Author: John Carter

What Is Ayahuasca? Uses, Experience, Effects and Dangers of Use

Individuals reporting an increase on any item were asked if they required “support from a psychiatrist, physician, therapist, counsellor, or alternative health practitioner to cope with these feelings/experiences? ” and then if they “believe the feelings were/are part of a positive process of growth or integration? The present study responds to these gaps using a very large sample of ayahuasca users. The primary aim of the present study was to assess sub-acute and long-term impact of ayahuasca use on affect and cognitive thinking style.

1. The second objective was to assess whether sub-acute and long-term effects of ayahuasca depend on the degree of ego dissolution that was experienced after consumption of ayahuasca.
2. The study reports that ayahuasca shows promise as a form of treatment for a wide range of mental health issues that may contribute to suicidal ideation.
3. DMT impacts the brain by working on the neural circuits that utilize serotonin.
4. If you mix ayahuasca with other controlled substances, prescription medications, or over-the-counter drugs, the effects can be unpredictable and dangerous.
5. Before partaking in an Ayahuasca ceremony, it’s recommended that participants abstain from cigarettes, drugs, alcohol, sex, and caffeine to purify their bodies.

Additionally, if you participate in an Ayahuasca ceremony in another country, it may be more challenging to seek medical attention in case of an emergency. There have been several reported deaths due to Ayahuasca consumption, but they may be due to the addition of other ingredients or dosing issues. At a 6-month follow up, they demonstrated significant improvements in mindfulness, hopefulness, empowerment, and overall quality of life.

This is the regular instruction included in measures of divergent thinking, and it is used to calculate several parameters, i.e., originality, fluency, and the ratio of both, which reflect quantity and quality of divergent thinking. Originality is calculated by evaluating the originality of the alternative association relative to those provided by all other participants in a session. Alternative answers that were uniquely reported by a single participant received an originality score of 2.

Ayahuasca has notable, although rarely severe, adverse effects

During processing, DMT is extracted from the leaves of P. viridis or other plant species, and MAOIs are extracted from the B. Although both of these compounds are found endogenously in the human body, artificially manipulating the levels of DMT or MAOIs can cause serious complications. The compound that is responsible for the hallucinogenic effect of ayahuasca is dimethyltryptamine (DMT). Pharmacologically, DMT is a serotonin receptor agonist, meaning that it is interpreted by the brain as serotonin. For DMT to exert its psychoactive properties, a monoamine oxidase inhibitor (MAOI) must be present to prevent the rapid breakdown of DMT.

The number of correctly detected associations increased with 9% sub-acutely and with 29% at the 4-week follow-up. At the latter time point, the increase in cognitive performance also reached statistical significance. The PCT task has previously been used in an observational ayahuasca study to show that the brew increases performance at the divergent, creative thinking assignment but decreases performance in convergent thinking assignments (Kuypers et al. 2016). In the latter study, PCT performance was assessed during the acute phase of the ayahuasca experience (i.e., 2 h after intake), whereas in the present study, PCT performance was assessed sub-acutely and a month after the ceremony.

PLOS Global Public Health

These data were recently replicated in a larger open-label trial that involved 17 depressed patients (Sanches et al. 2016). Overall, acute physical health adverse effects were reported in the ayahuasca dangers study by 69.9% of the sample, with the most common effects being vomiting and nausea (68.2% of participants), headache (17.8%) and abdominal pain (12.8%). The ayahuasca ceremonies in the Netherlands were held in a tipi outside or in a big hotel room. The goal of the ceremony was to relieve psychological or physical issues, increase well-being, or to gain personal insights.

However, the sample could also be considered a real representation of ayahuasca users’ global distribution. As responders with missing values in the adverse effects section were excluded from the analysis, the sample size to study Physical and Mental Health adverse effects were different. Eight thousand two hundred and sixteen participants were included in the analysis of the adverse physical effects and 7,839 in the analysis of the adverse mental effects. The majority of the participants had a University degree, and were most commonly married and from Brazil. Finally, the participants had more than 30 lifetime ayahuasca uses and ayahuasca was used principally in a religious context (Table 1). Ayahuasca’s safety has been demonstrated in clinical trials involving both different dosages and multiple administrations [13, 14, 35–45], as well as in naturalistic settings [21, 24–30].

How Long Does Ayahuasca Last?

The study reports that ayahuasca shows promise as a form of treatment for a wide range of mental health issues that may contribute to suicidal ideation. When you take DMT, particularly as an ayahuasca tea, it can have a variety of effects. One of the most serious is the increased heart rate it can cause, which is one of the reasons there have been a few reported deaths involving ayahuasca. Other side effects can include agitation, an increase in blood pressure, dilated pupils, chest pain, rapid eye movements and dizziness. Although possible medical benefits of ayahuasca are still being studied, many people who have taken ayahuasca believe that the substance is highly therapeutic and helps them address and overcome repressed psychological issues.

In one 2013 study, 12 people with severe psychological and behavioral issues related to substance abuse participated in a 4-day treatment program that included 2 Ayahuasca ceremonies (17). A study in 57 people demonstrated that ratings of depression and stress were significantly decreased immediately after the participants consumed Ayahuasca. These effects were still significant 4 weeks following the Ayahuasca consumption (11). A creativity task with non-verbal stimuli was used, i.e., the picture concept task (PCT) (Kuypers et al. 2016).

One of the most prominent ayahuasca side effects is vomiting, and diarrhea may also occur. There are people who welcome this side effect, as they believe it’s cleansing and allows them to purge negativity from their lives. In reality, it can be incredibly uncomfortable and lead to further complications, such as dehydration. The use of ayahuasca tea has become so popular that an entire tourism industry has developed around it in South America. One of the critical ingredients, DMT, is an illicit Schedule I substance in the U.S. and is illegal in many other countries, so people often must travel to use the tea legally.

However, a history of past trauma can put vulnerable patients at risk if they use mind-altering substances without proper guidance or psychological / spiritual support [71]. In that sense, as we have found in the current study, non-supervised contexts may increase the probability of suffering an adverse even. Another known health risk is the potential for drug interactions with some of the MAOI components of the brew. Concomitant use of certain prescription drugs (especially serotonergic substances) can increase adverse health effects, including the risk of serotonin syndrome [48]. On the other hand, it has been impossible to directly relate a single death to ayahuasca use [72]. There is also no evidence that ayahuasca has substantial or persistent abuse potential [18, 48].

Ayahuasca also contains various other plant constituents such as flavonoids and terpenes. A recent study quantified about 2,000 components in a final ayahuasca brew utilising the traditional plants [60]. Observational research should acknowledge and ideally account for such differences. Twenty-seven volunteers (33.3% males, 66.7% females) from several locations in Colombia (Bogota, Bucaramanga, and Cali) completed the test battery.

There is a high rate of adverse physical effects and challenging psychological effects from using the plant-based psychoactive drug ayahuasca, but few ayahuasca dangers are ever severe. Overall, adverse health effects were reported by nearly 70% of participants with the most common effects being vomiting and nausea, headache, and abdominal pain. About 2% of participants who reported adverse physical events required medical attention. The present study aimed to assess sub-acute and long-term effects of ayahuasca on well-being and cognitive thinking style. The second objective was to assess whether sub-acute and long-term effects of ayahuasca depend on the degree of ego dissolution that was experienced after consumption of ayahuasca. The Recovery Village aims to improve the quality of life for people struggling with substance use or mental health disorder with fact-based content about the nature of behavioral health conditions, treatment options and their related outcomes.