Psilocybrain

TEDxUCLA “Mental Health Meets Psychedelics” youtu.be/yk-vcGyXaCA

Your brain is drowning in input. One study found that 2 hours of silence triggered new cell growth in the hippocampus — the region tied to memory and learning. Here are 6 places to regenerate your brain without an app: 🧵 1. Sauna.

Following President Trump’s directive to accelerate medical treatments for serious mental illnesses, FDA announced major steps to support the development of serotonin-2A agonists & related products—a class of medications historically referred to as "psychedelic" drugs. ✅ National priority vouchers for psilocybin (for treatment-resistant depression and major depressive disorder) ✅ National priority voucher for methylone (for post-traumatic stress disorder) ✅ First-ever noribogaine study authorized for alcohol use disorder ✅ Advancing guidance for sponsors developing these products Learn more: fda.gov/news-events/pr…

Literally just having a delusional golden retriever mindset measurably changes outcomes and physiology. Sleep badly? Convince yourself you're well rested. Stressful day? Convince yourself it's fuel. Failed? Convince yourself it's useful data.

Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy - Thich Nhat Hanh

“Learn to delay your reaction. Anger, fear, and impulse will try to make you move fast. There's power in pausing. In the pause, you see clearly, you respond wisely, and you avoid decisions you’ll regret. Slow down to speed up.”

When you overshared your spiritual experience and think you weirded me out… you actually weirded me IN.

An outstanding podcast! @bryan_johnson does an excellent job explaining the power and potential of 5-MeO-DMT. A must-listen. I’m very proud that @ataibeckley is advancing this highly promising compound and is preparing to initiate Phase 3 trials for its intranasal 5-MeO-DMT program. We are deeply committed to bringing this treatment to patients in need as quickly as possible. $ATAI podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bry…

How Psychedelics Affect the Brain - The New York Times nytimes.com/2026/04/07/hea…

Hundreds of scans hint at how substances such as psilocybin, LSD and ayahuasca alter connections between key areas of the brain go.nature.com/4tzwLVX

The key to happiness is gratitude—to truly see and value what we already have, and to understand that somewhere, someone would give everything for what we take for granted.

Scientists just engineered a tobacco plant to produce 5 different psychedelic compounds at once. sciencealert.com/scientists-eng…

@PaulAustin3w Gül Dölen is my spirit animal

Bryan Johnson is one week out from his 5-MeO-DMT experience. He's called it the most profound experience of his life and said he feels "psychologically younger by decades." He may be more right about that than he realizes. In 2023, Gül Dölen's lab at Johns Hopkins published a landmark paper in Nature showing that psychedelics reopen what's called the 'critical learning period.' This is the window of heightened brain plasticity we all experience as young children, roughly ages 3 to 5, when our brains are extraordinarily open to forming attachment patterns, building trust, and absorbing new behaviors with almost no friction. By your mid-twenties, that window has mostly closed, and old patterns get harder to change. Dölen's team found that psychedelics temporarily reopen it, and the duration maps directly to the drug's acute effects. Ketamine opens it for about 48 hours. Psilocybin, roughly two weeks. LSD, about three. And 5-MeO-DMT opens it for approximately four weeks. Which means right now, Bryan Johnson's brain is likely in a state of plasticity he hasn't experienced since early childhood. The extracellular matrix that holds neural wiring in place has softened. Oxytocin-mediated plasticity has been restored. His brain is ready to rewire in ways that are extraordinarily difficult to access under normal conditions. This is the part that almost never gets the attention it deserves. Everyone focuses on the peak experience because that's the dramatic part. But the research tells us something different: the experience opens the door, and what you do in the weeks after determines whether lasting change actually takes root. Dölen herself compared the post-psychedelic window to recovery from open heart surgery. You wouldn't walk out of cardiac surgery and go straight back to a high-stress life. But that's exactly what most people do after a psychedelic experience. So, if I could give Bryan, or anyone in this window, a few practical notes for the next three weeks, they would be as follows: 1. Slow down and protect the window. 2. Be intentional about what you're learning, because new relational patterns and behavioral habits will encode far more easily right now than they will in a month. 3. Work with someone who understands structured integration. 4. Pay attention to the body, because the nervous system clearing that starts during the experience doesn't stop when the molecule wears off. I'm curious what Bryan's integration plan actually looks like. Because if the research is right, these next three weeks matter more than the experience itself.

I have a secret to share After your first $2–$3 million, a paid off home and a good car, there is no difference in quality of life between you and Jeff Bezos. Both of you have limited amount of time on earth; you have twice if not more than Jeff, so you are richer than him. A cheeseburger is a cheeseburger whether a billionaire eats or you do. Money is nothing but a piece of paper or a number in your app. Real life is outdoors. Become financially independent; that’s usually 2–3mil. Have good food. Enjoy the relations. Workout. Sleep well. Call your parents. That’s all there is to life. Greed has no end. Repeat after me: Time is the currency of life. Money is not. Sooner you figure this out, happier you will be.

People who age happier and healthier tend to do 7 things: They don’t smoke, exercise regularly (but not excessively), maintain a healthy weight, and are mindful with alcohol or other substances. But one of the most interesting ideas that @arthurbrooks underscores is that the "happy-well" also have 3 less obvious traits. They keep learning, they develop real skill in dealing with life’s problems, and they prioritize love—through a strong marriage, close friendships, or both.

People have no idea how much psychedelics have influenced modern scientific and technological breakthroughs. Francis Crick: Visualized the DNA double helix structure while tripping on acid. Kary Mullis: Credits LSD for his invention of PCR (DNA amplification). Ralph Abraham: Pioneered chaos theory and dynamical systems, and was deeply influenced by LSD, DMT, and other psychedelics. Douglas Engelbart: Participated in LSD sessions at the International Foundation for Advanced Study, and invented the computer mouse and graphical user interface. Bill Atkinson: Created HyperCard, the precursor to modern web/hypermedia software right after an LSD trip. Richard Feynman: Legendary physicist and well known fan of LSD. Steve Jobs: Regularly dropped acid in his bedroom and credits those trips for inspiring him to create Apple. Psychedelics demonstrably increase trait openness, a core dimension of creativity, and are used to unlock the full potential of the human mind.

Those without a car dream of owning one, while those who have a car are always looking for a better one.

Speaking about the deep contradictions in human nature, Japanese actor Hiroyuki Sanada said: