Ketamine was approved by the FDA for use as an anesthetic agent several decades ago. The administration of ketamine in lower, sub-anesthetic doses to treat psychiatric diagnoses is a newer, off-label use of ketamine. Psychiatric use of ketamine has become relatively widespread in recent years and has been studied and promoted by researchers at the National Institute of Mental Health. Ketamine has been administered by intravenous (IV), intramuscular (IM), sublingual, oral, and intranasal routes. Often, it has been used after other treatment approaches have been unsuccessful. You will be using sublingual lozenges in this treatment.
Ketamine is now an increasingly clinically applied “off-label” treatment for various chronic “treatment-resistant” mental conditions. Ketamine is a DEA Schedule III medication that has long been used safely as an anesthetic and analgesic agent and now, often effectively for treatment of depression, alcoholism, substance dependencies, PTSD and other mental health diagnoses.
How Does It Work?
There are two main branches of how ketamine works: brain activity and your therapeutic experience.
Brain Activity
Ketamine works immediately, has no side effects in between treatments, and on a different receptor system (NMDA and glutamate) than other antidepressants.
Chronic emotional stress depletes synapses in certain brain regions, areas implicated in depressive symptoms. Ketamine brings a burst of glutamate, which initiates pathways involved in strengthening and formation of new neuronal connections. Ketamine increases neuroplasticity, which is the way the neurons signal each other. And it restores neurons to what the brain looked like before chronic stress. Neurons branch out at greater rates than before, called neurogenesis. Brain derived neurotropic factor (BDNF) helps neurons grow and regenerate. Ketamine caused BDNF to increase significantly. Activities that also help increase BDNF are sleep, exercise, and socializing.
The mechanisms of action of ketamine on the brain make trauma memories less sticky. We have more ability to see it as something outside of ourselves, so we are able to decouple triggering events and get intense dysregulating emotions away from the memory to work through it without getting lost in it.
Alpha brainwave states relate to creativity and daydreaming. Beta waves are produced in the middle of deep thinking, Delta/Theta waves can be found during deep sleep. Ketamine induces gamma waves. Gamma waves are associated with problem solving, happiness, and compassion.
Bypassing the Default mode network
Another aspect of how Ketamine works by helping you disconnect to your default mode network (DMN). DMN describes various portions in your brain that get activated when your mind is in a passive, non-task oriented state. When resting and not consciously attending and mindful of an activity, the DMN gets lit up. So it might be when you're just relaxing, daydreaming, thinking about the future or the past without a specific goal where you hold a lot of these internal beliefs that are keeping you stuck. Automatic thought patterns may be stemming from your default mode. You're not consciously aware of some of these toxic thinking patterns, but they just reflexively come up.
What's interesting about ketamine is that studies show it reduces the functional activity of the DMN. It’s cathartic to be able to take a break, and turn down the volume of this patterned thinking. You can start creating new stories, empowering thoughts, more realistic self talk, and or beliefs that you have about yourself or about the world. During Ketamine treatment, the DMN or the running program in our brain is less lit up. It quiets down so we have opportunities to really look at the connections.
Much of the suffering we experience in life comes not from the actual events or people around us, but rather from the stories and beliefs we have about them.
Our brain wants us to use the least amount of energy as possible so it creates loops, but that doesn't help us get out of cycles of thinking that are unhelpful. The mental loop stops and we can look at things differently. The new meaning you create can be incredibly restorative and healing.
Therapeutic experience
Ketamine shines the light on various perspectives to open your heart and mind to see life in a more expansive way. It's not just the work it does on the glutamate and MNDA receptors. The potential of this medicine is to go beyond symptom reduction and to help you address underlying issues. Having a safe therapeutic relationship and setting, where you feel deeply seen, and having a mindset that is one of growth and curiosity, are both factors that will lead to your healing.
I see my work with people in non-ordinary states of consciousness as sacred.
Ketamine is now an increasingly clinically applied “off-label” treatment for various chronic “treatment-resistant” mental conditions. Ketamine is a DEA Schedule III medication that has long been used safely as an anesthetic and analgesic agent and now, often effectively for treatment of depression, alcoholism, substance dependencies, PTSD and other mental health diagnoses.
How Does It Work?
There are two main branches of how ketamine works: brain activity and your therapeutic experience.
Brain Activity
Ketamine works immediately, has no side effects in between treatments, and on a different receptor system (NMDA and glutamate) than other antidepressants.
Chronic emotional stress depletes synapses in certain brain regions, areas implicated in depressive symptoms. Ketamine brings a burst of glutamate, which initiates pathways involved in strengthening and formation of new neuronal connections. Ketamine increases neuroplasticity, which is the way the neurons signal each other. And it restores neurons to what the brain looked like before chronic stress. Neurons branch out at greater rates than before, called neurogenesis. Brain derived neurotropic factor (BDNF) helps neurons grow and regenerate. Ketamine caused BDNF to increase significantly. Activities that also help increase BDNF are sleep, exercise, and socializing.
The mechanisms of action of ketamine on the brain make trauma memories less sticky. We have more ability to see it as something outside of ourselves, so we are able to decouple triggering events and get intense dysregulating emotions away from the memory to work through it without getting lost in it.
Alpha brainwave states relate to creativity and daydreaming. Beta waves are produced in the middle of deep thinking, Delta/Theta waves can be found during deep sleep. Ketamine induces gamma waves. Gamma waves are associated with problem solving, happiness, and compassion.
Bypassing the Default mode network
Another aspect of how Ketamine works by helping you disconnect to your default mode network (DMN). DMN describes various portions in your brain that get activated when your mind is in a passive, non-task oriented state. When resting and not consciously attending and mindful of an activity, the DMN gets lit up. So it might be when you're just relaxing, daydreaming, thinking about the future or the past without a specific goal where you hold a lot of these internal beliefs that are keeping you stuck. Automatic thought patterns may be stemming from your default mode. You're not consciously aware of some of these toxic thinking patterns, but they just reflexively come up.
What's interesting about ketamine is that studies show it reduces the functional activity of the DMN. It’s cathartic to be able to take a break, and turn down the volume of this patterned thinking. You can start creating new stories, empowering thoughts, more realistic self talk, and or beliefs that you have about yourself or about the world. During Ketamine treatment, the DMN or the running program in our brain is less lit up. It quiets down so we have opportunities to really look at the connections.
Much of the suffering we experience in life comes not from the actual events or people around us, but rather from the stories and beliefs we have about them.
Our brain wants us to use the least amount of energy as possible so it creates loops, but that doesn't help us get out of cycles of thinking that are unhelpful. The mental loop stops and we can look at things differently. The new meaning you create can be incredibly restorative and healing.
Therapeutic experience
Ketamine shines the light on various perspectives to open your heart and mind to see life in a more expansive way. It's not just the work it does on the glutamate and MNDA receptors. The potential of this medicine is to go beyond symptom reduction and to help you address underlying issues. Having a safe therapeutic relationship and setting, where you feel deeply seen, and having a mindset that is one of growth and curiosity, are both factors that will lead to your healing.
I see my work with people in non-ordinary states of consciousness as sacred.
