How can women navigate the emotional, cognitive, and hormonal rollercoaster of perimenopause and menopause? In this episode, April Pride explores how psilocybin microdosing may offer real support for women in midlife. From balancing neuroplasticity and mood to improving sexual function and breaking addictive patterns, this conversation highlights the science, lived experience, and emerging protocols behind psilocybin’s potential to ease this complex life stage. If you're wondering how to recalibrate your brain (not just your hormones), this episode offers data-backed, compassionate insights into how psychedelics fit into midlife care.
🔵 Key Takeaways
Hormonal shifts in perimenopause and menopause deeply impact brain function, mood, and resilience.
Psilocybin may support neuroplasticity, emotional regulation, and cognitive clarity during these transitions.
Microdosing could help improve libido, body image, and intimacy—areas often impacted by hormonal decline.
Midlife women are increasingly self-medicating with psychedelics to manage menopause-related symptoms.
Community support and intentional protocols are critical for safe, effective microdosing.
🔵 Timestamps
[00:00] Introduction: Why menopause requires brain-based support
[02:00] The hidden link between estrogen, serotonin, and mental health
[04:00] How psilocybin works differently from SSRIs/SNRIs for mood stabilization
[06:00] Psilocybin’s emerging role in treating female sexual dysfunction
[08:00] Addiction and compulsive behaviors resurfacing in midlife
[10:00] The role of neuroplasticity and the HPA axis in midlife mental health
[12:00] Microdosing 101: setting intention, dose, and mindset
[14:00] Why community and accountability matter when microdosing
[16:00] Hystelica study: combining microdosing and menopause support
🔵 Featured Guest
Grace Blest-Hopley: Hystelica Psilocybin Microdosing Menopause Study Sign-Up
🔵 Additional Resources
SetSet Micro-Psyched DIY Microdosing Guide
🎙️ SetSet podcast: Psilocybin for Menstrual Cycles & Menopause
How are you navigating hormonal shifts? Have you explored microdosing as part of your menopause support? 👇 Let’s talk about it in the comments after the transcript below.
🔵 Transcript
April Pride, host: [00:00:00] hey, this is April and this show, SetSet , discusses cannabis, psychedelics, and altered states of consciousness generally. It's intended for audiences 21 and over. Also, I am not a medical expert. If you are looking to engage with psychedelic substances, please consult your physician before doing so.
Hello, if you could introduce yourself and
Grace Blest-Hopley: give us background
April Pride, host: on your work.
Grace Blest-Hopley: My name's Dr. Grace Bliss Hoffman. I'm a neuroscientist and researcher in cannabis and psychedelics based in London, England started my career working in the neuropsychopharmacology of cannabis and how it affects our brain in both in acute way and in a chronic sense.
And then from that work, I came to work in psychedelics and starting to learn. How these could be used as the [00:01:00] medicinal products. And that work really started in the world of military veterans and looking at how we could do psychedelics to treat things like post-traumatic stress disorder, where we have such a high rate of treatment resistance, particularly in this cohort.
And then as I was doing this work, I became more and more interested in. Thinking about psychedelics quite specifically in the bodies of women and how psychedelics interact with female biology and what that might mean in terms of the outcomes and the safety for women using these substances. So with this kind of key research interest in mind, I decided I needed to do something about it to try and highlight the lack of research and the lack of data in the hope that I could start something to get the ball rolling and, and get people to see how important this is.
And so I started Delica. We're a research advocacy and education company focused on understanding psychedelics in female bodies. [00:02:00]
April Pride, host: Thank you for, I'm so happy to be talking to you. Anyone that's been listening for the decade that I've been working. And cannabis, and now most recently psychedelics knows that this is really where my heart is.
Mm-hmm. And interest is with these compounds. What were you doing with heroic Hearts that made you wanna really focus on women? What were you seeing? I.
