretching, that if agitation is present, especially while microdosing with LSD, because it tends to be there's a lot of energy moving through, that finding ways to move that energy through can help the release.

Because usually under that agitation, there may be a feeling, there may be an emotion that wants to come up, that wants to be present. But again, we didn't take quite enough to fully open that. We took enough to be aware of it.

And so I find working energetically with the body to move those things can be very, very useful. The second sort of point or even story that may be helpful or relevant here is a lot of people when they start to microdose, I've heard this quite a bit, is they'll notice that they get very sleepy.

So I've had clients that I've worked with in the past who are high performing clients and they start to microdose. And this happens both with LSD and psilocybin, which is really interesting. And it makes them just want to take a nap. Mm-hmm, and they kind of come back and they're like Paul.

I thought this is gonna make me even more productive Or more energetic and usually my response is you know, there's this sort of cliche when talking about psychedelics, which is The medicine gives you what you need Not necessarily what you want and a lot of what Jim Fadiman has explored in some of the scientific research is

is microdosing is appearing to have some sort of impact on homeostasis, meaning it brings your body back into balance. So if you're feeling too stimulated and too overwhelmed, this isn't always the case, but some folks notice if they're feeling too stimulated and too overwhelmed,

Microdosing, especially with psilocybin, will help them to find rest and to find balance and to calm down. And if they're feeling lethargic or depressed or have no energy, microdosing might help them to feel a little bit more energetic. So there are these herbs called adaptogens. Ashwagandha and rhodiola are probably the two most common.

And adaptogens have a very similar effect. If you're feeling too anxious and overwhelmed, they'll help you to calm down. If you're feeling depressed, they'll help you to have more energy. And I'm noticing a similar impact with microdoses of LSD. There's some sort of adaptogenic effect where it's helping your body to come back into balance.

And so all of that to say is A lot of these stories in the public eye around microdosing have primed individuals to expect a certain outcome. Oh, I heard it will help with productivity. I heard it will help with flow. I've heard it will help with my depression. I've heard it will help with my addiction.

And that very well could be true. And in many cases it is. And what a lot of people don't realize is the thing that might help with depression or addiction, the thing that might help with your productivity or creativity is doing what we call shadow work.

And so a lot of the framing even around adverse effects of psychedelics for some people is just, they've never sort of looked at their demons. They've never sort of faced the dragon, right?

And so for, especially those who are quite new to any sort of inner work, microdosing or low dose work, there may be anger or sadness or grief or other repressed emotions that come to the surface that need to be

release they need to be processed they need to be digested they can't just continue to be sort of pushed under and so for a lot of people who experience let's say clinical adverse effects specifically with microdosing this is different for high doses but specifically with microdosing i think a lot of it is they have an expectation that this is going to be rainbows and butterflies and make everything better without the recognition that sometimes the thing

that needs to be transmuted is the shadow. And the shadow by being transmuted allows then for more creativity, more energy, and an integration of certain repressed emotions or energies that allow for a greater feeling of wholeness.

Actually, from my clinical perspective, one of the best things that possibly can happen is for the dragon to come out

because if the dragon has been hiding under normal consciousness and the psychedelic brings the dragon out into the light, then there's an opportunity to meet the dragon, face the dragon, conquer the dragon and have a much come away with a much stronger sense of self with the confidence of having looked at something that heretofore was too difficult to look at.

So it got pushed into a box and slammed.

And that's why having a guide, a coach, a therapist, a friend, some sort of supportive container, even if working with lower doses of psychedelics, is very useful. Because a lot of people think, I'll just do this on my own. Maybe they're seeing a therapist.

but their therapist might not be aware or know a lot about psychedelics and so I think it's critical that even when people are microdosing and especially if there's challenging emotions or difficult processing that needs to happen that they have a therapist, a coach,

a support system in place, because in many cases, the only way out is through, right? So we have to go and do this deeper work to come out the other side in a way that feels much lighter, more present, more wisdom, you know, more depth, all of these things that people want.

But sometimes the courage to go there can be difficult to muster.

Yes, yes. Well, it takes courage to take a large dose of these psychedelics because of the possibility that one is going to face things that one hasn't faced before. But again, if you have a good guide with you and an ally, you face them together and it can be a tremendous confidence builder.

It certainly has been in my life and in the work that I've seen with others. Paul, When I do research on adverse effects of psychedelics, one of the things that keeps popping up, in fact, one study said 29% of the respondents said that an adverse effect was doing something illegal. What is your take on that?

