Advice: Hotter Than Ever with Erin Keating

Have you ever wondered about the therapeutic potential of psilocybin or "magic mushrooms" for treating anxiety or menopause? Or perhaps you've heard of people swapping out alcohol for shrooms? In today's advice episode, we're thrilled to welcome back Tracey Tee, the founder of "Moms on Mushrooms" (M.O.M), to tackle our latest listener inquiry. Tracey sheds light on why women are turning to microdosing mushrooms to address anxiety and menopause. In a world where conventional treatments often fall short, Tracy is empowering women to chart a new course, reclaiming their inner selves and navigating their “third act” with agency and grace.

Join us for an informative and eye-opening conversation as Tracy shares insights gleaned from her personal journey and community work through M.O.M. You'll discover:

• The benefits of magic mushrooms over SSRI medications for treating anxiety, and processing emotions

• How psilocybin can be a powerful tool in helping individuals overcome addiction, including alcohol dependency

• Psilocybin and menopause: how mushrooms can improve emotional well-being, reduce inflammation, and help you navigate menopause with greater agency

LISTEN HERE

Whether you're a seasoned advocate or a curious skeptic, join Erin as she delves into this eye-opening conversation with Tracy, who takes us on a journey from the depths of COVID-induced despair to the transformative power of micro-dosing with magic mushrooms, including:

Tracey’s journey, from co-creating "The Pump and Dump Show" for moms to her current role in the plant medicine movementWhat is micro-dosing and how does it differ from traditional therapies? Magic mushrooms’ role in mental wellness and personal growth Changing the approach to mental health to empower individuals to take charge of their healing journey.The cultural shift surrounding plant medicine and its potential to offer new perspectives on life, emotions, and inner peace.Importance of community, intention, and readiness for change in the context of personal growth.Exploring the skepticism about "woo”, while acknowledging its potential for healing and growth Challenging preconceptions and encourages self-compassion, exploring the transformative power of psychedelics.

OUR GUEST: Tracey Tee, active in the momosphere for over a decade, co-created The Pump and Dump Show, starred in its nationally touring comedy, and co-produced the Band of Mothers Podcast. She's also the CEO of Band of Mothers Media. Inspired by her own psilocybin journey during the pandemic, in 2022, she launched M.O.M. (Moms on Mushrooms), an online microdosing course for moms. Tracey's mission is to unite mothers through plant medicine for personal growth and healing. M.O.M. has gained widespread recognition, featuring on NPR, Today Show, Piers Morgan, Rolling Stone, CBS Saturday Morning, PBS, Colorado Public Radio, NBC News, and Romper Magazine. Tracey resides in Denver, Colorado, with her husband of 21 years and their 12-year-old miracle daughter. She aims to create a conscious, Sacred Feminine-inspired model of doing business.

Read Transcript

[00:00:00] Erin Keating: Welcome to Hotter Than Ever Advice. I'm your host, Erin Keating, and in these new short weekly episodes, I give you my opinionated and not at all officially qualified feedback about the questions, problems, quandaries, and dilemmas that you have posed to me about love, sex, relationships, drugs, career, aging, ambition, divorce, and anything else that is on your mind.

Today, I have brought in the founder of Moms on Mushrooms, Tracey Tee, to answer some questions from you about psilocybin and magic mushrooms and microdosing. Tina writes in, too hotter than ever, I'm hearing a lot of women say they are microdosing mushrooms for anxiety and even menopause. I'm also hearing that it is becoming a substitute.

for alcohol. I'm curious about the menopause part and also, is substituting one thing like alcohol for another like magic mushrooms any better? Is it safer? Tina, Tracey T. from Moms on Mushrooms is here to help us answer these questions. And I think we should start with why are people microdosing mushrooms for anxiety and menopause?

[00:01:21] Tracey Tee: Yeah, it's a big one and a lot of people are looking to mushrooms to help. So there's a few reasons why people will start with anxiety first. If you have anxiety for which you are taking Pharmaceutical medication like SSRI type of thing. Correct. It may or may not be helping the situation. There's a lot of known, not only contraindications of taking SSRIs, but side effects.

And you may find that when you have anxiety and taking an SSRI, it may substitute one, but introduce another, not the least of which could be like, Suicide ideation and bigger issues and a lack of access to your feelings, because if you want to very simply compare and contrast magic mushrooms to an SSRI is a closer and magic mushrooms are an opener.

