Acid Business Trip
Business is hard. So it’s no surprise that every businessperson is looking for an advantage to close the deal, create the prototype, or deliver the quarter’s results.
Some run on coffee or Red Bull to get an edge, but a new trend has emerged to help people enhance their business performance: LSD.
Yes, LSD: the psychedelic favourite of Deadheads has been recast as a productivity tool.
Rolling Stone identified the trend, saying that startup entrepreneurs and programmers in Silicon Valley (of course) and beyond have started using LSD as an alternative to the drug Adderall, which is formally prescribed to treat Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) but also frequently used by people looking for a cognitive lift.
Still, the dosing of LSD is a bit different. You don’t want to zone out watching the walls move in the boardroom or start doing that weird hippie spinning dance during the product demo. This is about focus.
So users take a “microdose”, about 10 per cent of a regular dose. Rick Doblin, founder and executive director of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies told Rolling Stone that with that size dose a user will, “feel a little bit of energy lift, a little bit of insight, but not so much that you are tripping.”
James Fadiman, author of The Psychedelic Explorer’s Guide, told Rolling Stone that people he has consulted say that, “regular microdosing has alleviated a bevy of disorders, including depression, migraines and chronic-fatigue syndrome, while increasing outside-the-box thinking.”
The idea of microdosing with LSD is gaining currency. Will Burns, writing in Forbes (not exactly a counterculture stalwart) argues that, “should we be worried about the potential negative effects of microdosing LSD when its positive effects could be exponential? And not just to the individual, but to humanity?
Want to learn more about microdosing LSD? Check out this Reply All podcast: