The Therapeutic Benefits of Ayahuasca

Sitting with all the gifts and blessings grandmother ayahuasca has to share

So grandmother ayahuasca is calling you…Maybe you’ve seen a documentary or listened to a podcast about someone’s life-changing journey with the powerful medicine and are curious to experience it for yourself. Or maybe you’re musing over joining us on our next Peruvian Soul Retreat to sit with ayahuasca and see what it’s all about. Ayahuasca has been used for centuries by indigenous communities in South America for religious and spiritual purposes. Over recent years, ayahuasca has been gaining attention in mainstream culture for its transformational powers. In search of spiritual development and awakening, people have been traveling from all over to South America to sit with ayahuasca. Despite a growing interest and eagerness to bathe in the medicine’s healing properties, people take off on their spiritual quests still harbouring a sense of mystery around what exactly ayahuasca is and how it can help them. 

What grandmother ayahuasca has to share can look, sound, and feel different from person to person; everyone’s journey is unique. Hand in hand with grandmother ayahuasca, people have come to encounter the divine, embrace higher truths, and experience immense emotional, physical, and spiritual cleansing. Sitting with ayahuasca is like hitting restart. It takes you on a journey both outside of yourself and deeper into yourself, then spits you back out reborn. Ayahuasca ceremonies are filled with laughing, crying, and chanting as the plant medicine helps you to transmute energy.  It is also common to experience some distress when taking ayahuasca. Many people end up vomiting or having diarrhea as part of the purging process. This is why it's important to be in a safe, intentional space when sitting with the medicine. Being led by an experienced shaman will allow you to honour the traditions of the practice and fully receive its benefits. When done in ceremony with others, taking ayahuasca can be a powerful collective experience. 

Ayahuasca rituals have been an important part of Amazonian culture for years. Ayahuasca is a plant-based psychedelic, known scientifically as banisteriopsis caapi, that is native to South American countries like Peru, Brazil, and Colombia. In the Quechua language, ayahuasca means “vine of the soul” or “vine of the dead”. Ayahuasca is also referred to as soul vine or yagé. The ayahuasca decoction is made with the banisteriopsis caapi vine and the leaves of the psychotria viridis shrub, which are turned into a concentrated tea by way of prolonged heating or boiling. Other plants and ingredients may also be added. When ingested, this healing medicine creates a hallucinogenic experience involving an altered state of consciousness, thinking, emotions, and sense of time. 

DMT, the active chemical in ayahuasca, is a naturally occurring chemical found in plants and animals. DMT has low bioavailability so must be mixed with MAOs, which also have psychoactive properties, to prevent the gut and liver from breaking it down. These ingredients combined make a potent psychedelic brew that has helped people heal physically, emotionally, and spiritually again and again. Here are some of the therapeutic benefits you can expect to gain from sitting with ayahuasca!

Ego Death

Like most hallucinogens, ayahuasca exposes to you who you truly are. It breaks down the illusion of self, exposing the false narratives you’ve been telling yourself and the limiting paradigms in your life that no longer fit, granting you increased self awareness. Many people have been propelled in a new direction in life after taking ayahuasca, shedding layers of themselves that are untrue and leaving behind jobs and relationships that were holding them back. Ayahuasca can free you from conditioning and release you from the stories you tell yourself and that you’ve been told concerning who you are or who you’re supposed to be. 

Expanding Consciousness

With the death of the ego comes an expansion of consciousness. As we cut through the illusion of separation, we begin to feel a deep connection to something bigger, something beyond the self. Taking ayahuasca can reconnect you with your true purpose in this world and give you a greater sense of meaning. Knowing your purpose helps to minimize the anxiety, confusion, and loneliness that afflict us when we’re stuck living purely in the 3D. Awakening to the knowledge that we are connected to something greater gives us a deeper appreciation and love for all things. 

Detoxing Body, Mind, and Spirit

Many people are turned off by the shaking, crying, sweating, puking, and shitting that take place during an ayahuasca ceremony, but this is all actually an important part of the process. Ayahuasca helps you release toxic energy that has become trapped. A lot of the time, the stuff that gets brought up on ayahuasca are things you didn’t even realize you were holding on to. Think of it as deep cleaning for the body, mind, and spirit. Once you drain all the gunk that has gotten stuck in your pipes and let go of whatever has been limiting you, you’ll feel like a sparkly, fresh new person. After the detoxing part is over, people feel lighter and refreshed. 

Psychological Healing

Medical imaging has shown that ayahuasca increases blood perfusion in the parts of the brain responsible for emotional processing, memory, and introspection. By activating the subconscious brain and bringing personal memories to the surface, ayahuasca has helped people let go of trauma. Those who have taken ayahuasca have been seen to have a greater capacity for self-acceptance. They are able to better handle and perceive trauma from a non-judgemental lens, practicing enhanced mindfulness. When we can sit with difficult experiences, process, and accept them, we heal from the past, leading to a better quality of life on a whole.

Reduce Mental Health Disorders and Addiction

The main psychoactive ingredients in ayahuasca have neuroprotective and neurorestorative properties that interact with chemicals in the brain to promote brain cell growth and restructure neural connections. In this way, taking ayahuasca can be like pressing reset on the brain, reducing the severity of mental health disorders and substance abuse. Ayahuasca has also been seen to possess antidepressant properties, not only lowering stress, depression, and anxiety during use, but also long term. DMT is being studied as a beneficial form of psychedelic therapy. DMT offers a natural alternative to commonly prescribed antidepressants and is favourable as it has long lasting effects and people don’t build up a tolerance to it.