Top Supplements to Get the Most Out of Your Psychedelic Experience

DISCLAIMER: The information provided above is meant for educational purposes only and is NOT meant to be medical advice or a substitute for medical advice from a qualified healthcare practitioner. It’s recommended you consult your qualified healthcare practitioner prior to making any changes to your health regimen.

As you may know, Third Wave is committed to helping you connect the dots within the constellation that is integration and personal development. Notably, physical wellness is one of the key pieces (potentially THE key) in this multifaceted, alchemical process. That’s why, to support you and your evolution, a sounder, more complete physical integration is necessary. The goal is to build up your biological baseline to give you a fighting chance to simply feel good in today’s modern maladaptive environment.

A more neutral physiological base brings with it more hormone balance, nutrient abundance, and neurotransmitter stability. With all these factors acting in harmony, you’ll have a better biological lens through which your first-person experience takes in—and presents in—the world. Things like emotional reactivity, hyperarousal, anxiety, and depression can be better supported and quieted through this process.

To help you build this biological bedrock and get more out of your personal development—and psychedelic—experiences, we realized a new type of foundational nutritional therapeutics was in order.

Of course, this is not an entirely new concept. You may have heard of  integrations like Paul Stamets’s stack of Lion’s Mane, psilocybin, and niacin, which has yielded great results for those using microdosing to underpin their development. Similarly,Tim Ferriss has thoroughly discussed the idea of using things like MCT oil and exogenous ketones to optimize brain functionality, as well as cognitive fitness.

Here at Third Wave, we consider these approaches to be accessory methods that can help, but ultimately they are not essential. We absolutely will be discussing these supplementary protocols as time goes on, but we don’t want to put the cart before the horse. Instead, we suggest that you first build a  solid nutritional foundation using the following supplements.

Please keep in mind that everything listed below has multiple benefits and is generally pro-energy, pro-metabolic, and pro-systemic health. In other words, these are generally “prescriptive” recommendations that are ubiquitous across almost all populations. This means you can feel confident in their inclusion, as they will both serve as general supplements as well as actors to support your psychedelic integration. Please understand that the descriptions below are meant to highlight their role in how we feel, think, perceive, and act rather than the entirety of their benefits.

Vitamins A, E, D, & K

Although it’s best to get the lion’s share of your nutrition through whole food, the modern environment does lend itself to some level of supplementation; not to survive, but to thrive.  The reality is that our modern maladaptive environment and farming practices leave us lacking certain nutrients. Vitamins A, E, D, and K represent some you’ll want to supplement to fix these gaps in the nutritional mortars.

According to Dr. Ray Peat, “becoming aware of vitamin E will have far-reaching implications in nutrition and medicine.” Not only is vitamin E a potent antioxidant, it suppresses excitatory states intertwined with states of hyperarousal and anxiety. Vitamin E also acts like a zamboni or vacuum for extra stores of estrogen in the body, which build up as a result of environmental insults like plastics and food additives. Excess estrogen is implicated in many states of dis-ease, including learned helplessness, chronic stress, and beyond.

Vitamin D is a master hormone that’s systemically pro-energy, pro-metabolic, and anti-stress.  There’s a reason that sunlight exposure is perhaps the main anti-stress lever we can pull to benefit the entire system. Although we can write an entire article purely on the benefits of vitamin D, in a personal development context additional vitamin D can help support mood elevation, mental faculties, the anti-stress anabolic sex hormones, and more.

According to thyroid specialist, Benedicte Lerche, MSc PhD, vitamin A also plays a key role in manufacturing the body’s anti-stress hormones. In addition to eating quality milk, cheddar cheese, butter, and ghee, you can increase your vitamin A by consuming cod, beef, turkey, pork, and chicken liver. Raw carrots, sweet potatoes, and yellow fruits like mangoes, apricots, plus papaya also contain vitamin A—albeit to a lesser extent.  Supplementation can help fortify these levels and becomes more important the further along you get in restoring your systemic energy and metabolism through these physical integration practices.

Vitamin K works in synergy with the above vitamins and supports energy production. Additionally, it is pro-steroidal/anti-stress hormones (testosterone, DHEA), anti-estrogenic, anti-prolactin, and more. We cannot store much in the body and it’s easy to increase demand, which is why supplementing with vitamin K is so important.

Magnesium Glycinate

The rationale for magnesium inclusion is simple: it helps us to be calmer, more relaxed, and also aids in energy production.

Magnesium is a key part of the cellular energy manufacture assembly line that supports all of our systemic processes. Magnesium is something that we can build up through food, like strong coffee taken a couple times per day, but really needs supplementation in order to have optimal levels.

Magnesium is also a key player in supporting our synaptic wiring and firing as it helps support neuronal communication. This makes it a vital nutrient for cognitive fitness, mental clarity, focus, and brain capacity in general.

Minerals & Electrolytes

Minerals and electrolytes serve a plethora of functions in the body, from baseline cellular hydration all the way to essential cell-to-cell communication needed to carry out the body’s various processes. These include essential minerals that carry an electric charge, such as sodium, calcium, magnesium, bicarbonate, phosphate, potassium, and chloride.

We don’t necessarily supplement with all of these minerals, as some are found in levels of greater abundance than others. That said, it’s important to undo one of the biggest diet myths and drop the fear of sodium. It is NOT the precursor to hypertension that it’s made out to be in conventional media. In fact, it’s the opposite. Sodium is an incredibly positive, therapeutic nutrient that, in the context of personal development and healing, can actually relax your adrenal system.