So what magic, so what SSRIs do is close down. those 5H2A receptor reactions to things which allow anxiety to ruminate, spiral, and exist in perpetuity. It blunts all of that, so you're not really feeling any of it. Which, can be absolutely life saving. 

[00:02:41] Erin Keating: Yeah. 

[00:02:42] Tracey Tee: And an intense situation.

And that's what SSRIs are really good for. But long term, they were never really designed to be taken long term. So women find themselves, you start to be build up a tolerance to it, anxiety comes back, and it's just not working. So magic mushrooms can help you clear anxiety and there's a lot of studies happening now with stacking magic mushrooms with different functional mushrooms, for example, like cordyceps or reishi, which don't have psychoactive properties to them, but they do help.

The mind and stress, they act as like having a sort of adaptogenic effect so that you can handle your anxiety better. And the beautiful thing, and this is definitely not scientifically proven yet, but this is the studies that we're, people are looking into is you're able to alchemize your feelings and you're able to like work through anxiety and in real time and release it.

rather than it just continuous thing continuing on a loop. So there are some positive physical neurological benefits of working with magic mushrooms. And then there are also posited. spiritual, energetic, emotional benefits of working with magic mushrooms. And where we're at right now is just making the choice of, do you want to believe your friends and family who are working with it and have had benefits?

And honestly, if it's placebo, like who cares? You're feeling better. Who the hell cares? Yeah, sure. So you're just like deciding if you want to believe. A lot of people anecdotal evidence or if you want to wait for science, 

[00:04:33] Erin Keating: right? Can I ask you a couple of questions? Yeah. Cause you're so deep in this world.

What is 5h2a? It's a receptor in your brain. Imagine just like a little nerve in your brain and it's one end of that nerve that connects to other things. 

Mushrooms work on that. They 

[00:04:52] Tracey Tee: do. 

[00:04:53] Erin Keating: Okay. 

[00:04:53] Tracey Tee: Yes. So when we talk about neuroplasticity and rewiring our neural pathways, it's again, a simplified version of saying, I like to imagine that we're softening those frayed edges of those nerves and we're creating new pathways of thought and behavior because The anxiety is lessened.

So you're not in such a reactive state, you are in a calmer state and you're seeing the issue, the problem, your life from a little bit of a broader perspective, which allows you to make better decisions and the more you make those decisions over and over, you train your brain just like we do an exercise.

[00:05:33] Erin Keating: It's so interesting because my experience with mushrooms is largely recreational and less therapeutic. Although, I have been on a retreat that was, that called itself spiritual and then I was having too much fun and I was told to stop. But, I was told this was too, I was told it was spiritual and I was like, okay.

[00:05:50] Tracey Tee: fun when you're being 

[00:05:51] Erin Keating: spiritual, Aaron. I'm sorry. Yeah. Sorry. This is the reason I don't identify with spiritual. Yeah. The woo world. Cause I just feel like everyone is so serious and crap. But I think it's so interesting that they're, everybody's so casually prescribed anti anxiety medication.

And then you say, maybe try microdosing and people go what? Yeah. That's such an outlier idea. And I think increasingly into the more progressive parts of the world, it is not an outlier idea in the same way. And also, microdosing is For anxiety or in the way that you help moms to do it and moms on mushrooms.

It's not about getting fucked up. It's not about partying. That's not what this is. And so this leads us into the next piece of this question. Let's talk about it becoming a substitute for alcohol and then we can get into the menopause piece of it as well. 

[00:06:47] Tracey Tee: Yeah. Okay. First of all, is it safer? The answer is yes.

There's a study by the Lancet that came out in 2020. It's really great. If you google Lancet study 2020 and the Guardian, because the Guardian kind of did a really good piece reviewing it all, they listed all of the known drugs, like from cocaine and heroin to alcohol, tobacco, in order of toxicity, harm to oneself, harm to others.

And alcohol is number one. It's a week. I didn't know that. Heroin. It's a 

[00:07:24] Erin Keating: you're on heroin. You're just nodded out. You're on alcohol. You're possibly driving a car 

[00:07:30] Tracey Tee: and magic mushrooms is at the bottom, the least toxic. So we have gotten it. All wrong. If anything was going to be a schedule one drug, it should be booze, just the effect on its body.

