Hope has a few different meanings depending where you look. But at its heart, it is a desire, a belief that things can change for the better.

Lack of hope can be debilitating, and in some cases lead to depression. A lack of hope, then, is a current mindset that something can’t change for the better. Most people in that state want to get to get out of it, and find hope again. But where do you look?

While there are lots of prescriptions, both philosophical and pharmaceutical, that promise hope, we think there are two alternate ways worth considering. One is exercise, the other is rut-busting psychedelics, in this case, magic mushrooms.

Exercise has arguably been proven to be the fastest way to change how you feel mentally. While the physical benefits of exercise are obvious, most people don’t realize how much of an impact physical activity has on our state of mind.

There is a mounting pile of evidence that exercise alone can change your mood. One such person gathering that evidence is Michael Otto, PhD, a professor of psychology at Boston University.

“The link between exercise and mood is pretty strong,” Otto says. “Usually within five minutes after moderate exercise you get a mood-enhancement effect.”

In 2006, Otto and colleagues reviewed 11 studies investigating the effects of exercise on mental health. They determined that exercise could be a powerful intervention for clinical depression (Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, 2006).

So what about these magic mushrooms? Well another way to change how you feel about things, and perhaps your level of hope, is to focus on the organ in your body that controls mood and perception. The brain. How does the brain control mood and perception? Using serotonin, which is the molecule that our body produces to manage both of these.

There is another molecule found in nature that looks very similar to serotonin, and may act in our bodies the same way. It’s called psilocybin, and it’s the “magic” ingredient in magic mushrooms. It’s for this reason people have benefited from using magic mushrooms for thousands of years before we got here. It works to improve mood and perception.

As the saying goes, if you can’t change something that is making you unhappy (or lose hope), change the way you look at it. Change your perception of it.

That’s where microdosing magic mushrooms comes in. We, along with a growing number of “non-scientists” out there, have been experimenting with microdosing very small amounts of magic mushrooms to try and affect our moods and general happiness. And by many accounts, it’s working.

Norman Farb, a psychologist at the University of Toronto, is interested in gathering real evidence to support these anecdotal claims. 

Farg is intrigued by the possibility that microdosing could help people break bad habits and get out of an unhappiness rut: “If you give people the capacity [for behavior change], will they ‘choose their own adventure’ into something more positive?”

Time will tell, but in the meantime, we encourage you to explore your own “positive adventure”, and learn about microdosing magic mushrooms. There is a sea of information out there, and we’ve gathered some of it here at bluemasi.com to help curious people like you find out more.