Grace Blest-Hopley: A lot of what I was seeing was that the majority of the participants that we were basing the evidence around was coming from majority male participants, and that's just the nature of the beast.
When you're looking at military veterans and particularly military veterans who've got combat trauma, they're largely men because it's largely been men who are in those ground close combat roles. Head traumas are more prevalent. But there's the stark contrast. We have incredible evidence for the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder in military veterans being majoritively men, and looking at actually who is more likely to get [00:03:00] diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.
It is primarily women. Women are diagnosed at twice the rates as men in this. So it started to make me think, A, is the disorder the same and B, should the treatment be the same? Furthermore, I was in the military myself, I was. The only woman very often out on exercise or with my company, and at the time, that didn't really ever occur to me that being in that all male space might be changing the way I was behaving and the way that I was able to show up and discuss my problems and discuss what was happening to me.
And it wasn't until I found myself in an all female space that I realized there was a huge dynamic shift. That we needed to have these very female focused spaces in order for us to be able to talk about ourselves, our health, how we want to heal, and the problems we are facing in our lives. The final component was the stories I then [00:04:00] started to hear as I moved around the psychedelic space.
I would speak to people who I'd taken part at various different psychedelic ceremonies. And I started to hear stories from women that were related to things like their menstrual cycle. That to me, suggested there's something else going on here, that there is some kind of interaction that we are not looking at.
So I went to the literature to try and understand this and realized what a ginormous gap we have in understanding women's biology. Full stop. Before we even introduce things like psychedelics, they thought we really need to get. Some, some kind of spotlight shone on the concept of women and psychedelics.
In order for us to get over this ginormous gap and as we move the psychedelic world forward, have appropriate knowledge in order that we can allow women to come to the space, use the substances safely, and get the best outcomes for them.
April Pride, host: You did say that you started with [00:05:00] cannabis so. What were some of the stories that you were hearing related to cannabis consumption among women that you thought, huh, something's going on here that's related to ovarian hormones?
Grace Blest-Hopley: We definitely do see that the consumption of cannabis in menstruating women. Does seem to fluctuate along with their cycle. Women do seem to be self-medicating with cannabis to mitigate PMS symptoms. Maybe that's pain to do with menstrual cramps or tiredness and anxiety at this time of the month. It just made me think, where else are women self-medicating using other substances in the lack of good treatment options.
And how might we more formally understand how cannabinoids can be interacting with different symptomology of our menstrual cycle? Furthermore, when we look at things like menopause transition and the symptomology that many women suffer once they go through [00:06:00] perimenopause and menopause, a lot of those are symptoms for which the current options are SSRIs, anti-anxiety medication, or sleep medications.
That we know have side effect profiles that really are not great and really not great. If you want to think about using these for perimenopause goes on for about 10 years, you know, so if you think about using SSRIs and sleeping medication for that a length of time, it's actually not very conducive, a generally healthy lifestyle.
But if we take things like cannabis and various cannabinoids, we know that we can affect specific symptomology within menopause. In a much safer way with a much lesser side effect profile, and in a way that is a little bit more holistic to women, they're able to perhaps titrate themselves up or down, depending on how they're feeling at that specific time.
And so I think that for me, it was thinking about how there are these unmet needs in women's healthcare that women can treat [00:07:00] themselves using things like cannabis and, and cannabinoids. Another thing that was quite stark within the cannabis research that I was doing was really looking at the participants that were being looked at, particularly when we looked at things like really chronic use of cannabis.
So many of those participants were males. The patterns of use dosage and the ways they were using actually looked quite different to women. So an awful lot of the evidence that we have around cannabis, particularly the negative impacts of long-term cannabis. Is all evidence that's been largely built on males using it rather than females.
April Pride, host: What are some of the differences in the patterns of consumption? Does it go back to what you just said In terms of our cycle and the month, and that really dictates for a lot of women how they're choosing to consume and how much they're choosing to consume.