On the whole, minerals and electrolytes can help us feel better and promote nerve activity, mood stability, and emotional health by driving a litany of general health optimizing factors.

You can maximize your daily mineral intake by consuming orange juice, fruit, dairy (start with easy-to-digest grass-fed butter, ghee, quality cheese, raw milk, and consider grass-fed 2% milk or goat milk), and coffee.

Due to inconsistent soil-nutrient levels and pre-existing lack of mineral intake, many individuals need to support the remineralization process with a quality electrolyte blend.

Basic B Complex

A basic, foundational B complex can aid in stress relief, sleep quality, and a release of emotional tension. A diet rich in vitamin B is something that everyone should strive for, and entails the regular inclusion of wild-caught salmon, wild-caught oysters, grass-fed beef liver and organ meats, free-range eggs, grass-fed 2% or raw milk, grass-fed beef, chicken and turkey, as well as nutritional yeast.

A B-complex nutritional therapeutic can further support stress relief while promoting a sense of ease, relaxation, mood stability, and energetic abundance. Plus, it’s anti-disease.

Where To Buy?

In addition to these food-based recommendations, you can find high-grade, third-party tested, lab-validated nutritional supplements and therapeutics at the brand new Third Wave Wellness Nutrition Systems: a future-present nutrition dispensary designed by practitioners for all of your needs. Together, the supplement recommendations make up our Nutritional Foundations Kit

To access Third Wave’s Foundations Kit from our Nutritional Therapeutics Supplement Dispensary, please follow the instructions below:

1. Click here to visit Third Wave’s Supplement Dispensary sign-up portal
2. Enter your email address and click “Submit” to register for an account
3. Sign in with your login credentials
4. Click “Add all to cart” to purchase the complete Foundations Kit or choose individual supplements

This nutrition system is designed to be ubiquitous, generally “prescriptive,” and friendly to all. These recommendations promote broad-based health optimization and support the neurological, hormonal, cellular, and overall systemic needs that allow you to get the most out of your work with psychedelics and your multi-modal personal development, therapy, and mindfulness integrations.

References

Mech Ageing Dev 1978 Nov;8(5):311-28. Anomalous vitamin E effects in mitochondrial oxidative metabolism. Baumgartner WA, Hill VA, Wright ET.

Am J Physiol 1991 Jun;260(6 Pt 2):R1235-40. Acute phase response in exercise. II.

Associations between vitamin E, cytokines, and muscle proteolysis. Cannon JG, Meydani SN, Fielding RA, Fiatarone MA, Meydani M, Farhangmehr M, Orencole SF, Blumberg JB, Evans WJ.

Endocrinology 1992 Nov; 131(5):2482-4. Vitamin E protects hypothalamic beta-endorphin neurons from estradiol neurotoxicity. Desjardins GC, Beaudet A, Schipper HM, Brawer JR.

Schwalfenberg GK, Genuis SJ. The Importance of Magnesium in Clinical Healthcare. Scientifica (Cairo). 2017;2017:4179326. doi:10.1155/2017/4179326

Ito, A., Shirakawa, H., Takumi, N. et al. Menaquinone-4 enhances testosterone production in rats and testis-derived tumor cells. Lipids Health Dis 10, 158 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1186/1476-511X-10-158

“Thus, mitochondrial dysfunction was rescued by vitamin K(2) that serves as a mitochondrial electron carrier, helping to maintain normal ATP production.” -Ray Peat, PhD (2012)

Pecori Giraldi F, Ambrogio AG, Andrioli M, Sanguin F, Karamouzis I, Corsello SM, Scaroni C, Arvat E, Pontecorvi A, Cavagnini F. Potential role for retinoic acid in patients with Cushing’s disease. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2012 Oct;97(10):3577-83. doi: 10.1210/jc.2012-2328. Epub 2012 Jul 31. Erratum in: J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2013 Jan;98(1):420. Karamouzis, Iannis [corrected to Karamouzis, Ioannis]. Erratum in: J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2013 Mar;98(3):1294. Pontercorvi, Alfredo [corrected to Pontecorvi, Alfredo]. PMID: 22851491.

J Hum Hypertens. 2002 Dec;16(12):843-50. Salt suppresses baseline muscle sympathetic nerve activity in salt-sensitive and salt-resistant hypertensives. Abrahão SB, Tinucci T, Santello JL, Mion D Jr.

The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES I). Lancet 351: 781-785, 1998: Dietary sodium intake and mortality, Alderman MH, Cohen H, Madhavan S.

Adv Neurol 1979;26:123-33. Ovarian steroid hormones and cerebral function. Cogen PH, Zimmerman EA.

Nippon Ronen Igakkai Zasshi 1989 May;26(3):216-22. [Calcium and magnesium metabolism in the aged] [Article in Japanese] Ouchi Y, Orimo H. Although serum calcium concentration remains constant during aging, the plasma concentration of calcium-regulating hormones has been known to show dramatic change with aging. The plasma concentration of parathyroid hormone increases with aging, whereas plasma concentrations of calcitonin and active vitamin D metabolite decrease with aging. On the other hand, the incidence of soft tissue calcification is known to increase with aging.

Kennedy DO. B Vitamins and the Brain: Mechanisms, Dose and Efficacy–A Review. Nutrients. 2016;8(2):68. Published 2016 Jan 27. doi:10.3390/nu8020068