We know these things. We know it can cause breast cancer, heart disease, inflammation. Don't even get me started on the aspects of mental health that it can trigger. It's highly addictive. So you run the risk of, becoming mentally addicted to anything that alters your conscious state. So that's always something to be aware of, but your body isn't going to crave it.

You're not going to have withdrawal symptoms if you don't take your shrooms, right? And it just doesn't cause it's one of the safest things you can put in your body. And so that's just that trading alcohol for shrooms. That's a question mark for me. Studies in the 50s started around severe alcoholism, like skid row alcoholism and doing a large dose journey.

And what they were finding resoundingly is that one large dose in a clinical setting or like a guided setting, either of psilocybin or LSD, frankly, 

[00:08:45] Erin Keating: was 

[00:08:45] Tracey Tee: causing people to not only never drink again, literally walk away sober, not only never drink again. but never desire to drink again. 

[00:08:54] Erin Keating: Wow. Never 

[00:08:54] Tracey Tee: desire to drink again.

That's the kicker is that all that nagging desire potentially for the rest of your life that you want something you can't have. So mushrooms really have the opportunity. to work against addiction. They're anti addictive. We know them to be anti addictive. That's why there's studies that we're looking into mushrooms to treat eating disorders, any type of addiction because they, I'm going to say this from A mom in Denver, a non doctor way of describing it.

Sure. That's who you are. That's who I am. I believe that what they do is they allow your body and your mind to come in alignment. And so your brain, which makes the egoic decisions of keeping you safe. Is listening to the other brains in your body, which are your gut and your heart, which are also giving you signs of something is off, something doesn't feel good.

You're not healthy. Okay. And when and we're really good as a society of like having disconnected those three things. So only, we only listen to one. And often only listen to the one that tells us we need more sugar, more caffeine, more booze, more heroin. And so when those all talk to each other, you naturally, you start to hear the messages yourself and you just naturally don't want to feel bad.

You just naturally don't want it. So many people, many women and mom, and it doesn't happen in three days. It takes. A lot of time and it also takes a lot of intention, but using microdosing, it just lessens that desire to drink. You just, because you recognize how poorly it feels in your body and something finally clicks where you're like, actually it's not worth it.

[00:10:33] Erin Keating: Yeah. I found that with, as I experimented with THC in various ways that alcohol is just not appealing to me because. It doesn't give me that chill out, doesn't give me that fun factor. It makes me feel cruddy and actually weepy. And like It's a 

[00:10:51] Tracey Tee: depressant. It's a depressant. It's a depressant.

[00:10:53] Erin Keating: It literally started to make me It literally 

[00:10:55] Tracey Tee: Feel depressed. It's job. That's what it does. 

[00:10:58] Erin Keating: Yeah. And I don't want to be a sober person. That's not what I'm going for. No, I don't either. Yeah. No. It's not my jam. Yeah. But I Yeah. I've just found there are things that work better. 

[00:11:08] Tracey Tee: There's things that work better.

And I say it's not my jam, but also I don't need to be a drunk person anymore either. Like I've yeah, I feel like the mushrooms have really just allowed me to realize this is what I've told my husband, like I'm not a monk. I like something to take the edge off a little bit.

And there's so many amazing THC sodas out there right now, that with the Delta nine that are so like 2. 5 milligrams, just enough to again, calm those frayed edges. And so going back, that's what really works for me like in the evening. But also so does tart cherry juice and kombucha PS, like it's like my new mocktail I've been like living off of.

So swapping one for the other, it's not the same effect and you would, if you want the kind of like buzzy effect, you would have to take a larger than a microdose of mushrooms. And my experience is that I just actually don't really work with Mushrooms recreationally, but I'm also very deep in this work and I'm 

[00:12:04] Erin Keating: exactly.

[00:12:05] Tracey Tee: And so I'm not against it at all. I actually think it's amazing, but I think there is, and this is very common in the kind of like 250 milligrams up to even 750 milligrams. There's a lot that can happen in there and you can also just become really tired. Like I get the yawns really bad and I'm not like energized.

So I'd just rather not, I'd rather just have a microdose and just be with the medicine, but not actually feel the effects. Or you jump to that next level, which is I think a larger decision if you want to take a gram or something. 