Grace Blest-Hopley: Yeah, it's definitely the change in dosage use [00:08:00] within women based on their cycles, and also a lot of men seem to prefer stronger cannabis, cannabis and using a lot more frequently and actually more evidence that men seem to start use at a younger age than women.
However, the split between how many men and how many women smoke cannabis is actually not vastly different. Which is, yeah, what, what you might think.
April Pride, host: This can apply to psychedelics as well. I think cannabis is more accessible, especially with the rapid increase of legalization across the globe. Mm-hmm.
There's less stigma for a male to choose cannabis as a way to mitigate symptoms of anxiety or depression. The self-medication that can go along with consuming a lot of cannabis. Mm-hmm. For me, I have a DHD. It really helps with boredom. That's what I'll tell myself, but I'm sure there's some dopamine in there that I appreciate.
I am not a scientist. I'm not a medical expert. What I've learned is that there could be something to do with tolerance that is [00:09:00] correlated with a lack of estrogen or an increase in estrogens. Men are choosing higher potency, THC, because they have a higher tolerance. Women as they move through their monthly cycle or their lifetime cycle, and they have these fluctuations in estrogen and progesterone.
Then they need less, they're more sensitive to THC. That's where I can't find evidence. And I know that when we were emailing you just, you mentioned that you too wanted to dig deep and find where we do know. There is a correlation. Did any, did that come up at all in your investigation in terms of exactly how the effect
Grace Blest-Hopley: of cannabinoids are different within women's brains?
I think I am looking for a proof of mechanism of action. One of the things, this is very true for both cannabis and psychedelics, and it's one of the things that, uh, has been a big pillar of the educational part of his Angelica up until now [00:10:00] is looking at what is. The neuropsychopharmacology of being a female, of being a woman, of having fluctuating hormone levels.
It is remarkable. I think we get sometimes stuck in the idea that. Female bodies and female hormones are only there in order for us to ovulate and have our endometrial lining grow and then shed, and that's the only reason why these hormones exist. Yeah. Just simply to think about what we are animals and we are evolutionary animals, where everything about us is largely driven by some reasoning towards bettering and prolonging the survival of the species, right?
Mm-hmm. So it would make absolute sense that. These hormones as they fluctuate, are not just changing our reproductive physiology, but they're also really changing our neurophysiology, changing the way that our brains work. And nothing is more stark in that than what happens within [00:11:00] the serotonergic system.
I. When we have high levels of estrogen, we have changes in the serotonergic system on multiple levels that change the amount of functioning that is going on. So when we have high levels of estrogen, we have much higher serotonin receptor density, for instance. So you have much more serotonergic action during that time.
Furthermore, you have changes in things like neuroplasticity and dendritic growth, and this really takes place a lot in areas like the hippocampus, which is associated with memory. It's an area of the brain where we know we have an awful lot of CB one receptors can cannabinoid receptor one. It could be that changes occur as a result of changes in levels of things that could be changing how we feel under substances like cannabinoids and psychedelics, but that's not.
The only thing, we have other hormones like progesterone, and I think that one is very interesting, particularly when we think [00:12:00] about the anxiolytic effects that we might be seeking within things like cannabinoid. Progesterone itself actually works as an anxiolytic anti-anxiety, uh, substance, and it works within the, the GABA system, which controls things like our glutaminergic action in this inhibitory way.
And when we have high levels of progesterone, we are really affecting. The way that this system is working, the baseline levels of functioning in systems that we know that cannabinoids and psychedelics affect, like the serotonergic system, the dopaminergic system, the glutaminergic system, the GABAergic system, all are fluctuating naturally as a hormone fluctuate.
So it would make total sense that once we add some exogenous substance. Like a cannabinoid, like a psychedelic. We're not going to have the same effect on every day of the month. As we go through perimenopause and we see those really dramatic ups and downs between our [00:13:00] estrogen levels, we are going to see really different responses to different drug types.