So I always, when people ask about the risks of microdosing or the risks of psychedelics, Usually my first response is the riskiest thing about these substances is the fact that they're illegal. Now, since you and I first spoke, I believe this is now my third time on the show, but since we first spoke in 2016,

Colorado has legalized certain plant medicines. Oregon has legalized psilocybin. The FDA is on the verge of legalizing MDMA for PTSD from the MAPS phase 3 trials. So the legal landscape is quickly shifting and these are still illegal substances. And so, you know, we were talking about set and setting, we're talking about environment.

If you're going into an experience where it being illegal creates just a little bit of anxiety or paranoia, that can be substantially amplified by the psychedelic experience itself. Now, you and I both know that the actual risk is quite low.

That the DEA is focused on fentanyl and cocaine and crystal meth and other drugs that are related to organized crime and addiction. They have even openly acknowledged that psychedelics are not necessarily a priority. But the fundamental truth is most people feel icky breaking the law. And so prohibition creates this set and setting of I'm doing something wrong.

I'm doing something against the rules, right? What happens if X, Y, and Z occurs? And what that does, when we talk about adverse effects,

is let's say you know we have a we have a friend and this friend goes and you know does a underground psilocybin ceremony in Los Angeles and at that ceremony the facilitator does something unethical or inappropriate there's no recourse right it's not like they can go

At least they don't feel comfortable going to the police and saying, you know, I was touched inappropriately. Well, what were you doing? Well, I was doing mushrooms. Well, mushrooms are illegals. So it creates this dynamic of secrecy.

And that dynamic of secrecy, that lack of transparency, it kind of goes back to what you were talking about before, which is pharmaceutical companies love to hide certain types of data.

Now, what's true is because this is underground, because it's prohibited, because there are these sort of like shadowy areas of even working with psychedelics, a lot of people don't feel completely safe going into an environment where they're not necessarily protected. And this is even, you know, since we spoke last, third wave has rolled out

Paul Austin on Microdosing Psychedelics and Social Innovation As psychedelics become more widely accessible is unethical practitioners who take advantage of a hype cycle to not only make money, but to also be predators to some degree, which gets back to your introduction. You know, the vast majority of humans are tribal.

we love being in community we love being in connection and you know at least one if not two if not three percent of people are psychopathic and so how do we ensure that those who want to come and work and journey in this space are protected from that and again it's tricky because there's no it's not like you know if you're a

physician, you're board certified. And so if a client has an issue, they go to the board and they report you. Who are you going to report an underground facilitator to? So this, I think, is the biggest challenge right now to address within this third wave of psychedelics.

I find it very interesting that these various guides, therapists, and facilities are openly allowing you to list them for the public to know about because basically they're exposing themselves, aren't they?

Well, the requirement is that they're legal. And so what that means is a lot of the retreats are in Jamaica, the Netherlands, Mexico, Costa Rica. The clinics that we list are integrative ketamine clinics. So ketamine is a legal psychedelic medicine. So we don't, we're not just putting underground shamans or facilitators on there.

Yeah. Cause you know, even the Changa Institute in Portland, that has graduated the first cohorts of government-authorized psychedelic guides. Even that Chang Institute has done that. They've had seven cohorts, they've graduated already, are still doing something illegal in the eyes of the federal government, even though it's totally legal and authorized by the state of Oregon.

And this is going to come to a head in 2024, I think 2025, where the difference between cannabis and psychedelics is that cannabis is this recreational dispensary, sort of like a replacement for alcohol. You bring it home, you do it. Psychedelics are more like a healthcare practice.

you know and you're getting deep into potentially medical issues and trauma and other aspects of that and the FDA has a monopoly on that in the United States everything has to go through it if it's a if it's a if it's a medical treatment it has to go through them and so I'm sensing there's going to be this sort of um

toe to toe, not battle necessarily, but something is going to happen where the federal government is going to say, a lot of people are depressed and they're coming to you for mushrooms.

Oregon would say, but we say this isn't therapy, we say this isn't medical treatment, and yet inevitably, those are the majority of folks who are going to do this. So

It's going to be really interesting to see how that dynamic between the FDA and states like Oregon and Colorado and potentially California at some point soon, how that all plays out, because it's a bit of the Wild West right now.

So we've talked about the adverse effect of illegality. We've talked a little about the adverse effect of agitation and anxiety. What are the kinds of adverse effects, not necessarily from full doses, mind you, of LSD and psilocybin, although if you have those examples I very much want to hear them, but

Other adverse effects from microdosing, even in small percentages, please, Paul, even if the numbers are small, because I know in some cases it's been cited 2.7% and 2.7% might seem small, but it depends on the number of subjects, right? If you get a hundred million people doing something, 2.7% is a lot of people.

When Jim Fadiman published that initial research, I think in 2017, he found that people with red-green color blindness see tracers when microdosing, which is something to be aware of. He found that anyone who was on lithium, lithium is contraindicated with low doses of psychedelics, basically nothing else.

Everything else is more or less safe to take with psilocybin microdoses, but lithium is contraindicated. which tracks because we know schizophrenia and other intense, let's say, personality disorders, if you want to frame them that way, bipolar, borderline, tend to be risky cases.

Some people, you know, are supported, like there's research on people who have bipolar disorder that integrate it with ayahuasca. So sometimes it can be supported through that, but generally it can be quite risky. I would say the other main risks and concerns are a sense of overwhelm. As we talked about anxiety, agitation, prohibition is the big one.

Another one that's been talked about for the last few years is more physical, which is related to heart valvulopathy. and Myocarditis. So there was a drug that was approved in the 1990s called Fen-Phen. Fen-Phen, yes of course. It was a weight loss drug if I'm not mistaken.

And what they found is pretty soon after it was approved on the market there were a bunch of people who had heart related issues. And so they pulled it off the market immediately and they found that drugs that over activate the 5-HT2B receptor

There's a relationship between that overactivation and heart valvulopathy, which is essentially something happens with the way that aorta connects that gets, you know, affected. And now the nuance here is the level of activation of both LSD and psilocybin, the 5-HT2B receptor is something like 1, 100th or 1, 1000th. of what Fen-Pen was. So it's substantially, substantially lower.

However, we don't have great longitudinal data on what happens if you take a low dose of a psychedelic twice a week for the rest of your life. So usually the way, the middle way here and what I always teach to is microdosing is a great catalyst It's a great opener.

If you need to microdose a couple times a week for a year to help get you out of a depression to help integrate material to help get you through an addiction. Great, positive, beneficial, but weaving in breaks.

And most importantly, leveraging the neuroplastic benefits of microdosing to choose better lifestyle habits, eating healthier, moving more, exercising more, sleeping better, being more connected in relationships, meditating more often, breath work, like That, I think, is the real potential. Microdosing should not be a replacement for antidepressants.

And I think sometimes people look at it as, I've been on Prozac for 20 years, now I want to be on psilocybin. It could be useful and helpful, but I think the more we look at psychedelics as a new paradigm of treatment, a new paradigm of perspective,

the more we look at them not as a pill for every ill, but instead as a catalyst to help us get the necessary perspective to actually fundamentally change the way that we live. So it's much more nourishing for us on a sustainable basis. So to come back to the point,

If someone is going to microdose twice a week for a period of time, great. Just weave in breaks and know that in some ways we are guinea pigs, all of us, who are taking low doses consistently because we just don't have the longitudinal data to know, okay, this is totally and completely safe.

But I'll just end on that sort of life, right? We want to feel like life is totally and completely safe. And the fact is, if life was totally and completely safe, it would be boring. So that's part of the mystery.

Somebody's listening to this and they're depressed and they've been depressed maybe since the pandemic. And they got put on an SSRI. which they have to take every single day and they're wondering if it's even working. They're not getting what they really need from it.

I would think they'd be saying to Paul Austin, I would if I were them, heck, instead of taking this thing every single day, what's wrong with me taking the microdose twice a week? We're talking about the difference between You may be a hundred times a year versus 365 times a year. I cut down my dose by two-thirds.

That sounds like a good play. What's wrong with that kind of thinking?

I would say it's a great transition, right? That it could be useful for a year or maybe two. And my perspective would be Kind of my North Star is sovereignty. So I want to feel powerful. I want to feel capable. I want to feel like I'm always at choice, regardless of what substance I'm taking.

And I truly believe that a lot of depression, addiction, anxiety, it's partly rooted in trauma, which with great psychedelic work and a great therapist, a lot of it can be integrated. It's also partly due to the environment that we're in.

And so oftentimes the message is instead of taking a pill to just get through it, why not ask yourself, am I really living the life that I'm supposed to live and what difficult choices might I need to make? to create a better existence for myself.

You know, do I, am I living in a place that I don't like? Am I living with people that I don't like? Am I, you know, stuck in an abusive or addictive relationship with a person or a thing? I think Again, don't let good be the perfect, or don't let good be the enemy of perfect.

