Psychedelics and health behaviour change.

Pedro J Teixeira,Hannah Douglass,Matthew W Johnson,Christopher Timmermann,Hannes Kettner,Robin L Carhart-Harris,Rosalind Watts,David Erritzoe

doi:10.1177/02698811211008554

Abstract

Healthful behaviours such as maintaining a balanced diet, being physically active and refraining from smoking have major impacts on the risk of developing cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and other serious conditions. The burden of the so-called ‘lifestyle diseases’—in personal suffering, premature mortality and public health costs—is considerable. Consequently, interventions designed to promote healthy behaviours are increasingly being studied, e.g., using psychobiological models of behavioural regulation and change. In this article, we explore the notion that psychedelic substances such as psilocybin could be used to assist in promoting positive lifestyle change conducive to good overall health. Psilocybin has a low toxicity, is non-addictive and has been shown to predict favourable changes in patients with depression, anxiety and other conditions marked by rigid behavioural patterns, including substance (mis)use. While it is still early days for modern psychedelic science, research is advancing fast and results are promising. Here we describe psychedelics’ proposed mechanisms of action and research findings pertinent to health behaviour change science, hoping to generate discussion and new research hypotheses linking the two areas. Therapeutic models including psychedelic experiences and common behaviour change methods (e.g., Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, Motivational Interviewing) are already being tested for addiction and eating disorders. We believe this research may soon be extended to help promote improved diet, exercise, nature exposure and also mindfulness or stress reduction practices, all of which can contribute to physical and psychological health and well-being.

Highlights

Promoting healthy lifestyles in areas such as diet, physical activity, smoking and drinking has become a key priority area in the public and private sector, with the present wellness market reportedly valued at US$4.5T (McGroarty, 2018)
Promoting healthier lifestyles is important as unhealthy behaviours increase the probability of manifest disorders such as obesity, diabetes, depression, cancer and cardiovascular disease, as well as untold personal and familial suffering and significant economic burden (World Cancer Research Fund/American Institute for Cancer Research, 2018)
The concept has been explored in studies in health behaviour change, in areas such as dental hygiene (Halvari et al, 2019), diet, exercise and obesity (Teixeira et al, 2012a), diabetes (Phillips and Guarnaccia, 2020) and tobacco cessation (Williams et al, 2016), with generally encouraging results (Leblanc et al, 2016; Sheeran et al, 2020; Teixeira et al, 2012b). We propose that it could present a fruitful psychological framework from which to understand how psychedelics could assist in lifestyle change, especially from a motivational viewpoint

Summary

Introduction

Promoting healthy lifestyles in areas such as diet, physical activity, smoking and drinking has become a key priority area in the public and private sector, with the present wellness market reportedly valued at US$4.5T (McGroarty, 2018). At present we have no direct evidence for such effects, accounts of participants in research trials for depression (Watts et al, 2017), alcohol cessation (Nielson et al, 2018) and smoking cessation (Noorani et al, 2018) suggest this could be the case.

Results

Conclusion