April Pride, host: Yeah. A couple of facts that I think the audience may find helpful is that estrogen does bind to serotonin receptors. 90% of our serotonin receptors are in our gut. Yeah. Right. So there's a lot of motility that's lost as we lose estrogen. The thinking is that perhaps psilocybin also binds to serotonin receptors, and it could be helpful for some of the issues that women are finding with sluggishness as we age.
I don't know if your research points to any of that. Mm-hmm. Being true, but also the hippocampus having CB one receptors. So for the audience, CB one THC binds to CB one receptors. So something that if you're lacking hormones, you're seeking it somewhere. Mm-hmm. Because of your body senses when you're in lack, I think.
Grace Blest-Hopley: Right, absolutely. And you alluded to being A DHD earlier, that's [00:14:00] another really, really clear disorder where our brains are seeking that extra hit of dopa in the lack of, and we know that things EHD symptomology fluctuates along with our hormonal profiles, very necessary for us to approach. If anything, how we view the symptomologies of a particular condition or how we view a treatment using drugs like cannabis or psychedelics alongside where a female is in terms of a hormonal profile, be dictates so much in terms of how we are going to feel manifest those symptoms or feel the need to consume.
It could sometimes drugs of abuse, it can be people have much more. Tendency to drink high levels of alcohol, for instance, at certain parts of, of their cycle. That is all about us trying to compensate and self-soothe against what can be adverse effects from the fluctuations of hormones. We definitely see that when we think about conditions like PMS and PMDD, [00:15:00] premenstrual dysphoric Disorder, which which occur in the week of the menstrual cycle.
PMDD is associated with this. Fluctuation in progesterone levels and how these levels drop in. Some women, they are so sensitive to this dramatic change that they do have very serious symptoms. Yeah. Could be using things potentially like cannabis, potentially like psychedelics at this critical period where we know we're gonna have this sudden change in symptoms as a result of hormone level change.
In order to address those symptoms in, in order that people are not locked in their bedroom suicidal for the last four days of the month. In some women, not all women are the same as well. That's another thing. We really have to know our bodies and what what it means for us, and also how that will change across our lifespan as well.
It could be incredible to think that we could use substances like cannabinoids, like psychedelics in order to treat conditions sensitivity to hormone fluctuation in female. [00:16:00]
April Pride, host: Yeah. Before I had an A DHD diagnosis, I was Doctor Googling and had, mm-hmm. Determined I had PMDD because it manifests very similarly in terms of the effect that hormones can have on your mental health.
When you mentioned that women are reaching for alcohol at certain times in their cycle, there is an increase in women consuming alcohol as they're going through perimenopause. And in into menopause too, in 2023, it is the first time that women surpassed men. I don't know if it's on a global scale in the us, more likely to die of conditions related to alcohol consumption.
And we're just trying to consume as much as men do, but our bodies really cannot process it, tolerate it, metabolize it. It's something that we just don't talk about enough. There's so much shame around, I can't do this. I'm making poor choices. And I think if. They understood that you're battling
Grace Blest-Hopley: biology, and I think that's where I've really tried to start [00:17:00] with his Danica with educating forewarned is forearmed.
And so much women do not realize that they have entered into perimenopause until they're several years in. They've fallen out with their partner, quit their job, think that they are going insane until they finally receive the news. No, this is completely normal, but you are going through significant. Life change and hormonal change.
And so we must get better at speaking about this. We must get better at educating women about what is normal hormonal fluctuation, because just being armed with that information is helpful, uh, in, and I don't think we realize the range changes that do occur. I'd be shocked, and it's one of the things in the educational course that I've created, Attel, we really go into a lot of detail about this.
How the evidence around changes just within the menstrual cycle, on average 28 days from functional magnetic resonance imaging, where we can see the brain as it's working, how much that changes [00:18:00] within a 14 day period between the changes in hormones. So when we start to extrapolate that out to perimenopause and menopause, you are hitting a critical period for a massive decline in your health when you lose estrogen and progesterone because.
