Everybody deserves good mental health, and mushrooms

Mental health is a universal human right - what about access to medicinal mushrooms?

It feels important to talk about mental health this week. Yesterday was ‘World Mental Health Day’, a content creation deadline that I missed, ironically due to mental health issues.

It feels important to show up at work and in life, but this is not a regular week.

If you’re not up for an article today about mental health and mushrooms, that’s OK! I recommend closing this email/tab. 

Here’s hoping the senseless wars and bloodshed end.

Mush love, Jess

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Thank you to my dear pal Juanita Petronio for this introspective portrait, shot on a moody day in Cape Town

Today I’m “meant” to be doing a lot of things, but I’m not doing anything, because today is not a good mental health day. I’ve been reflecting on the World Health Organisation’s theme for this year’s World Mental Health Day, ‘Mental Health is a Universal Human Right’; how this relates to my personal struggles, how mushrooms can support mental well-being, and how collective action is needed to ensure no-one is deprived of these natural medicines.

There’s a lot going on in the world, and personally. There’s a pressing deadline for a magazine article, data to analyse, business plans to write and participants to recruit. There’s financial pressure looming—without these things, my myco-cultural insights work won’t pay for itself or feed the bills.

But I’m not doing any of these things, because today is not a Good Mental Health Day. Today, I’m experiencing the symptoms of grief, burn-out, insomnia and a teenage-old depression that is mostly manageable but some days pulls one into a sinking pit of chaos and despair. Today, these familiar acquaintances are pestering me as if I was at a social do having to endure small talk. Today, the world news is too hot to handle. The algorithm feeds me good-news but the bad-news, senseless murders, wars and bloodshed are impossible to ignore. How can humans be so senseless? 

Today I suck at life and mistakenly opened a LinkedIn article about ‘the likeability penalty’: how women merely doing the job required for success can be penalised. Today, this realisation triggers a catastrophic memory build-up of the overwhelming lived experience of being the ‘assertive’ woman in the company of male-dominated meetings and wondering how, if at all, it’s ever possible to just be.

On days like today, I don’t feel like dealing with imposter syndrome, expectations, bills, dishes, facing challenges, taking a risk or taking a shower.

Today, the only task I’ve marked ‘complete’ is listening to Drake’s new album. It’s rubbish (sorry).

Please don’t get me wrong—the intention is not for this to be a ‘poor me’ cry for help; I do not care for sympathy. It’s also not a denial of the incredible privilege of being able to save up for 4 years, take a recovery break and attempt to pursue a passion. I understand not everyone can do this, and I deeply respect your situation.

Rather, my intention is to share this experience in the hope that someone out there can relate and that they (and I!) might feel less alone. There is comfort in solidarity, and knowing that it’s OK not to be OK for a day. Today is a duvet day. Tomorrow there will still be bloodshed, but we might feel better equipped to handle it.

My research exploring how mushrooms are impacting social culture reveals their significant impact on physical and mental health, and how increasingly, despite legislation, people are engaging with, growing, selling, buying and eating medicinal and magic mushrooms to experience the benefits for themselves as the science scrambles to catch up.

Personally, working with fungi has helped me to deal, heal and feel better. Fungi are proving more beneficial and supportive than the multitude of medicines and therapies I’ve dabbled in since age 16. Caveat: this is via a carefully planned, highly personalised combo of psilocybin-assisted therapy, intentional microdosing, a unique cocktail of probiotics, healthy eating, sleeping, exercising, yoga, mindfulness, medicinal mushroom extracts made by good people, and lots and lots of hugs.

If mental health is a universal and fundamental human right, surely having access to tools and medicines to facilitate better mental (and holistic) well-being should be too. Everyone should have access to nature. Everyone should have access to medicinal and psychoactive mushrooms as natural medicines, to help explore consciousness, improve cognitive ability, feel better today and foster longer-term health benefits.

Today, I don’t have the power or mental capacity to make medicinal mushrooms more accessible to more people. I cannot lower economic disparities, convince insurance policies to cover natural medicines, educate where there are cultural or linguistic exclusions, provide distribution where availability is limited, or fix historical and systemic injustices in education or institutional racism (just a few of the barriers to natural medicines being accessible to more people, particularly minority and vulnerable groups). These issues are overwhelming.

But I can use my (albeit small) platform to recognise that mental health is a universal concern, and medicinal and psychoactive mushrooms are a gift which should and can be experienced by all. It’s our collective responsibility to display solidarity in the face of mental health challenges, recognise and address barriers to natural medicinal treatments, and make sure that nobody is left out or left behind.

Yours in hugs and mushrooms.

Mush love,

Jess

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Some resources I personally use in the UK and South Africa, for accessing legit info about:

Psychedelic medicine: Psychedelic Society UK | Psychedelic Society South Africa | Third Wave | Psychedelic Alpha | Beckley Foundation

Medicinal and functional mushrooms*: Google Scholar (search for the mushroom species + ‘health benefits’, or for specific ailments + fungi) | Science Direct | The Fungal Pharmacy by Robert Rogers | Pubmed

*Lots of info is available from companies selling medicinal, functional or adaptogenic mushroom products. Many are legit but many more publish without supporting references or fact-checking, which can be misleading or fake. If you are reading these sites please do your own due diligence to spot any red-flags!