The potential synergistic effects between psychedelic administration and nature contact for the improvement of mental health

Abstract

Therapeutic psychedelic administration and contact with nature have been associated with the same psychological mechanisms: decreased rumination and negative affect, enhanced psychological connectedness and mindfulness-related capacities, and heightened states of awe and transcendent experiences, all processes linked to improvements in mental health amongst clinical and healthy populations. Nature-based settings can have inherently psychologically soothing properties which may complement all stages of psychedelic therapy (mainly preparation and integration) whilst potentiating increases in nature relatedness, with associated psychological benefits. Maximising enhancement of nature relatedness through therapeutic psychedelic administration may constitute an independent and complementary pathway towards improvements in mental health that can be elicited by psychedelics.

Cross-Sectional Associations Between Lifetime Use of Psychedelic Drugs and Psychometric Measures During the COVID-19 Confinement: A Transcultural Study

“…A more clearly relevant difference regards time spent outdoors and access to outdoor spaces, where psychedelic drug users had more access. This is in accordance with the enhancement observed in relating to nature after using psychedelic drugs ( 39 , 58 , 59 ). Psychedelic drug users also showed more interest in having healthy habits, such as maintaining a better diet during confinement.…”

Psychedelic Therapy's Transdiagnostic Effects: A Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) Perspective

“…In keeping with possible increases in openness (210) and connectedness (88,271,272), studies have shown that psychedelic use may be associated with increases in nature relatedness (273)(274)(275), pro-environmental behaviors (276) and more broadly experiences of personal meaning (81,148,209,219,277). Taken together, psychedelic therapy induced changes in social processing systems and specifically social reward processing and behavior and enhanced experiences of connectedness (88) has potential therapeutic implications not only for depressive, anxiety, addiction, some personality disorders, but perhaps for social deficits in subtypes of adult autism spectrum disorders.…”

Losing the Self in Near-Death Experiences: The Experience of Ego-Dissolution

“…We observed that the subjective connection with nature reported by experiencers was associated with both the richness of the NDE and the experience of ego dissolution (r = 0.27 and r = 0.41, respectively). Relatedly, Nour and colleagues [ 13 ] have already shown that experiences of ego dissolution under a psychedelic are dose-dependently associated with ratings of connectedness to nature, a finding which has also been replicated in surveys [ 28 , 41 ] and controlled research [ 40 ] showing that acute psychedelic experiences of ego dissolution predicted greater nature connectedness, including in a causal fashion [ 41 , 42 ]. Regarding the present results, we can also hypothesize that people who feel more connected to nature may be more prone to experience an NDE(-like) episode, notably due to some traits such as an “openness to experience” trait.…”

“…To date, there have not been any systematic studies focused on the broader life and psychological impact of NDE-like encounters. Connectedness to nature and nature exposure are associated with improved mental health outcomes [ 31 , 41 ]; thus, it would be interesting to assess whether classical NDEs and/or NDE-like episodes are also associated with improved mental health [ 48 ]. NDE-like phenomenology may be reproducible in laboratory settings using various techniques (e.g., hypnosis, syncope through hyperventilation and orthostasis and Valsalva maneuver; [ 58 , 59 ]).…”