They really are neuro steroids, estrogen and progesterone. And by that I mean that they really work in the brain as these very protective agent. They reduce inflammation, they increase neuroplasticity. So our ability for our brains to change and think and increase neurogenesis, the ability for our neurons to physically grow once we hit perimenopause and then menopause.
We see this symptomology that is a real marker of this loss of neuroprotective effects of estrogen and progesterone. That, of course look like things like the hot flashes and and sleeplessness that is often commonly reported in menopause. But some of the biggest [00:19:00] issues that women have around cognitive decline, brain fog, anxiety, depression.
And furthermore, once you get past the age of about 35. The risk factor for things like psychosis change from being a male prevalent disorder to a female prevalent disorder, and the risk of psychosis goes up in women in perimenopause, menopause, and we need to think about why is that? What are ways that we could try and mitigate this loss of neuroprotective effect, potentially canero to psychedelics because their action.
Mimics in some ways the neuroprotective effects of estrogen, progesterone, women. There is an increased risk for this. Yeah. So if you start to feel these symptoms, it could be this and you should speak to a physician instead of saying, oh, I'm probably fine. And just keep pushing on and maybe reaching for another bottle of wine.
Once you hit perimenopause and menopause, your body actually is much worse [00:20:00] at breaking down alcohol. It really isn't the answer.
April Pride, host: I wanted to ask, what are symptoms of potentially creeping into psychosis? Right? As a woman, I'm curious about maybe like top three symptoms. If you can distill it like that, and then I would love to talk about your course.
Grace Blest-Hopley: Absolutely. Psychosis can really present in quite different ways in different people. Okay. It's difficult to, I guess, say the three top ones, but a lot of the time it is marked by intrusive thought patterns, often delusional thought patterns. The classic concept of psychosis is people seeing things or hearing voices.
But that's not necessarily true. Sometimes it's not even a voice. It could just be a particular sound. It could be a particular belief system that is not really grounded in reality. Another really clear symptom of psychosis, which is not that helpful, thinking alongside menopause symptoms is a distinct lack of sleep, inability to sleep.
[00:21:00] So having any of these things. Warrants a check in with yourself and perhaps a menopause specialist or a mental health specialist to discuss what these symptoms might mean. Okay.
April Pride, host: Thank you. I think the lack of sleep, people would just go, oh, my hormones, or I'm stressed when, yeah, so the course, it's seven hours, which is incredible.
Mm-hmm. I can't imagine how many hours it actually took you to create. Mm-hmm. If we get the benefit of seven hours of your knowledge. It's very clear. This is not for anyone that is looking to self-medicate with psychedelics, which I think might be a cover your ass legal disclaimer. Mm-hmm. But it's pretty clear that it is very dense information that if you are a medical expert, if you're a therapist, if you're somebody that has a background that's really more geared.
To you. It's not for someone like me that wants Cliff's Notes in the top three [00:22:00] things. So you are arming professionals to be able to help women, and I love that because that's the gap in what you do as a researcher and the providers who are the front lines. Mm-hmm. They don't know a lot about women's health because there's not a lot of information out there.
But then how it applies. With psychedelics. So why did you say we've got to do something that's reasonably priced that can help providers help their patients and clients?
Grace Blest-Hopley: Because I think we have to start where we're at, right? And there is very good evidence around how female biology affects us on a neurobiological basis, how psychedelics work beyond the biological aspects, the psychosocial impacts of using psychedelics in women, and what we need to consider as we move forward.
I really created the course based off of some lectures that I have been giving at King's College London at some of the master's courses that they [00:23:00] do there. And real aim for it was to exactly educate people on what is women's biology, what are the things that we need to consider when using psychedelics in female bodies.
