Q: How do I use psychedelics to regulate my nervous system?
A systems-thinking guide to psychedelics and nervous system regulation—trauma, flexibility, integration, and choosing the right container.
Once a month, I unpack questions from women exploring psychedelics. I’m not a doctor or researcher—I’m sharing what I’ve learned from a decade supporting women’s unorthodox choices to improve their well-being.
I wasn’t surprised when this question came in. Unless you had your head buried in the sand in 2025, you’ve witnessed an uptick in all things nervous system regulation. Ladies and gents, in a society where there are few signs of progress, we should be encouraged about this graduation from treating symptoms to “systems thinking.”
The term and greater topic of systems thinking is a driving force in the work of Renee Davis, a Seattle mycologist [check out her Substack] who spent a decade in R&D with renowned mycologist Paul Stamets. In the episode below, Renee discusses what we can learn by studying the fungal kingdom’s systemic mechanisms, and this question speaks to her hope for humans to approach their health of mind, body, and spirit wholistically.
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From Symptom Fixing to Systems Thinking
As we begin this year, set an intention to become a systems thinker in your health. Zoom out from acute anxiety and consider all the inputs that may have your system in fight, fright, freeze, fawn, flop, or friend. Yes, there are now 6 textbook ways in which humans react to nervous system stress.
The Six Nervous System Stress Responses
Most of us were taught the nervous system has three survival settings: calm, stressed, or checked out. These automatic physiological strategies have one goal: to keep you alive, but that may be too extreme for dealing with traffic, social media FOMO, or kids’ shoes in the middle of a doorway. A quick refresher on the unconscious reflexes/automatic, physiological responses governed by the autonomic nervous system and shaped by past experience, hormones, culture, and context.
Fight – I can overpower this.
Less “anger issues” and more energy mobilized for protection.
Manifestations: irritation, sharp words, control, argument, moral certainty.
Flight – I can escape this.
Productivity as self-defense.
Manifestations: busyness, overworking, disappearing, avoiding hard conversations, leaving relationships before they can hurt you.
Freeze – I can’t fight or run.
Your system hits pause because forward motion feels unsafe.
Manifestations: blankness. procrastination. feeling stuck, numb, or unable to decide.
Fawn – I’ll stay safe by keeping you happy.
Often misdiagnosed as “being nice,” when it’s really relational threat management.
Manifestations: people-pleasing. over-accommodating. anticipating needs before they’re spoken.
Flop – I’ll play dead.
When overwhelm exceeds capacity, the system conserves energy when escape feels impossible.
Manifestations: collapse. dissociation. going “offline.”
Friend / Tend-and-Befriend – I’m safest when connected.
Where fawning says, Don’t hurt me, tend-and-befriend says, We’re safer together.
Manifestations: seeking safety through connection. caring for others. building alliances.
If you’re interested in attending Women in the Wild in Seattle, please apply here.
Regulation Is a Skill, Not a Mood
Identifying how we show up/stand up to stress is the first step in protecting our reserves and relationships. Regulation isn’t a mood. It’s a skill set that improves our capacity to quickly return when activated or to pause, thus avoiding a reaction. In my experience, one of the most heartbreaking realizations is acknowledging the impact of my emotional dysregulation on my lived experience. How my own system response keeps me a victim. a martyr. a misfit. a mystery. a lost cause. In my own mind. of my own will. Sigh.
With this context, let’s break down how psychedelics may support a more regulated nervous system, but before we hang all hope on these molecules, remember your work with the medicine is how regulation is both achieved and maintained.
Shift from asking yourself, “Which psychedelic will regulate me?” to What kind of dysregulation do I have—and what kind of container will actually train my system to return?
What Nervous System Regulation Actually Means
In research, “regulation” tends to show up as changes in things like:
reduced anxiety and depression symptoms
improved emotional processing (less overwhelm, less shutdown)
increased psychological flexibility (less rigid; more able to choose responses)
improved social connection and empathy
Our psychological flexibility is our ability to experience intense internal states without automatically succumbing to them.
A 2024 psilocybin-assisted therapy trial in Scientific Reports found improvements in psychological flexibility, facets of mindfulness, and values-congruent living that lasted for four months and were strongly linked to reduced depression severity.
Mushrooms don’t make you impervious to stress; they make you more rubber and less glue.
Awareness vs. Intention in Psychedelic Work
Natasha Lannerd is SetSet’s in-house integration expert. If you want a complete picture of how the arc of intention to psychedelic integration works, I highly recommend listening to the 8 episodes in which she works with three women who each embark on a 2-gram dose of Golden Teacher. In this series, Natasha advised that, “The best way to ready your mind for a trip is to have no set outcome.”
A set outcome is a demand. Regulation doesn’t respond well to demands. Regulation responds to safety, repetition, and honesty.
So let’s separate terms:
Awareness is presence. Your ability to notice what’s happening without collapsing into it.
