Education / Research

Does Microdosing Mushrooms Help Anxiety or Depression? What Studies Say

Last reviewed

Anxiety and depression are the reasons most people give for microdosing, and searches for microdosing for anxiety and depression have climbed sharply. Surveys of microdosers are positive. The one preregistered, placebo-controlled study we found is not.

This page sets those side by side. It is not medical advice. Every study links to its source.

What the studies found

Small or open-label trials

A placebo-controlled study: no effect on symptoms

In a preregistered, double-blind, placebo-controlled study, people took psilocybin microdoses or a placebo, and were tested after their second and seventh doses of each three-week block, each time against placebo. The confirmatory analyses found no effect of microdosing on emotion processing, or on anxiety and depression symptoms, compared with placebo. In an exploratory result, depression and stress scores fell during the first block compared with baseline, but that happened in both the psilocybin and placebo conditions, so it cannot be credited to microdosing.

Worth knowing

The people were not clinically anxious or depressed, since their baseline scores were mostly in the normal range, and in the second block they were able to tell which condition they had received. The authors say research in people with clinically relevant anxiety or depression is still needed.

Small or open-label trials

A large observational study: small to medium improvements

A naturalistic study compared 953 people who microdosed psilocybin with 180 who did not, over about 30 days. Microdosers showed small to medium improvements on scales of depression, anxiety, and stress, generally similar across age and whether people reported mental health concerns, with larger drops in depression among women.

Worth knowing

People chose whether to microdose, and nobody was blinded, so it shows an association, not a cause. The authors say they cannot rule out the contribution of greater expectations.

Case reports and surveys

Six weeks of daily ratings: lower depression and stress

In an online observational study, 98 people tracked their microdosing for six weeks, about half using LSD and half psilocybin. Before-and-after measures showed lower depression and stress, less distractibility, and higher neuroticism, while anxiety did not change significantly. A companion survey of 263 people found that everyone expected far larger and broader benefits than microdosers actually reported.

Worth knowing

Self-selected, self-reported, and with no control group. The authors call it preliminary and say dose-controlled research is still needed.

What this adds up to

The pattern is consistent across the work on microdosing: surveys and uncontrolled studies find improvement, and the controlled studies mostly do not separate the mushroom from expectation. That does not make what people feel unreal, but it does mean nobody can yet say how much is the mushroom. The two other controlled studies we know of, covered on our page on what the microdosing studies found, point the same way.

None of this is evidence about full-strength sessions, which have a much stronger research base for depression and some cancer-related anxiety. Our anxiety and depression pages cover those.

Two registered trials are looking at microdosing and mood. One has finished. It has not posted results on the registry, and we could not confirm a published paper for it.

If you are struggling

This page describes research. It is not medical advice, and it is not a substitute for care. Anxiety and depression are treatable, and a doctor or therapist can help you find what fits. Please do not stop or change a prescription on your own, and check our page on microdosing safety first if you take any medication.

If you are thinking about harming yourself or are in crisis, call or text 988 in the US to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, any time.

Keep reading

This page is for adults 21 and older. It summarizes published research for education only. It is not medical or legal advice, and it makes no claim that any product sold by Luna treats, cures, prevents, or helps any condition. Laws about these mushrooms vary by place, and you are responsible for knowing yours.

Research moves quickly. We last checked this page against its sources on , and we will correct it if we get something wrong.