Now for me, my number one kind of thing that I hope and dream for in the psychedelic world, so we will really get to understand what is the. Implication of different levels of estrogen on how psychedelics work. Do we get better outcomes at certain times, for instance, so. That, the kind of, number one, what are the basics around the hormone levels and how that can really, uh, affect our brains and then in interact with psychedelics, but it goes so much further than that.
I'm a neuroscientist, but it's not just me and the alica team and try and reach out to as many subject matter experts as I can to bring their voices into it. But we need to start thinking about what are the conditions that we're trying to treat with psychedelics. There are conditions that are far [00:24:00] more prevalent in women.
Now, why is that? Is it because our biology is uniquely different? Is it because the disease progression in women is uniquely different? Is it therefore that the treatment needs to be in some way uniquely different? Or could it be that there are whole other psychosocial aspects to it? The amount of traumas that take place towards women or are perceived by women.
Are quite different to that of men. We have twice the rate of post-traumatic stress disorder in women than we have in men. Now, that could be biologically linked, but it could also potentially be to do with the fact that women are far more likely to have childhood sexual violence. We are far more likely to have workplace aggression.
We are far more likely to be primary caregivers where we are perhaps in situations where we are able to feel unsafe at a much earlier stage than men. So I really wanted to focus on that. How do we think about these indications specifically? [00:25:00] And then furthermore, coming on to the aspects of when we are taking the substances, what does the ideal set.
That, how appropriate is it to have male facilitators handling women who are going through a trauma, maybe violence from a man? So you have to really think about these specific nuances. The reason I think it was important to put this course together. Because I think people really want to learn it. They want to understand the courses for scientists and researchers in the field, but also for people interested in their own bodies, how psychedelics work and how that might work with them.
One of the things I've noticed in the psychedelic field, I'm lucky in that confidence that comes from having been in the military and having done all the rest of it. I can go toe to toe with any man on a stage. It doesn't bother me. But that is not always the case for women, and it's not easy for us to push ourselves [00:26:00] forward in what is an extremely competitive academic field.
And so when we look at what has been said on the big conference stages for the last many years, has actually been a lot of women's voices. And when we look who is leading those research teams and those clinical teams, it's men. In the conversations, and it's not to say they are deliberately excluding women, but in the absence of us being there.
They don't have foresight on what the issues are on where we need to focus on, where there might be specificities that need to be thought through around treating women and how we do that and what is best practice. So I really, really hope that this educational course gives a full overview of why researching psychedelics specifically in women's bodies is vital, in my opinion, for us to progress this field in a healthy way, considering that.
All the indications that we are chasing [00:27:00] a license down for are far more prevalent in women.
April Pride, host: Yes. And is, this is a stat that was presented in 2021, that 27% of research, clinical trial participants are women. Is it still not 50 50? Do you know?
Grace Blest-Hopley: Unfortunately, and I have still heard to this day. People in research teams saying, you know what?
I think we should probably just only include men because it will be easier. It will be, just because something is not easy doesn't mean we shouldn't do it. Right? It's getting slightly better, and this doesn't just stop at women. Of course, we see this with people of color and people from other minority groups not being properly represented.
Yes, clinical work. Now, there was really good initiative brought out by the FDA that was around inclusivity in clinical trials where we had to have better population representation in clinical trials. But that has just been thrown out the window [00:28:00] with many other things in the last few months, unfortunately.
So we've stepped back in getting that better representation in clinical trials, given that the current administration in the US has been. A significant move to PHI or whatever we are doing. And in that they have gotten rid of a lot of diversity and policies that were holding up more rigorous science. I think it's really important that we measure the difference between men and women also, what is the difference between women at different hormonal stages, so we're not just doing that comparison within men.
That's one of the things I'm trying to look at. Are there different. Points in terms of your hormonal profile, where your experience is different, your outcome is different, the safety effects are different, all of that, because that's gonna be really important for producing the guidebooks for us to use these substances as, as we know, many of these substances are not being used in clinical settings.