[00:12:35] Erin Keating: And that's just time and time. And 

[00:12:38] Tracey Tee: yeah. Great.

And when you're a mom, it's logistics. 

[00:12:41] Erin Keating: No, I don't recommend taking 

[00:12:42] Tracey Tee: a gram around children like ever. No. 

[00:12:44] Erin Keating: I'm just saying like when you're a mom, you just don't have the bandwidth to be like, okay, I'm going to be fucked up for six hours. 

[00:12:50] Tracey Tee: Yeah. And it's not like I'm going to take mushrooms to go out to dinner.

It's not the same effect as like cannabis, for example. And certainly not wine. So I don't know if that answers the question, but I think in, I wanted to bring this up when we were talking about anxiety, I think the interesting thing that is hard for us to grasp as a society is that this isn't linear medicine.

It isn't a plus B equals C. And what we're finding is that we're not linear people and we're definitely not one size fits all. So applying this sort of like algorithmic application to our state of consciousness doesn't really serve anyone. And it definitely doesn't serve mushrooms because they don't work that way.

Yep. So let's 

[00:13:35] Erin Keating: talk about menopause and psilocybin. Now that Gen X is in this phase of our lives, paramenopause, menopause, and we got here and we realized there's no fucking science. No one ever did any studies on women's bodies. No one cares except us, but the good news is we don't feel good, but the good news is we are doctors.

We are scientists. We are investors. We are bosses. We are empowered in a way that no other generation of women has been. Oh, I love that. So I'm really interested in. Yeah. Anything that can make menopause an easier experience for us. So tell me what you know about menopause and mushrooms. As a surprise 

[00:14:17] Tracey Tee: to no one, not a lot.

Because why would they do a study? I will tell you just up front and transparency, but also I'm very excited about it. I'm co collaborating on a study with Dr. Pamela Crisco and anyone in this, correlates with perimenopause and menopause. We're starting the preliminary kind of data gathering of women who have PMDD or even just severe PMS.

PMDD is premenstrual dysphoric disorder. So it really is actually the correct term for what we've labeled as PMS all these years. Just like 

[00:14:50] Erin Keating: feeling like total shit for two 

[00:14:52] Tracey Tee: days before your period. Or a 

[00:14:53] Erin Keating: week, 

[00:14:54] Tracey Tee: a solid week where you're like not even yourself. It's a complete mood change. There's, so we're, Dr.

Krisco feels very strongly. She is a very recognized and brilliant scientist and researcher in Canada. Thinks that we can get a study pushed through if we start gathering data. So if you have any PMS, PMDD symptoms, like hopefully you can leave the link and do the study. Yep. But that is the precursor because as we know now many women find that in there, especially in perimenopausal PMDD actually becomes much greater the week before your period is much more intense.

And so we're fact finding. So I think a lot of what has been helpful to women for PMDD and Paramenopause and menopause because they all move in the same trajectory. First of all, we know that psilocybin is anti inflammatory. So just the reduction of inflammation can be very helpful. We also know again, anti anxiety, the sort of more emotional mental health aspects that overwhelm anxiety, depression, that especially microdosing can help with.

Will obviously help in the transition as you move through menopause, especially if you're receiving some of the lesser effects now is still side. You're going to help your hot flashes. Probably not. There's no real correlation between the two. It's not, it doesn't hit the same thing, but it can help with your serotonin.

It can help emotionally and it can Certainly aid in the emotional transition and realizations that happen as you move into this next milestone of your life. And I actually think we don't put enough emphasis and importance on that part of actually just feeling your feelings and walking through this moment in your life, this big change, the big change and embracing it, shedding, grieving, feeling the rage, giving yourself permission to feel these things.

Is a really big component of this change. I can't remember if I said this on your podcast, I feel like I might've, but I have this theory that all the Queens in Disney, they're all older women and they're all pissed off. And I'm convinced that every like evil queen in Disney is just going through menopause.

She's not evil. She just knows the truth and she's not buying it anymore. She didn't care. And so I feel like we don't put. We don't realize that is part of this big change is you become really awake if you allow yourself and we don't want women to become awake. 

[00:17:21] Erin Keating: Yeah. We've talked, we've been talking about archetypes and menopause where the notion is, you are shifting from one archetype to another.

