What Are Adverse Childhood Experiences?
Adverse childhood experiences are any traumatic event or longer-term adversity that occurred in ones youth.
A Way to Ease Distress?
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Card and his fellow researchers recruited participants online and included 951 psilocybin users in their final analysis.
Participants were an average age of 40 at the time.
Our study explored whether those who engaged in recreational psilocybin use also had lesser psychological distress, he said.
In short, the answer is yes to both outcomes.
Our study was just observational, and wed need to do a clinical trial to confirm this.
How Do You Assess Childhood Trama?
Participants completed the 10-item Adverse Childhood Experiences Questionnaire to assess childhood trauma.
About 17% of participants reported no childhood trauma.
ACEs alter your stress response, which can negatively impact your mental health long term.
Among the consequences this causes is increased risk for psychological distress.
Adverse events in childhood trigger the fight-flight-freeze response, releasing inflammatory cytokines and stress hormones.
The increased inflammation impacts development in the parts of the brain that help regulate stress.
And the increased stress hormone levels can remain elevated into adulthood.
How might these heightened levels manifest in adulthood?
Hypervigilance can drive anxiety and psychological distress.
ACEs may also cause disruption to serotonin signaling, which helps regulate mood and anxiety.
Direct research into these matters is needed.
A 2021 study included 1,670 people of perimenopause, menopause, and post-menopausal age.
But first, its important to understand what it does to the body.
Its interaction with the 5-HT2A receptor is thought to be primarily responsible for inducing the psychedelic experience.
Padron is trained in psychedelic-assisted therapy and was not involved in the ACEs study.
In that altered state of consciousness, any sense of rigidity and hierarchy is relaxed.
This allows users to change negative beliefs in favor of ones that are better serving.
In a normal state of consciousness, thinking about past traumas can be triggering or emotionally burning.
This may help people reprocess their trauma and lessen the associated psychological distress.
However, Card offers a word of caution.
People with histories of childhood adversity might be at risk for bad trips when using alone, he said.
Working with a psychedelic-assisted therapist is recommended for safety and efficacy.
Currently, psilocybin use is stillillegalat the federal level in the United States.
However, more research is needed.
You may be able to receive psilocybin-assisted therapy in a state where the approach has been legalized.
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Hasler G.Toward the helioscope hypothesis of psychedelic therapy.Eur Neuropsychopharmacol.
