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Welcome to Tricycle Day. We're the psychedelics newsletter that's not crying. We just got a little cortisol in our eye. 🥲

Imagine for a moment…

Heat waves are rolling randomly through your body. Emotions are surfacing from god knows where. You’re tired, but you can’t sleep. And somehow, you can’t shake the feeling that you're no longer in charge.

No, we're not describing a mushroom trip. This, dear Cyclists, is menopause. (Though the overlap is pretty uncanny.)

If these two things share so much in common, you gotta wonder if one might help with the other.

So for today’s newsletter, we asked our network of licensed psilocybin facilitators: How can psilocybin support women going through menopause?

They’ve got a lot to say on the matter.

We geek out about psychedelic trial data. This, you know. We are unashamed.

But clinical trials ≠ real life.

So what happens when regular people sit for legal psilocybin experiences in Oregon and Colorado?

We can answer that question now, because we’ve got the intel.

Next Friday, Henry from Tricycle Day is sitting down with Althea’s CEO, Niko Skievaski, to hear what we’ve learned from thousands of real-world psilocybin sessions.

We’ll cover who benefits most, when psilocybin’s safe, and what it looks like when it works.

This event is free, and everyone who registers gets the replay.

Menopause tends to get reduced to a symptom checklist, but there’s a lot more under the surface. Doug Wingate describes the starting line: “Chronic stress, nervous system depletion, disrupted sleep, caregiving responsibilities, economic pressure, and limited ability to slow down or meaningfully reorganize our lives can leave people entering this transition already exhausted and under-resourced.”

So all the emotional weight isn't new. Menopause just makes it impossible to shrug off. Kate Schroeder has noticed psilocybin can help women feel “less emotionally stuck, more embodied, more self-compassionate, and more connected to their bodies during a time that can otherwise feel disorienting or dysregulating.”

Disorienting may be the key word. Erin Witter agrees: “Menopause may crack something open in you that you didn't expect, and you may not be prepared for how disorienting that feels.” Psilocybin, he says, “can meet you exactly there, in that tender, uncertain place, and help you find not just relief, but meaning.”

So why psilocybin specifically? Ryan Phillips lays out the mechanism: “On a biological level, psilocybin acts as an agonist at the 5-HT2A receptor to increase cognitive flexibility and promote neuroplasticity. This can help clear the fogginess often associated with hormonal shifts and allow for more active coping with life challenges.”

When estrogen declines, serotonin signaling goes with it, which is part of why mood, cognition, and temperature regulation go sideways during this transition. Psilocybin acts directly on serotonin receptors, and its anti-inflammatory effects may compound the benefits. Anna Desmarais has seen psilocybin “help with several symptoms such as insomnia, depression, anxiety, and even hot flashes by increasing stress resilience and regulating the nervous system.”

Kate adds that the benefits extend beyond symptom management: “Psilocybin may help interrupt rigid thought patterns, soften anxiety or depressive symptoms, and create space for processing grief, aging, identity shifts, or unresolved emotional material that often surfaces during midlife transitions.”

The goal, most facilitators agree, isn't to get back to who you were before. As Doug points out, “people often arrive carrying decades of caregiving, adaptation, self-abandonment, or identities that no longer fully fit.” Psilocybin can catalyze an honest reckoning that might otherwise keep getting deferred.

Kate frames menopause as a turning point: “The work often becomes about exploring who they are becoming now.” And Clayton Ickes extends the same attitude toward other transitions, too. He sees psilocybin as a way to “punctuate meaningful landmarks in a person's life and act as a kind of threshold experience. It brings people closer to their bodies and can facilitate a sense of acceptance of life's changes.”

Finally, Angela Bean tells us what women report on the other side: “They often feel a renewed sense of identity, meaning, and purpose and a greater clarity and confidence as they step into their next chapter.” Sounds exciting, no?

Sorry, y’all. The research on psilocybin and menopause is paper thin.

No surprise there, considering the research on menopause in general is pretty sparse.

Women's health has historically gotten the short end of the funding stick, which is a strange way to treat half the world's population if you ask us.

At least organizations like Deva Collective and Hystelica are starting to fill the gap. They’re doing work at the intersection of psychedelics and (peri)menopause. We’ll keep an eye on it for ya.

Fwiw, we've run a few interviews that go deeper on these topics. Jennifer Chesak does a great job breaking down the complex interplay between psilocybin, stress, and hormonal balance.

And Erica Zelfand, who's made a career of working with women navigating this transition, says when she hits menopause herself, her plan is to combine microdosing with HRT.

We can't give medical advice, but she's a doctor. So, uh... talk to her?

Thanks to Kristin L. from Mill Valley, CA 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.