Intention is direction–an aim, not a demand.
Natasha frames intention as why, how, what:
Why am I doing this?
How will I support what unfolds?
What will I do afterward with what I learn (integration)?
If your intention is nervous system regulation, think of yourself as an architect designing a structure that withstands intensity–both in day-to-day life and during a journey. This is important to consider before engaging with psychedelic medicine: If you’re already dysregulated, a psychedelic experience can amplify what’s there with mixed results ranging from cathartic to destabilizing. Your container directly influences where amplification settles.
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Why ‘Fixing’ Dysregulation Backfires
One of Natasha’s sharpest points is that “fixing” language implies something is wrong with you. It subtly turns your internal world into a problem to eliminate rather than a signal to listen to.
If regulation is your goal, your nervous system needs a different story:
I’m not broken.
My system adapted.
I’m learning a new pattern now.
That is the tone that creates safety. real safety, not the performative “I’m fine.” This is the shift from symptom treatment (“I want to stop the discomfort this truth is causing in this moment.”) to systems thinker (“I wonder why I react in x way to x trigger.”).
Matching the Medicine to the Pattern
To choose the right medicine to support a more stable nervous system, the key is matching the medicine to the pattern of dysregulation.
Ketamine — Creating Space to Learn Regulation
Ketamine: when you need relief to access regulation at all
Ketamine is often the most pragmatic entry point for someone whose nervous system is living in chronic overload—panic physiology, looping rumination, shutdown, depression that makes having the right “skills” feel like an impossible feat.
Ketamine is associated with rapid antidepressant effects and is often discussed mechanistically in relation to - and I’m purposefully simplifying a complex systemic shift - increased capacity for our systems to receive chemical signals that improve mood and emotion regulation. (Nature)
From a regulation lens, ketamine can create space—distance from your thoughts, a quieting of the constant internal alarm—so that therapy, sleep, movement, and integration practices become possible again.
In other words, ketamine doesn’t teach regulation. It can make your system resourced enough to learn it.
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Psilocybin — Flexibility Through Feeling
Psilocybin (macrodose): when rigidity is the problem
If your dysregulation is fueled by stuck patterns—identity rigidity, repetitive fear narratives, grief you keep outrunning—psilocybin tends to work in the domain of emotional truth + flexibility.
That 2024 Scientific Reports paper is useful here because it articulates what many people feel but can’t: psilocybin (in a therapy-supported model) can improve psychological flexibility and related constructs over months, not just days. (Nature)
If regulation means “I want to feel without getting hijacked,” psilocybin can open the door to feeling, and your integration work is learning how to remain in the feeling through discomfort and without reacting.
This is where Natasha’s “no set outcome” becomes protective. A full-dose psilocybin journey can be emotional, beautiful, confrontational, weird, tender—often all in the same hour. The intention is not to curate the experience. The purpose is to support your system through these rapidly evolving transitions. I’ve said it before, a psychedelic experience mimics the roller coaster of life, and how you ride it out in an altered state sticks with you when you re-enter the matrix.
MDMA — Safety First for Trauma-Shaped Systems
MDMA: when fear circuitry is trauma-shaped, and you need safety first
If your nervous system dysregulates because of trauma—primarily relational trauma—MDMA’s therapeutic reputation is mainly about reducing fear enough to process what couldn’t be processed before.
Reviews of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD describe substantial symptom reductions in clinical trial contexts, with proposed mechanisms including changes in threat reactivity and increased capacity for therapeutic engagement. (PubMed)
The current status of MDMA-assisted therapy is that in August 2024, the FDA rejected the first application to use in the treatment of PTSD. If MDMA is your “best fit” conceptually, you’ll put yourself in the best position to support regulation if you are comfortable that you have safe access, medical screening, and trauma-informed psychedelic use support.
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LSD — Perspective When Thinking Is the Cage
LSD (full-dose): when thinking is the cage and perspective is the key
If psilocybin often feels emotional and organic, LSD often leans more cognitive and pattern-focused (with plenty of overlap and individual variation).
There is clinical research on LSD-assisted psychotherapy for anxiety associated with life-threatening illness, suggesting reductions in anxiety when LSD is administered in medically supervised psychotherapeutic settings. (PubMed)
More recently, a placebo-controlled clinical trial reported in *JAMA* (September 2025) found that a single high dose of LSD was associated with reductions in generalized anxiety disorder symptoms lasting up to 12 weeks, with stronger effects at higher doses. (Live Science)
From a nervous system standpoint, LSD can be useful when dysregulation is tied to:
rigid cognitive loops (“If I can’t do it perfectly, I can’t do it”)
obsessive forecasting (“what if, what if, what if”)
identity-level constriction (“this is who I am; it can’t change”)
This is the disclaimer with LSD: The experience is long, stimulating, and can be psychologically demanding. If you tip into panic easily, LSD without impeccable container design can be like drinking espresso to calm down. Regulation here is not “LSD will soothe me.” Regulation is: LSD may help me see the architecture of my loops—so I can rebuild them.
