Brandon was trying to ride his bike through the rain. The wind whipped his hood back when he pulled it up. The former professional soccer player was annoyed at first. The smell of the trees and flowers was brought out by the rain. It was nice.
Microdosing is the practice of taking a small amount of a drug, like magic mushrooms, that will not cause a trip. A person is supposed to be able to go about their day. People often microdose with the aim of improving mood, creativity, productivity, and other goals.
"It was like a subtle nudging to be more present and enjoy the things around me," he said.
After that rainy day on his bike, Goode's life and career became a bigger part of his. He was the first employee at Field Trip Health, and he studied drugs at Imperial College London. Houston is the first user-oriented microdosing companion app launched by Goode's company.
There are other apps that are related to drugs. Microdose.me and Mydelica were created for the purpose of collecting data and doing research, and can also be used with larger doses. Houston is a service for people. It's free, but Goode is considering a premium subscription version down the road.
Houston will allow users to track the days they do and don't microdose, log what they're taking and the amount, chart their daily mood, and reflect on how the day went. There are learning modules, music suggestions, a community feed, and a personal dashboard.
Why is it called "Houston"? It's your guide to inner space. It's who you can check in with on your journey.
Signing up for Houston will allow you to share your habits, experiences, and goals. Credit: Houston
Microdosing has gained popularity over the last decade among people who self-medicate for mental health, and for Silicon Valley workers who are looking to improve their bodies with "biohacking." Devotees say that microdosing can help reduce depression and anxiety.
Microdosing has been used in the western world for a long time, but scientific evidence for its effects is mostly anecdotal. There have been three double-blind placebo controlled studies of microdosing, none of which fully back up the reported effects. A recent study suggests that positive results could be due to the placebo effect or the expectation that even a small dose of mushrooms or LSD will make you feel good. Although their status is changing in Canada and several U.S. cities, psychedelic substances are still largely illegal in North America.
"We're a little bit further than we were a couple of years ago for sure, when there was almost nothing on the topic," said Joseph Rootman, a clinical psychology PhD student at the University of British Columbia, who recently co-authored a study published in Nature of over 4,000 We have a long way to go before we understand this medicine.
Pick your substance of choice. Credit: Houston
Microdosers have a reputation for being "chill out, man", but the best way to describe them is scientific. There are journals, spreadsheets, debates, and exhaustive guides on the r/microdosing and r/psychedelics forums. Users discuss what substances to take and in what quantities, the benefits of tracking other metrics like sleep and diet, fastidious catalogues of moods and other subjective qualities like productivity, and an active, dedicated community.
The forums were used by Goode to engage with users to see what they would like to see in Houston. Houston is a way for tracking-oriented microdosers to do what they're already doing, in one contained digital space that is also pretty. The influence of the designer from Headspace is noticeable. Houston's creation of an interactive app was important to him, as he used to track microdosing with a notebook that he came to largely ignore.
It's a simple way for people to track their experiences and provide a little bit of curation for set and setting, whether it's a recommended article, or some community connection, or a notification.
When you open Houston, you need to create a profile and answer questions about your practice and motivation. After logging in, you'll be asked a few questions about how you're feeling, and then you'll be able to choose a sad and happy face to use. Then you'll look into the details of that emotion a little later.
You will mark whether it's a microdosing day. Immediately after you do, a screen asks, "What's your intention today?" "Be more present" or "Focus on my work" are some of the options you can use. You can choose between illustrations of a mushroom, an LSD tablet, a marijuana leaf, or a flower, which is meant to represent an herb. You will mark the dose. You will get a screen with a suggested dose day radio and the ability to check in at any time after you put in your data. The app will ask you how you are feeling. You can see the data on a dashboard.
As long as any data assessments are clearly and accurately explained, the app makes sense for microdosers. He and his co-authors used an app called microdose.me to collect data.
"We were able to get 4,000 people to participate in the study because they are passionate about the science and care about their well being, and that's what we're finding out," he said. There is a science-y, experimental edge to them that pushes them to be a little bit more quantitative in their own well being, in their own medical decisions. It makes sense that an app is coming out of the movement of the mind.
He thinks logging in is beneficial for people, even though data from his app was collected for the study. There's still a lot of unknown about microdosing. Tracking mood and other mental health signifiers can be beneficial for people who are curious about their health.
To figure out how you're doing, it's best to write it down and look back.
