AYAHUASCA FOR DEPRESSION: WHAT THE EXPERIENCE CAN OFFER

Awareness around mental health has come to the forefront over the last decade as suicide levels increased by 34% since 2000, with its peak in 2022. Anxiety and depression have become a normal part of societal vocabulary, yet within that, there seems to be little to no agreement on best practice when it comes to treating these ailments. 

Within that there is disagreement around causation. Are these mental diseases simply chemical imbalances of the brain, or are they symptomatic of our ever changing social norms and structures? As humans hurtle towards new ways of living at lightning quick pace, are our biological needs no longer being met?

Crucially with no clear scientific diagnostic method for depression, most diagnoses are given from a reductionist framework and checklist. This framework does little to account for the circumstantial evidence from the patient's own experience. A patient diagnosed with depression could simply be having a normal reaction to external stimuli, whilst not being given the correct support.

For example, a person could simply be grieving the loss of a loved one or going through a painful divorce. Maybe a redundancy has left them feeling lost and without any true purpose. An external circumstance such as these, when unsupported can easily lead to feelings of overwhelm, freeze and collapse. Many of the symptoms that characterise clinical depression.

That is not to say that depression is not very real for people. It is an extremely complex and debilitating situation that can ultimately very easily lead to suicide and loss of life. What seems to be in question more acutely, is where does it come from and what do we do about it?

Over the last 20 years, entheogenic earth based plants and fungi such as Iboga, Ayahuasca, psilocybin mushrooms amongst others have shown great promise in treating depression with an impressive success rate that has led to investment in scientific research. More recently Ibogaine (an alkaloid from the Iboga plant) has had its research fast tracked by executive order in the US.

Clinical studies and anecdotal evidence has also shown Ayahuasca to be extremely effective in treating depression. This raises a number of interesting questions. 

Why is a plant mixture that has been partnered with humans and tribes for aeons, so effective at treating a modern day disease?

Why is it dangerous to mix this ancient medicine with the modern day SSRI’s prescribed to treat depression by allopathic medicine?

To understand this, we will first look at the prescription of SSRIs for depression and why the success rate of this treatment is so mixed.

Why depression can’t be cured with a pharmaceutical

We’ve covered the subject of SSRI’s recently in another article. More specifically their overprescription, lack of clear scientific testing and severe side effects. 

What we haven't discussed is their ethos or approach to fixing the problem of depression as opposed to Ayahuasca’s approach. SSRIs reduce and simplify the problem to a chemical one. A reductionist view that assumes depression is simply a chemical imbalance in the brain.

We can certainly agree that the chemicals our bodies do or don’t produce, has a huge impact on our mood. The idea that you can artificially replace a chemical, significantly disturbing future production potential, or impacting the other complex and interconnected systems in the body, is short sighted and naive. 

Hormone production will often shut off entirely when it is replaced artificially. The longer this is done the more difficult it is to restart. The body is also a complex network of systems that interact and interconnect with each other. Changes in one part of the system have a knock on effect to other parts of the system.

Participants will often experience a short term improvement when taking SSRIs. As the body adapts and the patient’s external conditions remain the same, the need to increase the dose arises. The dose has a ceiling and once that ceiling is reached it’s common to be left with no solution and a new list of adverse side effects. Roughly 40-80% of SSRI users experience side effects with the most common being sexual dysfunction of some kind and/or weight gain.

Once the peak dosage has been reached and its effects dissipated through adaptation, SSRIs are no longer a solution. Indeed many of the effects of SSRIs have not been studied further than six months in trials. It can take up to two years to reverse any negative side effects.

Ayahuasca: getting to the root of trauma and depression 

Significant or repetitive trauma can make people five times more likely to experience depression in their lives. Trauma cycles stay alive in our nervous system, often looping sensations, feelings and emotions that keep us stuck. 

Often people will disasociate, turn to addictions, isolate themselves and avoid life in order to bring some peace or sense balance no matter how fleeting or artificial. Guilt, shame, numbness, loss of pleasure can all compound to create a sense of depression.. 

This in itself can impact brain chemistry leading to the chemical imbalances that often characterise depression. If a car has an oil leak the solution is not more oil, the solution is to find and fix the leak. SSRIs simply pour more oil in the engine, Ayahuasca works to fix the leak.

How lifestyle can affect depression and mental health

It’s often scoffed at but also completely true that many doctors pay little to no attention to the lifestyle of their patient before a prescription is made. Appointments normally aren’t even long enough, even if the intention was there. The job, the marriage, the relationships, the diet, the exercise, the hobbies, the social life, sleep etc all have an enormous cumulative effect on the well being and balance of an individual’s mind.

It’s often joked that a walk in nature isn’t going to cure someone’s depression. And one walk probably won’t even get close, but it will help. The compound effect of creating marginal improvements in all areas of your life will help. It might not solve the problem, because a lot of the time, people with depression don’t know what the problem is. If they did, they wouldn’t have depression.

Finding the problem is a keystone in moving on from depression.

Journalist and mental health advocate, Johann Hari, tells the story of the Cambodian doctor who reveals an altogether different approach to treating depression. A Cambodian farmer that worked in the rice fields had his leg blown up by a land mine. Following his recovery he was unable to go back into the rice fields due to his PTSD. Left with no purpose or means to support himself he quickly developed classic symptoms of depression.

Instead of prescribing SSRI’s (largely unheard of in Cambodia) the doctors listened to him talk about his issues and feelings. They concluded that buying him a cow was the answer. With a cow to milk and take care of, the farmer once again had purpose and direction in his life, playing a vital role in his community. Within a month his depression had completely disappeared. 

Through cultural understanding and by listening to the farmer, doctors were able to correctly diagnose the problem and test a solution that in this case, worked.

How Ayahuasca works with depression

Ayahuasca works to diagnose issues on an extraordinary level. When the medicine is consumed, it enters your body at a cellular level. Reading your DNA, your memories, your ancestry. It finds the energetic patterns that are out of balance within your system and helps to purge them from the body. It cleanses memories and assists in closing trauma loops living in the nervous system. 

More importantly, Ayahuasca is able to assess your relational field with life and highlight the threads that need work. The places where your energy is being drained or something is out of alignment. Ayahuasca works to bring balance back to your system in totality.

Whilst not a quick fix or magic pill, Ayahuasca when worked with, in the correct context, can often go deeper into a problem than anything else we have. That’s why this work is challenging. Often our mind can’t see the problem, because it’s subconsciously working to avoid it altogether.

And of course, Ayahuasca can only go so far with ‘fixing’ us. Largely Ayahuasca’s work is showing us, and allowing us to fully feel the weight of what we’re carrying, and feel the possibility of how light life could be. The ceremony is not a ‘fix’ in that sense. It’s a roadmap or an instruction manual. We still have to go back into life and make what we’ve been taught a reality. Hence the constant talk around integration within the Ayahuasca community.

Why is Costa Rica a great place to work with Ayahuasca for depression?

Within the setting of healing, Costa Rica is a perfect destination. Not only is it one of the world’s happiest nations with low levels of depression, its national slogan is Pura Vida, meaning pure life.

Containing 6% of the world’s biodiversity, Costa Rica is a nature lover's paradise. The slow rhythm of life and natural frequencies of the jungle, clean air and pure water and food, often lead to a complete biological reset. A chance to step out from the demands of life, breathe, reflect and renew..

Costa Rica is in itself a modality of healing and one that we treasure. It is the perfect place to find time for yourself, your well being and a return to balance.

Image credit @amandasageart