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Microdosing — Daily Reps, Subtle Shifts
Microdosing (psilocybin and LSD): when you want daily reps, not one big catharsis
Microdosing lives in the land of subtlety, repetition, and expectation effects.
A 2023 paper in npj Mental Health Research discusses how expectations shape microdosing experiences and argues for managing those expectations—because the cultural narrative around microdosing is doing much of the heavy lifting in how people interpret outcomes.
Translation: Taking a microdose capsule does not induce nervous system regulation on its own. Microdosing can lead to a slightly more flexible day, and, when repeated, intentional regulation can support a system reset over time.
How you implement intentional regulation while microdosing may look like this:
On a microdose day, I track my mood and do 10 minutes of breath/body practice.
If I feel myself starting to spiral, then I try one alternative response and write down what happened.
If I feel socially activated, then I practice one regulating boundary (small, not theatrical).
Psilocybin microdosing often gets described as more emotional/embodied–“internal work;” LSD microdosing often gets described as more cognitive/energizing–“external work.” While there is very little data to support these collective anecdotes, grounded evidence does show that expectations and structure influence microdosing outcomes.
So if you want microdosing to support regulation, you need:
a schedule you can actually follow,
a tracking method you’ll actually use,
and a regulation practice you’ll actually do.
Otherwise, it’s just… a vibe. And not a vibe strong enough to affect lasting change in our systems that operate from entrenched reactions.
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Ayahuasca — Deep Roots Require Strong Containers
Ayahuasca: when the roots are deep and the container is everything
From a nervous system perspective, ayahuasca is often sought when dysregulation is tied to:
complex grief
existential disconnection
oscillation between numbness and overwhelm
trauma layers that feel “older than the story I can tell”
But hear me now: Ayahuasca is not first-line if your system is fragile, unstable, or lacking support. The intensity can be destabilizing without proper screening, trustworthy facilitation, and serious integration.
In this frame, ayahuasca isn’t “regulation.” It’s deep ecosystem work that stewards transformation in a ceremonial setting intended to work with the energetics of our ancestors and descendants. The container is also the medicine.
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Training Regulation Before and After Psychedelics
Regulation is trained in the weeks before and after a psychedelic experience. Consider the following to be intentional in your psychedelic practice.
Step 1: Choose flexibility, not escape
Instead of “I want to feel calm,” try:
“I want to recover faster after activation.”
“I want to stay present with sensation without panicking.”
“I want to feel emotion without shutting down or outsourcing it.”
Step 2: Build the container your nervous system can trust
This is where you do get to “impose control” in the healthiest way.
Begin journaling a month before.
Reduce inputs that spike the system (alcohol, excessive caffeine, chaotic sleep).
Set up your space intentionally (for journeys).
Plan integration before you dose, not after you’re raw and enchanted.
Being devoted to the unfolding will serve you better than having a plan.
Step 3: Pair intention with an “if–then” plan
If psychedelics increase flexibility, you want to use that flexibility to install new behavior.
This is how regulation becomes durable.
Example:
Intention: “I want to regulate my nervous system.”
If–then: “If I feel activation rising, then I lengthen my exhale and orient to the room (name five things I see).”
Integration: “If it’s the day after a session, then I do one values-based action that proves I’m changing.”
Step 4: Pick the medicine that matches your dysregulation pattern
The following is briefer that has not been approved by a medical expert and is intended to be a guide:
Ketamine: I need relief so I can even access skills.
Psilocybin: I need flexibility and emotional truth; I’m ready to feel.
MDMA: My fear circuitry is trauma-shaped; I need to know what safety feels like.
LSD: My mind is a maze; I need perspective and pattern-breaking.
Microdosing: I want daily reps and subtle shifts to build new support structures.
Ayahuasca: I’m doing deep roots work in a substantial, vetted container.
A Final Note for the Midlife Nervous System
Midlife is a particular kind of nervous system education.
Your hormones shift, your roles shift, your parents age, your kids leave (or don’t), and your identity gets slippery. The coping strategies that worked at 32 – Rosé all day. – is like bringing a styrofoam noodle to a fencing match.
Midlife is when women stop trying to be “fine” and start trying to be real. Psychedelics can help us explore and get comfortable with what feels real to us now and support our work to reboot our nervous system.
Awareness is the compass: My reaction seems unaligned with what I know is warranted/healthy.
Intention is the direction: I want to change behavior that is getting in the way of healthy connections.
Integration reshapes your lived experience: My life reflects the wisdom I’ve cultivated.
I wish you a purposeful, patient, and pleasant journey in the year ahead—one grounded in psychedelics and nervous system regulation, not performance.
Take care,
April
Greatly appreciate this article. Ty!