🫠 Ask a Guide Anything

Welcome to Tricycle Day. We're the ginger tea of psychedelics newsletters. A lil' spicy, sure… but ultimately comforting. 😌

You hear that gurgling?

That’s not the universe calling. That’s your stomach. And it ain’t happy.

Yep, we’re talking about that part of the journey where you're sweating, your intestines are churning, and you can't tell if your ego is dying or you just ate a bad burrito.

For today’s newsletter, we asked our network of licensed psilocybin facilitators: What role does physical discomfort (nausea, body load, restlessness) play in a psilocybin journey?

Here's how they frame it.

The psychedelic experience is “ineffable,” they say.

But you know what doesn’t defy language? The outcomes.

We can actually describe what happens when people sit with medicine and a licensed facilitator because we have the data to back it up.

Today at 11am MT, we’re going live to share what we’ve learned from thousands of real-world psilocybin sessions in Oregon and Colorado.

We’re covering who benefits most, how safe it is, and what it looks like when it works. Plus any other questions you toss our way.

If you can’t make it, register anyway and we’ll send you the replay.

First of all, physical discomfort is very normal. According to Doug Wingate, it comes with the territory: “Psilocybin journeys can involve nausea, heaviness, temperature shifts, muscle tension, restlessness, or what people sometimes call ‘body load.’ While these sensations can feel challenging, they are also quite common.” 

First-timers might assume something is going wrong, but Kate Schroeder explains these sensations “are often part of the body's process of responding, releasing, recalibrating, or moving through heightened emotional and nervous system activation.” 

Wherever it comes from, Jim Hoeffler recommends working with what surfaces: “Some discomfort is simply pharmacological. Sometimes discomfort precedes emotional release of pent-up energy or anxiety. When approached gently, safely, and with curiosity, even discomfort can become information rather than suffering.”

Many of our facilitators would argue discomfort carries a message. Erin Witter describes what may be going on beneath the surface: “Your body holds what your mind has protected for years, and psilocybin has a way of asking it to let go.” 

Clayton Ickes sees the mind-body connection as an entry point to go deeper: “Physical discomfort can be a trailhead into psychological or emotional discomfort. By attending to sensations, even discomfort, we can open doors that are important to our healing and wholeness.” 

As Terry Turner reminds us, curiosity is generally a helpful orientation: “To benefit the most from a psilocybin journey is to embrace fully whatever is showing up in the now moment. And if one finds the current situation unpleasant, the question can always be asked: what is in this for my healing?”

Ok, so some discomfort is part of the deal. But good prep can at least mitigate the tummy troubles. Benjamin Hawes recommends planning ahead: “Getting acupuncture or bodywork in the weeks prior to the journey, trying yoga or qigong, somatic psychotherapy—all of these can help reduce the body load.” 

Ryan Phillips offers a few hacks for journey day: “Ginger tea or supplements such as DGL may ease nausea. Somatic exercises like gentle stretching, yoga, or humming help release physical tension. Breathwork, including diaphragmatic breathing, calms the nervous system.”

Prep should also include hashing out a game plan with your facilitator beforehand. Doug shares how he flexes his protocol: “Before a journey, we establish clear communication and consent around support preferences. Some people prefer entirely non-contact experiences, while others appreciate grounding somatic support if challenges arise.”

There’s the inner game of body load. (Find meaning in the suffering, yada yada yada…) Then there’s the outer game.

By that, we mean what you actually put in your mouth.

Some of that indigestion comes from the raw mushroom material itself (especially chitin, the fibrous stuff in fungal cell walls), not the psilocybin. So how you prep your dose can change the whole ride.

Some people brew a tea, steeping dried mushrooms in hot water and ditching the chunky bits. Others swear by lemon tekking. But our preferred method is to grind your mushrooms into a fine powder and whisk them into orange juice for about five minutes before drinking.

Faster come up and way less queasiness. And it doesn’t even taste like dirt.

Thanks to Autumn B. from Black River, Michigan for submitting this week’s question. 🫠

Reply to this email to shoot your shot. If it’s a juicy one, we may select it for a future issue.

That’s all for today, Cyclists! Whenever you’re ready, here’s how we can help.

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DISCLAIMER: This newsletter is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice. The use, possession, and distribution of psychedelic drugs are illegal in most countries and may result in criminal prosecution.