Can Microdosing Help You Through the Winter Months?

The days get shorter, the sky turns grey, and for many people their mood drops with the light. Less energy, more sleep, cravings for sugar and a general flat feeling. It’s so common it has a name: the winter blues. And a big part of the explanation seems to lie in one brain chemical: serotonin.

Serotonin helps regulate mood, sleep, appetite and energy, and sunlight plays a key role in how much your brain uses. A 2002 study in The Lancet found that the brain’s serotonin turnover was lowest in winter and rose with the hours of bright sunlight. A 2008 brain scan study of 88 people added a second piece: in autumn and winter, the brain has more serotonin transporters, the proteins that clear serotonin away. That leaves less serotonin available, which the researchers linked to typical winter symptoms like fatigue, overeating and sleeping longer.

That’s exactly the system psilocybin works on. Once you take a truffle, your body turns psilocybin into psilocin, a molecule that looks almost identical to serotonin. It binds to the same receptors in the brain, especially the 5-HT2A receptor, which plays a role in mood and flexible thinking. So while winter weakens the serotonin signal, psilocin can activate those receptors directly.

You don’t need a full trip for this, which is where microdosing comes in. A microdose is so small you don’t feel a trip, and it’s taken a few times a week, often following the Fadiman protocol: one microdose day, then two days off. Researchers usually describe a psilocybin microdose as 0.1 to 0.3 grams of dried mushrooms, or roughly 1 to 3 grams of fresh truffles.

And while the research is young: real evidence is emerging. In a 2021 study of more than 8,700 people, microdosers with mental health concerns reported lower levels of depression, anxiety and stress than non-microdosers. A 2022 follow-up tracked 953 psilocybin microdosers for a month and found greater improvements in mood than in people who didn’t microdose. Results should still be read with some care, because people microdose in very different ways, with different amounts, schedules and combinations, and expectation plays a role too, as a study from Imperial College London showed. That’s exactly why researchers are now running larger, controlled trials.

So how could this work? One possible explanation connects the dots between these studies. In winter, the brain seems to have less serotonin available, partly because of those extra transporters clearing it away. Psilocin doesn’t need that available serotonin, because it activates the serotonin receptors directly. A small, regular microdose may give that system a gentle nudge during the months it runs on low. Researchers are still working out exactly what happens, but for many microdosers it’s the most logical piece of the puzzle.

Serotonin may not be the whole story, though. Psilocybin also seems to work on a psychological level. A well-known brain imaging study found that it quiets the default mode network, the part of the brain linked to self-focus and rumination, which tends to be overactive in people with low mood. Many microdosers also say they feel more emotionally aware and handle their feelings more easily. Together, these effects might also help break the grey loop that winter can pull you into.

If you’d like to explore it yourself this winter, our Brain Fitness microdoses make it simple. Each dose is pre-weighed at 1 gram of fresh truffle, right at the low end of what researchers call a microdose, so you can start gently and see how it feels.

This article is for informational purposes only and is not medical advice. Do not combine microdosing with SSRIs, other antidepressants, lithium or other psychiatric medication, and consult your doctor if you take medication or have a health condition.