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Microdosing – the act of taking small amounts of usually psychedelic drugs – was popular with a certain type of person looking for more productivity than standard life hacks like caffeine and time management can offer. Whether it works is still unknown, but a new study suggests that the touted benefits may have been due to the placebo effect all along.
The drugs involved, typically LSD or psilocybin mushrooms, are illegal in most places, and as such, the communities discussing microdosing are typically underground, unofficial, and full of anecdotes more than data. This 2018 piece from The Cut describes the phenomenon in detail.
The basic idea, however, is that if you ingest a tiny amount of a hallucinogen – often 10% or less of a recreational dose – you won’t feel high, but you will feel something. ON reddit instructions describes some general benefits as being focused, creative, “open”, calm, alert, compassionate, grateful, or flowing.
With such subtle benefits, it can be impossible for a person to know whether their experience was from the drug or a manifestation of their own expectations. In other words, it could be the placebo effect.
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The term “placebo effect” was originally coined to refer to the fact that people often improve in clinical trials even if they haven’t received the drug being tested. It is often described these days as a mind-over-matter phenomenon in which you translate your perceptions into reality. But It can also be a less exciting mix of factorshow to attribute good changes to the drug and bad changes to ourselves or external obstacles. We also seldom experience a thing in isolation; If you are microdosing for better concentration, you are also likely playing good music and hanging a “do not disturb” sign on your door.
To clarify this, a group of scientists developed a “self-blind” protocol that microdosers could perform at home. Participants were instructed to make capsules with and without their usual microdose of their usual psychedelic. They placed the capsules in envelopes with QR codes, then mixed them up and selected envelopes to use for the study to ensure they received either four weeks of microdose, four weeks nothing, or half and half.
Participants rated how they felt and took various online tests to measure their cognitive functions. In the end, both people who received the microdoses and those who did not receive the microdoses improved in “all psychological outcomes”. The people who received the real microdoses improved a little more, suggesting a small real effect.
But there’s a twist: investigators asked participants whether they took the actual dose or the empty dose. The people who felt best and performed best while taking microdoses were the same ones who correctly guessed they were microdosed. So it is possible that the effects are due to people knowing what they are ingesting.
The researchers write, “The results suggest that the anecdotal benefits of microdosing can be explained by the placebo effect.” Further research may be able to identify certain benefits, if they exist. Perhaps certain types or dosages work better than others. So far, however, it seems likely that the benefits of microdoses are very small.