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Comment by warent | Hacker News Reader

Marijuana can cause feelings of anxiety because it increases your heart rate and the sensitivity to the feeling of your heat beating, which many people's brains interpret as anxiety.

LSD doesn't have this physiological effect though. It's more accurate to say that LSD will amplify whatever you're already feeling or thinking. If you take acid and feel anxious, it can spiral out of control and feel much more intense. On the flip side, if you're feeling peaceful then it will be a calm, happy journey with no feelings of anxiety whatsoever.

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LSD does cause anxiety for many, often at the beginning of the trip. I know when it's kicked in because I get a big rush of anxiety that slowly fades over time. So I wouldn't recommend it to people with an uncontrolled anxiety disorder. (If you can control your anxiety, it can be great and quite therapeutic.)

A friend of mine kept an escape hatch dose of Valium in order to stop the action of things became too intense. I don’t believe the safety net was ever employed, and perhaps simply having the option helped keep some of those feelings at bay.

While I don't think I would confuse the sensation with anxiety, it kind of breeds anxiety. I always feel my heart beat, both from the chest, blood vessels and by small "muscle spasms" throughout my body, is there any substance, preferably legal, that can subdue this to some degree?

I'm not having high pressure or high resting pulse and it's so severe that, while not externally visible, causes for example a squeaky bed to squeak in rhythm with my heart beat.

I've had a prescription for Atomoxetin and it had some "body calming" effect but in some sense amplified the aforementioned effect.

I get similar effects, but a simple aspirin seems to subdue them :)

Marijuana that is like 1:1 CBD:THC or similar seems to help a lot for me. Keeps me from getting freaked out over sensations from my body.

Have you tried meditation? It sounds like something neutral is happening to you and you interpret it as being bad. If you meditate regularly it will change how you relate to it and many other things in positive transformative ways.

If someone winds up in the ER for a bad trip, a benzodiazepine is often used. That’s not legal to obtain without a prescription, but well, neither are mushrooms.

Yeah generally what happens is if I get some tightness in my chest, or a muscle cramp in my back, or pressure from like a bed or a couch pushing against me, if I smoke too much I have a tendency to interpret that as something wrong with me, not that I just have a cramp cause I’m sitting funny and a muscle got tight.

Do shrooms not have this physiological effect as well? Or just LSD that lacks it?

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