Going from SSRIs to low doses, I truly and fundamentally believe is a win. And continuing to work to that point where It may just be on an occasional basis. You know, it's not necessarily twice a week, every week for the rest of your life.

Maybe it's once every other week, or maybe it's two or three times in a week, but then you don't do it again for a month.

Having that intuitive capacity to feel into what's appropriate rather than just doing it in a very sort of rote or regimented way, I think creates more freedom of choice in how we choose to live.

I'm going to segue into a different kind of question, Paul. How do you think human beings, homeosapiens, are doing with regard to taking care of themselves as a species on the planet?

That's a complex question. I would say on the one hand, if you look at larger collective and larger numbers, a lot of people would argue that with the Enlightenment and industrialism, millions if not billions of people have been brought out of poverty. We have heating, we have hot showers, we have washers and dryers, we have

washing machines for our dishes. So there's an incredible amount of convenience. And there's an incredible amount of comfort. And so now more than ever before, we as humans don't have to many of us, not all of us, but many of us don't have to fight and scratch and claw for our existence. And that's a very positive thing.

The downside to that is we become coddled by convenience. And so we eat junk food, we sit in front of the TV, we become these sort of machines of consuming. And I think the biggest, I would say, risk

for us as a species is perceiving ourselves as a machine, perceiving ourselves as part of this industrial sort of world that we've been born into. And I think the greatest task for my generation, our generation, those who are alive today, is to remember that we are not machines, that as a human being, We are much more complex.

We are much more in touch with nature. We have emotions. We have feelings. We require ritual and ceremony and belief and faith. And that the integrity of what it means to be human is interwoven with the health of our natural environment.

And because we've been born into this sort of metaphysic of industrialism, or materialist productionism is a more complicated way to perceive it, we have for so many years perceived ourselves as separate or other.

And I think what psychedelics teach more than anything is that the path to true flourishing, both individual and collectively, is a reestablishing of relationship of reciprocity with our natural environment. And I think that is

difficult to do and I'm an optimist and believe that psychedelics are acting as sort of allies to catalyze a remembrance of the importance of that relationship.

Paul, when I started this program in 2005, roughly 40% of the United States were obese or overweight. When you came on the program for the first time in about 2016 or 17, we were up to about 65%. As of today, 72% of the country are obese or overweight.

My colleagues tell me that at this rate of expansion, pun intended,

In 2030, over 50% of the United States will be obese and roughly 37% of the United States will be overweight, which means 87% of the country will be obese or overweight in seven short years before you even reach the age of 40, if I have my numbers correct. You should be about 39-ish. if I'm close.

So let's put it in round numbers. When Paul Austin is round numbers 40, 72% of the country that he lives in will be obese. I mean 87% of the country that he lives in will be obese or overweight and Paul will be in a small minority, 13% of people who are trim.

Now what do you think that data is telling us about ourselves as a people. What's the statement? What's the statement we're making?

Well, I think one it's, we're sort of, I think of like the matrix and living in pods and there's a way in which life has become so convenient that we just want to be fed. and we don't want to do anything to be fed. I think that's number one.

I think number two is it speaks to the public education around nutrition and health and how poisoned our food supply is specifically in the United States and how little attention people pay to what they're eating, and then how they're moving.

And I think the third aspect is because of this sense of convenience, we want everything to be easy. And when we want everything to be easy, we become soft, we become entitled, we become, I would say, unaware. And the more that we can intentionally do difficult things, like I go on the cold plunge,

Almost every day it's 39 degrees. Fahrenheit and I spent three minutes in there because I know it's hormetically beneficial to do. So I think generally what it says is we become a culture of consuming and our food supply is toxic because corporations have purchased our entire basically ecosystem.

So it's this sort of nefarious toxic combination of corporatism industrialism and convenience that I think is essentially slowly killing if not quickly killing Americans.

What are we going to do about it Paul?

Well for me a lot of it like there's an interesting bifurcation happening.

which is on the one hand you have folks who are taking full responsibility and sovereignty for their own well-being their own health they are sort of waking up to the system that we've been born into and they're saying I'm going to step outside of the system I'm going to build a new one so they're buying land in Texas in California in Costa Rica they're starting communities they're you know buying locally there's a

small percentage of the population, a lot of my friends and community who are saying, I don't want to be part of this. So I think that's the first step is just saying, I don't want to be part of this. And recognizing that, that those who stay within this, I would say broken system,

You, you, you can only what's the phrase you can lead a horse to water but you can't make a drink. So even if there's all the education in the world, even if the science is clear, as can be, even if. People have to make a choice and decision upon themselves to take responsibility for their well-being.

