Can You Mix Psychedelic Mushrooms With Adderall & Stimulants?

Maybe you want to have a therapeutic psychedelic experience, but you take prescribed Adderall everyday and are unsure of the safety of mixing the two, or maybe you are just curious about how these two classes of drugs would interact with each other.

Since psychedelics are being explored by researchers for their potential benefits on a wide variety of symptoms and conditions, including anxiety, depression, and even ADHD, many are searching for safe ways to engage with these medicines.

“41.4 million Adderall prescriptions were dispensed in the U.S. in 2021, up more than 10% from 2020” (Pandey, 2022), and this statistic is startlingly rising given the medication’s potential for abuse.

While psilocybin in particular seems promising for Attention-deficit/hyperactivity Disorder, it may be challenging for those already on ADHD medications to make the switch should it be approved as a mainstream treatment.

Whether out of pure curiosity or a genuine necessity, we hope this article helps to clarify whether or not it is safe to take psychedelics while on Adderall or other stimulants.

Key Takeaways

• Adderall and Ritalin are stimulants that affect norepinephrine and dopamine, while psychedelics target serotonin receptors, leading to distinct effects.
• Stimulant medications pose significant risks, including abuse potential, whereas psychedelics are generally safer and less likely to lead to dependency.
• Combining stimulants and psychedelics’ safety is uncertain, necessitating more research. Anecdotal reports suggest relative safety with Adderall and psilocybin, but we advise against it due to safety concerns and potential efficacy issues.
• Psychedelic Passage: Your Psychedelic Concierge — The easy, legal way to find trustworthy psilocybin guides, facilitators, and psychedelic assisted therapy near you in the United States.

What is Adderall? The Effects of Stimulants vs. Psychedelics 

Adderall is a powerful nervous system stimulant—a combination of amphetamine and dextroamphetamine—which is commonly prescribed to treat conditions like ADHD and narcolepsy. 

It, along with other stimulant prescriptions, increases someone’s ability to focus and perform tasks through stimulating the central nervous system. Adderall specifically is most often taken in tablet form. 

In particular, “stimulants enhance attention, memory, self-regulation and executive function in individuals with ADHD” through increasing the activity of certain monoamines in the brain (Weyandt et al., 2018). 

Monoamines or monoamine neurotransmitters are a class of chemical messengers which communicate with receptors in the brain and gut. Examples of monoamines are serotonin and the catecholamines like adrenaline, norepinephrine, and dopamine. 

Adderall works by:

• Stimulating the release of monoamines
• Blocking the reuptake of monoamines
• Inhibiting monoamine oxidase which is responsible for the breakdown of monoamines (Evans, 2019) 

Most importantly, monoamines are associated with the regulation of a variety of bodily functions and sensations including body temperature, pain perception, gratification, hormonal regulation, digestion, sleep, and a number of other autonomic functions.  

Aside from prescribed usage, Adderall is also “extensively abused and has a host of adverse and potential long-term effects” when used illicitly and recreationally for performance enhancement (Geoffrion et al., 2023). 

This potential for abuse continues to be an issue for college students and young people who use it for performance enhancement in work and school, with Adderall use on the rise even recreationally.  

However, when it comes to psychedelics, they have disparate effects on the brain, body, and overall mental state in comparison to stimulants. 

These differences stem from variations in their chemical makeup and how they interact with neurotransmitters like serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine as well as their receptors in the brain. 

Firstly, Psychedelics like LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide), psilocybin (found in magic mushrooms), and DMT (dimethyltryptamine) primarily interact with the serotonin system in the brain. 

They do this by targeting the 5-HT2A serotonin receptors, producing their effects by mimicking or enhancing serotonin’s activity.  

This leads to profound alterations in perception, often resulting in vivid hallucinations, altered sense of time, and heightened sensory experiences. 

To further understand how psychedelics affect the brain, check out our article which covers that topic in more depth. 

On the other hand, stimulants are a class of drug that “increase the activity of the central nervous system” (Farzam et al., 2023) and “speed up the body’s systems” (DEA, 2020). 

Common stimulants include amphetamines (such as Adderall), methylphenidate (Ritalin), and caffeine.  

Stimulants work by increasing the levels of neurotransmitters like dopamine, norepinephrine, and to a lesser extent, serotonin, and these neurotransmitters are involved in the brain’s reward and pleasure pathways as well as in focus and arousal.  

While psychedelics mimic endogenous serotonin in the brain, stimulants interact more so with receptors for neurotransmitters like dopamine and norepinephrine. 

Lastly, psychedelics tend to have a lower potential for physical harm and addiction compared to stimulants, while stimulants can lead to addiction and health concerns when abused or used without medical supervision. 

Side Effects of Adderall 

• Loss of appetite
• Weight loss
• Stomach upset
• Nausea
• Vomiting
• Dizziness
• Headache
• Diarrhea
• Fever
• Anxiety or nervousness
• Sleeping disturbances 
• Insomnia

Contraindications of Adderall

• Addiction and drug abuse
• Cardiovascular disease
• Anxiety
• Glaucoma
• Arteriosclerosis
• Hyperthyroidism
• Hypertension
• MAOIs
• Anorexia nervosa and eating disorders
• Bipolar disorder
• Depression
• Psychosis, schizophrenia, or mania
• Raynaud’s syndrome
• Seizures
• Tourette’s syndrome

Those potential contraindications should be monitored closely when dosing with Adderall and similar stimulants, although some have been shown as safe in certain instances.

The Efficacy of Stimulants Compared to Psilocybin 

In comparing the efficacy of stimulant drugs like Adderall and psychedelics like psilocybin, the nuances of their neurocognitive effects and their potential implications for academic performance and mental well-being are brought to light. 

In Weyandt and colleagues’ 2018 study, they found through extensive research that Adderall can impair working memory performance and may adversely affect individuals’ self-perceived cognitive abilities and self-regulation capabilities.  

They also found that, despite its attention-enhancing properties, Adderall diminishes confidence in problem-solving, task completion, and social interactions, notably under academic stressors, after intake.  

And problematically, the use of stimulant drugs like Adderall has now been linked to increased task-related stress, possibly motivating students to resort to these substances during challenging academic periods.  

Lastly, they found that, when it comes to cognitive performance, oral reading and story recall were unaffected by Adderall, suggesting its neutral impact on certain academic tasks. 

Furthermore, Individuals diagnosed with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) exhibit “reduced inhibition of the default mode network (DMN) during cognitive tasks” (Silberstein et al., 2018). 

The DMN has proven to be an important element of brain functioning in assessing particular pathologies such as clinical depression and ADHD.  

This pattern of brain activity is associated with self-referential thoughts, rumination, and non-present modes of thinking, and is hyperactive in those with clinical depression and ADHD. 

Both serotonergic psychedelics, like psilocybin, and Adderall have been observed to inhibit the DMN following administration.

Given these commonalities, this information could suggest that psychedelics are an effective ADHD treatment through modulating the DMN during task performance and enhancing task-related focus.