They're being used elsewhere. So how [00:29:00] can we get that information out to the people we need? The pieces of research, I have been doing it at King's College, has been around. Asking women who've been through these large ceremonial, high dose psychedelic experiences to tell me, what did you see? We have a distinct lack of data.
We, we are walking into a desert in terms of having a starting point of what we need to look at. I believe these clinical trials are extremely expensive to run. There's a huge amount of regulation and loopholes that have to be gone through in order to get these things off the ground. Yet we have such a wide amount of psychedelic use that has already taken place within the population.
How can we ask women to come into our research and tell us, okay, where were you in your menstrual cycle when you did a large psychedelic dose? What was that subjective uh, effect like for you? Did you notice any changes in your menstrual cycle symptoms? It will lift them all there for you. That gives me a bit of a roadmap to say, [00:30:00] okay, I can see now where we might be having particular trends around what women are saying, particular stories that they come out with.
And that gives me an ability to design the next piece of research that can say, okay, now we are gonna do a direct comparison between A and B and get that more rigorous kind of answer. So that's one piece of research we have on at the moment, and it's only gonna be open for. Another few weeks or so, and that's the global survey for female psychedelic use.
And that's available on the historical website. But I have another piece of research that I'm doing at the moment that is a little more focused. It's specifically looking at, and you alluded to the start of our conversation, you said about how could we potentially use these substances later in our lives in order to combat some of that effect of lost estrogen?
And that's a study, an observational study where we're asking. Women who are perimenopausal and menopausal, who have chosen to start psilocybin microdosing for menopause, to allow us to observe that process. We asked you to enroll in the [00:31:00] study. Give us a baseline reading of how you're feeling and we'll follow you for up to 12 weeks where we're gonna ask you a series of questions around how the microdosing is going and how it's affecting various symptomology.
Now some the reasoning for that is exactly as I said, we know that the action of psychedelics. It's not dissimilar from some of the action of things like estrogen. So could we potentially use sub perceptual doses of psychedelics, low levels of estrogen to mitigate some of chronic health effects? And when did you open that study?
We started the global study nearly two years ago. It's just why we're gonna close it very soon. The psilocybin microdosing menopause study a little under a year ago. And we're gonna try and recruit, uh, as many as we can in that. But we need to get a good number of women that we've been able to follow for the full 12 weeks to be able to see.
And some women decide they're gonna stop microdosing during that, and that's data in itself. If you are considering starting psilocybin microdosing menopause and you are [00:32:00] perimenopausal or menopausal, please go and check out that survey on the historical website.
April Pride, host: So. I am curious because my experience is that women are much more likely to say yes to microdosing.
It's a more accessible way to begin a relationship with a psychedelic medicine. And I read something recently that women are less likely to follow a protocol. Because they are responding to something that's happening hormonally. And so they're listening actually to that intuition. So do you have a prescribed protocol in that 12 week period that you would like for them?
No,
Grace Blest-Hopley: and that's part of what we're researching as well, asking women what is the protocol you're gonna follow, and then are you still following it? But the women in this study are perimenopausal and menopausal, but. Um, there's something really interesting to think [00:33:00] about when we microdose along with the menstrual cycle, like we said at the start about cannabis and how people's cannabis use changes.
Potentially, it's a self titrating and medicating along with our symptom fluctuation. I just think about a similar thing when we think about when we have our menstrual cycle, for instance. Just about to ovulate in the second to third week of the menstrual cycle. Our estrogen levels are very high, so our serotonergic systems are very reactive.
So it might be that if you're microdosing the same amount, then it could be too much. You might be feeling a little more than sub perceptual, whereas know once we cut to the end of week three, going into week four, and those estrogen levels have come right down, maybe at that time, we do wanna take a certain dose.
Now, whether that is not taking it for certain times or having a lower dose for certain times, I think that's gonna be a very intuitive thing. That's why I think we need to teach women to tune into their bodies and listen to themselves a lot more. You'll be [00:34:00] surprised how good your intuition is at telling you what you need in all walks of life.