I think that's immediate. I think longer term, We need to shift public health and how we talk about nutrition and movement. We need to shift our legal system around psychedelics and, you know, alternative forms of health care. And we have to take the power back from corporations that are slowly extracting

Energy from us for their own personal gain and ask how do we build and create ecosystems. That are more integrated and inclusive for all of humanity so it's. We could probably spend an entire podcast episode on it.

But for me, a lot of it comes down to first, we each have to take individual responsibility for our own well-being.

And then second, as that grows more and more, we have to ask how do we communicate and educate people about what it really means to be healthy and to create systems for them that support true health and well-being.

60% of the United States right now are living paycheck to paycheck. That's a pretty strong, another strong statement, isn't it? Being made by a population.

It's difficult right now, I would say, in particular, like, and it's getting more and more difficult. And some people would say AI will save us. Some people are hopeful for universal basic income. But I think the fundamental fact is income inequality is higher than it's really ever been in history.

And if you look at history, whenever income inequality becomes this substantial, something has to course correct it. And I think so many of us are hopeful that that something won't be, because usually it's war.

um that we can course correct that we can face the dragons and the demons without the typical historical requirement of conflict war and death and I think that to me is fundamentally I would say the biggest problem today is income inequality because it is such a stark misappropriation of energy and um it I think it is it is

It would behoove everyone if we could figure out a way to level the playing field. Right. And this is the tricky part is communism tried that. Communism was worse than capitalism.

Let me correct you. Communism has never been tried. What has been tried is a cartel gangster flying the flag of communism, but really it's just a group of thugs, whether it's in China or in Russia. They are not practicing true communism.

because true communism doesn't go around killing people, arresting people, having no freedom of speech, no, in your word, which is important to me also, no personal sovereignty. So they're not, they haven't, we don't know if communism could work.

The closest thing we have to it are the Scandinavian countries, which practice a form of socialism and they seem to be successful. Well, I'm going to leave you with this since we're winding up our hour together, Paul.

It's your generation in your 30s plus or minus 10 years taking in people in their 20s and mid 40s that are going to have to make the change. And it's not going to come from you people hoping that it'll happen. And it's not going to come from you people looking for leadership.

It's going to come from you people becoming the leaders and making a plan and making a long-term plan, maybe a 20-year plan for changing all the things that you believe need to be changed. You are a pioneer in psychedelics and you can be a pioneer in social change as well.

Actually, your work in psychedelics contributes to social change, of course, but in an even bigger way. If you spread the word to people between 25 and 45 that your time has come. But again, do not be looking for leaders. Produce the leaders from your own group. Do not be looking for guides.

Question everything and make your own constitution. Thomas Jefferson said the constitution should be rewritten every 20 years because it's a new generation. Well, we put forth a great constitution for a couple of hundred years and it's been a guiding principle for some of the world.

But some things in it need to be changed and you have referenced them today, Paul Austin. One of them is the corporate state. When corporations were given personhood in this country, that was a nail in the coffin of democracy and republic.

And when lobbyists are allowed to function rather than being seen as bribers and felons, which is really what they are, Those are other nails in the coffin of democracy and republic.

Because in Europe, you go to a politician and offer him a beautiful meal or a ride on a jet plane or three different women, you get arrested for bribery and it's a felony. But in this country, it's totally legal. And how can you expect

Congressman, to stay honest, at what level of bribe is each congressman going to fold? $30 million? $50 million? $100 million? Or threaten your wife? Threaten your kids? Threaten your parents? Right? We need the new way.

So it's up to you and I leave that in your lap until our next interview because next time you come on I want to hear some of your ideas that you're putting forth to all the people you know in your age group about how we're going to change this thing. That's my homework. That's my homework assignment.

I look forward to that conversation. Thank you for having me on again today, Richard. It was fun, as always.

I'm glad it was fun. And thank you, Paul, for everything you've contributed to us and for being here today on Mind Body Health and Politics. And thank you, general listeners, for being here today as well.

I want to remind you that we produce a new show every Tuesday at 9 o'clock, but most of you don't listen at 9 o'clock on Tuesday morning Pacific Time. Instead, you listen to The Archive. So I remind you, The Archive on Mind Body Health and Politics is open source. That means free for the listening.

And we have some of the greatest minds on the planet on this program. Also, let me throw in a commercial for my latest book, Freeing Sexuality. I think you'll find it a fun read.

Until next time, this is Dr. Richard Louis Miller reminding you that good health is worth fighting for and it's essential for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

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