And what I love about the queen is she's not the princess. She does not need saving and she has power and she has agency and she does not give a fuck and like that Part of there's this whole sort of pop culture or whatever of giving no fucks I have no fucks left to give in reality What I am seeing of course, we give a lot of fucks about a lot of things but what I am seeing what I'm hearing in these conversations is What a moment of agency and power that can be if we claim it as such.

And yeah, we're going to go through this Rocky physical transition, but I love the idea of being able to market. And being conscious about it and maybe mushrooms being something that can help us make this transition consciously. 

[00:18:21] Tracey Tee: I think that's exactly, I think you hit the nail on the head and we don't allow that agency to come forward.

We're actually getting ready to launch. A micro dosing course. We have a three and a half month course, but we're going to do one just geared towards women in their third act because we have so many women coming 65 all the way up to 85 years old wanting to start micro dosing. There is wisdom in these years when you have time to reflect back.

and context to look back and just say that didn't work. And I'm not interested in just perpetuating the same thing that didn't work. You're just not interested. And then you do need tools to help you with 

[00:18:57] Erin Keating: that. And then also, one thing that I've heard from people on this podcast too, is that we become more community minded.

We become more about caring for the things that we care for because we have the bandwidth and we're not in this child raising period, which like I'm paramenopausal. I'm still deep in the, And the child raising and all of that stuff, but I feel the force of a sense of responsibility to the larger world and more bandwidth for that in my mind and in my heart.

It's called wisdom. Yeah. And it's wisdom and wanting to disseminate whatever wisdom I have and collect other women's wisdom. It's wisdom. And if mushrooms can be a thing that helps women do that, how wonderful. 

[00:19:42] Tracey Tee: Yeah. That really is the role of mushrooms. That's why our, our original peoples, our elders have worked with them.

It really does it, when we talk about expanded consciousness, it is you expand so that you can see the minutia, you expand to see more, not less, not to go into a vacuum, you expand to see all of it. And that is the point. And when you do that, it's just really hard. It's not really hard, but it's harder to be an asshole because some people will always manage to be an ass.

Some people always be assholes. It doesn't matter how many drugs you do. It's still gonna be a jerk. Yeah, but it's a lot harder and I do think it's a lot harder for women. I think women working intentionally with this medicine and I have had conversations about this with women leaders in the psychedelic space and I just I see it.

We just, we apply our sacred feminine to an expanded state of consciousness and whether that expanded state is inside 50 milligrams or whether that expanded state is inside three grams and you're going right to the moon, we apply this divine sacred wisdom that is in us that is so beautiful and powerful and wise.

We apply it. Imagine playing it to the whole world. Like you just don't put up with. Shit that's wrong anymore, and that I think is the beautiful assistance in, in menopause and we may find that there are other sort of unseen applications physiologically, but for me, menopause is menopause.

And I don't think we should try to transition out of it. Like we can't ignore it. And again, this goes back to the bandaid society. It is what it is. You're going to feel gross. You're probably going to gain weight. Your sleep's going to change. What a gift. What a gift to go through this transition.

Why not just say, wow, look at me metamorphosizing in front of myself and everyone. Look at that easier said than done. Of course, I've been through it. I get it. Yeah. But rather than saying I'm going to do everything I can to act like it's not here. And I do think in that sense, the medicine really can help you embrace the change and make smarter choices so that you do feel good so that you are in your best place.

And that may come with it. Going back to anxiety and alcohol, like diminishing those things so that you can wake up every day and say the boobs just lowered another inch, but here we are. I'm feeling good, but I'm feeling 

[00:22:04] Erin Keating: good. Amazing. Tracey, thank you so much for coming to answer this question. You have so much wisdom about this.

Everybody should check out moms on mushrooms and look for the course about the third act. If that is something that resonates with you, happy trails. And now we'll talk to you soon. Have a good trip,

Thanks for listening to Hotter Than Ever Advice. How can you ask a question? I'm so glad you asked. DM us at hotter than ever Pod on Instagram or leave us a voicemail or text us at the hotter than ever Hotty hotline at 3 2 3 8, 4 4. That's 323 844 2303. I would love to answer your question in a future episode.

Hotter Than Ever is produced by Erica Girard and PodKit Productions. Our associate producer is Melody Carey. Music is by Chris Keating with vocals by Issa Fernandez. You need advice? We've got advice. Is it reliable? I'm not sure.