Ayahuasca in Pro Sports: Healing or Hindering Athletes?

One of the most controversial topics that we've seen, the use of ayahuasca in professional sports. Now, before we get into that, I want to play a clip of Dana White, because Dana White, he was asked about it, and he had this funny thing to say. Can we play the clip back there, Daniel? Ayahuasca? I did know that. I know a bunch of guys who've done ayahuasca, and they have to happen the same thing. Change or something about you. Or lovey-dovey. Or, uh, yeah. Will you ever do it? Never in a million ******* years. So you can see Dana White hysterically said he would never in a million years do it. I mean, he's such a micro-manager that I can't imagine him letting go at all. But he makes a funny point. He says that there's a lot of fighters doing ayahuasca and they're never the same. Now, I've done ayahuasca many times. It's been part of my spiritual practice, although I'm kind of done with that. I feel that once you've done it and you've got what you need, you integrate. But he makes an interesting point. He says that fighters are never the same. Now, there's a lot of other athletes that have tried ayahuasca. for people that don't know what ayahuasca is i should probably explain it is a brew that originates from the amazon so it's very popular in peru colombia brazil where they take the root of one plant of the ayahuasca plant and they mix it with the leaves of the chacruna plant and it creates a dmt uh kind of like mushrooms um and you do it in a ceremonial setting with a shaman and you go deep and if you believe in it in the spiritual realm you're going into the spirit realm i've done it many times it's been very rewarding very healing but it's something very serious because you're you're also bringing back up past traumas, you're also, you know, you're getting in touch with a very sensitive side of your soul, if you believe you have your soul, your mind or your heart, so I can see how people are different afterwards, so I think that it's very beneficial to a lot of athletes, Aaron Rodgers is a popular proponent of it, you can watch actually his documentary on Netflix, you see him. Many, many, Deontay Wilder, you have Jordan Payer as well, NFL players are in search of more meaning, I think professional athletes sometimes find themselves with a professional fight is because the sport is so physical. Focus so much on your body, right? Not so much on your spirit and your mind that some of these players go. Dana, for me, it's very clear. It's not surprising that all these guys go have a profound spiritual experience and they come out the other side not feeling like they need to beat people up. That's the thing. So with fighting, how does it work with fighting? Because I can see, you know, other sports, it's not as important that you basically hit another person. You don't have that rage. So, you know, with fighting, there was one of the first UFC fighters, God, his name is slipping right now, Kingsbury, actually, Kyle Kingsbury. He was the first one to do ayahuasca. He had one more fight after that, and then he retired. He said that he just couldn't find himself. He also said that he ate mushrooms before a fight. He couldn't find himself wanting to actually fight. It's a very visceral combat sport. I agree. Now, I'm the kind of person that I think that when you go into a professional fight, you don't have to have rage, you don't have to have, you know. You're a professional, you, that's what you do. Well, it's also you can when I used to do a kickboxing training, not not actually professionally Um, you know, I would spar, I didn't need to be, I didn't need to be mad, if I got mad It actually took me off my game. So for me, it was the sweet science But I do a lot of these, a lot of these athletes in MMA, in mixed martial arts They come from a place of anger and rage that they are working through these fights. They really have to um objectify their opposition in order to be detached enough to beat up someone to the point that they need to because they fight till they're dead in their minds until they tap them out and you're done, like they have to stop you, they have to restrain you, right? You have to go into that place and ayahuasca might rewire the brain to prevent you to go into, that's exactly what it is and I think it's not only rewiring the brain, it's actually connecting you more with your heart to get a little spiritual, if you're gonna be like, what are you watching, a sports show or like some self-help, so but it does, it does do that so I can understand, you know, sometimes when you're when you're in a combat sport it's not so much about being mad at the other person, but it's also not giving a care about that person's health, well-being, yeah, you've got, you have to punch same thing in football when you when you lay down and hit yeah there's a lot of rules that we're trying to make it safer but you've got to give it all you've got you can't really you can't have in the back of your head and sometimes there's there's that that brutal element to the sport right especially combat sports or like physical sports like like football where you go i've seen some tackles in the football game my my friend yeah you could change somebody's life now let me ask you something just on the psychedelic because it is very popular now not just in sports but outside of sports and society you know with the legalization of cannabis and now people are talking about whether they're legal there's so many new psychedelic drugs that have been entering the discourse and they have been widely accepted and i think that it is good that we allow athletes to explore their mental health in many directions these guys are under so much pressure like we said before some of these players actually have mental damage from the physical uh impact that they experience on the So I feel like it's correct that if the science and the society are getting open and more accepting of alternative therapies and alternative procedures that you can go through and experiences that you can have in order to connect better with yourself.