How Psychedelics Protected User’s Mental Health During the COVID-19 Pandemic

A huge new study from the UK, involving over 240,000 people, has uncovered an unexpected trend…

During the COVID-19 pandemic, people who used both psychedelics and cannabis saw their symptoms of anxiety and depression improve over time.

By the end of the study, their mental health looked about the same as people who’d never taken illicit drugs at all. This finding, published in the Zeitschrift für Psychopharmakologie, stands out because most other drug-using groups actually saw their mental health worsen.

Psychedelics: A Refresher

Psychedelics are mind-altering substances that can change how you perceive the world, think, and feel. Classic examples include Psilocybin (found in magic mushrooms), LSD, and DMT. They’re known for producing intense experiences—vivid visuals, shifts in thought patterns, and altered self-awareness. Unlike alcohol or cannabis, they’re often used less frequently, sometimes in settings meant for reflection or emotional insight.

Over the past decade, researchers have been increasingly interested in psychedelics as potential treatments for serious mental health issues like depression, PTSD, and addiction. While some small studies have suggested they might help people cope with stress or bounce back emotionally, there’s been little large-scale, real-world data. Until now.

Pandemic Pressures and Coping Strategies

When COVID-19 hit, life changed dramatically, and mental health took a hit worldwide. Some people drank more, others turned to cannabis or psychedelics, while overall drug use patterns shifted. But most research during this time focused on alcohol, tobacco, or cannabis, lumping all other substances together. That meant little was known about how different drugs (like psychedelics) might relate to mental health.

That’s where this new research comes in. Led by Maria Bălăeţ, now head of the Altered States, Evolution and Technology Laboratory (ASET LAB) at King’s College London, the study used data from the Great British Intelligence Test: a BBC-supported citizen science project exploring lifestyle, cognition, and health.

Between December 2019 and early 2022, more than 240,000 people took part. Of those, around 68,000 completed follow-ups in December 2020, June 2021, and January 2022. Researchers tracked mental health using adapted versions of the PHQ-9 and GAD-7 (standard measures for depression and anxiety), and participants also reported which drugs they used. This ranged from cannabis and cocaine to psychedelics like psilocybin, LSD, and DMT.

Using a statistical method called k-modes clustering, the team identified six main groups:

• Cannabis-only users
• Cocaine-only users
• Cannabis + cocaine users
• Cannabis + psychedelics users
• Polydrug users
• “Other” drug users

These were compared with people who had never used drugs and those who’d stopped before the pandemic.

A Surprising Turnaround

“At first, I was surprised,” Bălăeţ admitted. “In an earlier 2023 study, I found that the psychedelics-and-cannabis group had worse mental health during the peak of the pandemic than drug-naive individuals, which was the opposite of what I’d expected.”

She wondered if the real benefit of psychedelics might only show when you track the same people over time. In other words, they might improve relative to their own past mental health — but not necessarily look “healthier” than non-users right away.

That’s exactly what the data showed.

Across the board, people using any illicit drugs started off with worse mental health than non-users. They had higher depression, more anxiety, more trouble sleeping or concentrating. Those who increased their drug use during the pandemic tended to decline further.

But the cannabis + psychedelics group was different. Even though they began with poorer mental health, by January 2022 their depression and anxiety scores had dropped by about a quarter of a standard deviation, and their overall mental health matched that of people who’d never used drugs.

For cannabis-only users, though, the picture was less rosy: their mental health stayed worse at every timepoint, with no big improvements.

Interestingly, the best outcomes were for cannabis + psychedelic users who reduced their use over time.

Bălăeţ sees context as key: “When their mental health was worse than drug-naive individuals, it was during a global crisis. The normalization happened afterward, during calmer times. The environment where psychedelic experiences happen may shape their effects.”

Why This Study Stands Out

This research had a huge, varied sample and followed people for over two years. This is something rare in psychedelic studies. Additionally, participants weren’t recruited from pro-drug communities, which can sometimes skew results toward the positive.

Still, the researchers warn against assuming psychedelics caused the improvements. The changes could be partly due to regression to the mean (extreme scores naturally moving toward average over time) or because people whose mental health was improving anyway were more likely to use psychedelics near the final survey. There was no data on dosage, exact timing, or “set and setting” (the mindset and environment during use), and no info on whether people were also in therapy or taking medication.

“Amazing research in the pipeline…”

Even so, the findings hint that psychedelics might influence mental health differently from other substances—especially in stressful times. As Bălăeţ put it: “These results are surprising because they come from an observational study of naturalistic use, not a controlled clinical trial.”

And, the research journey is only just beginning:

“We have a lot of amazing research in the pipeline… I’m particularly interested in how naturalistic drug use relates to cognition and creativity.”