But particularly when we think about things like microdosing, I think that definitely rings true for females. One of the
April Pride, host: things that I have found is that I need a buddy, and I've talked to other women about this. They microdose with their friends. They'll get on a chat. And there'll be three of them. Hey, did you take your microdose today?
Or, oh my goodness, I forgot I took my microdose today and I was in such a good mood. I hear. Anecdotally, um, how people are having more success when they're doing it with others. Mm-hmm. So in the study, is there a way for women to communicate with each other, to support each other?
Grace Blest-Hopley: Now, unfortunately in my study, because we are doing it through King's College London, yeah.
It, they are very strict around all of the data being anonymous. And if you do take part in the study, you'll see we have a nifty way where. We don't take any of your identifiable data with any of that tells us about your [00:35:00] microdosing because of the law. Okay. Um, sure. But in terms of what you are alluding to, the idea of community and the idea of having these kind of companions when we do these practices, it's something that I hear time and time again.
I think sometimes people slightly scoff at the idea of community. When I came to this work as a neuroscientist and everyone's talking about this, I'm like, that doesn't really matter. Then the more you get into it, you're like, actually it could potentially be one of the most important things. Uh, and there's many reasons for that, right?
We're able to hold each other accountable. We're able to support each other. We're able to be that sounding
April Pride, host: board and a witness. Yeah. How many times have you heard that nobody notices a difference, and then it's somebody else that says, are you getting more sleep? And they realize, oh, I've been psilocybin microdosing menopause, maybe.
Grace Blest-Hopley: Yeah, absolutely. It, it's a bit like storytelling, right? When someone tells you a story, you learn something about yourself because there'll be part of that story that reflects a part of you. So when you are able to do things like [00:36:00] microdosing in community, there might be some effect that you've not even picked up on and someone else mentions it and then you're like, oh, maybe that's, you know, totally happening for me, but also as well.
Maybe you're microdosing and you're doing too much, or you're doing it too often, and you actually need those people around you to say, actually, you need to do a little less. Right? Because those checks and balances that we have with what's an indication of that? You're doing it too much when the curtains are all wobbly.
I think that's the one.
April Pride, host: Okay. Yeah. That's related to a dosing. I
Grace Blest-Hopley: was thinking cadence. Oh, in terms of how many days that you are doing it? Yeah. As I say, it's that kind of, that's what whatever is, is intuitive to you. From my understanding of microdosing it, it isn't something you should be doing every day.
You want yourselves those days off, and actually you taking a break for a short amount of time as well. We don't want these substances to replace other crutches that were in our lives previously. We use them as tools to help us, [00:37:00] not things to lean on. Yeah, please come and give me your data in doing that.
I've come to the conclusion sisters have gotta do it for themselves these days to see women and the study of women's biology take a note of within psychedelics, then we're gonna have to start turning up with the receipts that show that A, it's important. B, there are. Indications for which women do not have good options right now, that we have some idea that potentially psychedelics could be useful for us by banding together as the women of the world who have used these substances and have garnered benefit from it.
Or if you haven't or you've had adverse effects, I wanna hear that too. That's part of the data that we need to understand so that we can design better clinical trials. We can insist that sex as a biological variable is included in the analysis of these drugs that are very soon to be available through our local healthcare providers.
Um, yes. So [00:38:00] yeah,
April Pride, host: thank you for all your work and thank you for saying that even reporting adverse experiences is important because I think that there can be suppression of that. It's a good day to, I think it's important. Absolutely. Thank you. Yes, and all of this information will be in the show notes.
Grace Blest-Hopley: It's been a real joy to speak with you. April. Thank you.
April Pride: Thank you for joining us for today's show. I'm April and I'll be back the next installment of SetSet where we cover everything you need to have a safe supported psychedelic experience in the wild.
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