In this episode of Ayahuasca Podcast, host Sam Believ (founder of http://www.lawayra.com) has a conversation with Mark “The Shark” Irwin — former bare-knuckle boxing world champion turned psychedelic mental health advocate. Known for fighting on heroic doses of psilocybin, Mark now leads a nonprofit supporting athletes recovering from traumatic brain injuries through psychedelic therapy.
We touch upon topics of:
- Mark’s story and fighting career journey (00:03:00)
- Microdosing and traumatic brain injury recovery (00:04:00)
- Fighting competitively on psilocybin (00:05:00)
- Flow state and performance enhancement through psychedelics (00:07:00)
- Legality and controversy around psychedelics in sports (00:09:00)
- Intentions and different uses of plant medicine (00:10:00)
- Psilocybin tolerance and intentional usage (00:11:00)
- Boxing, childhood trauma, and emotional release (00:13:00)
- The therapeutic use of psychedelics for brain healing (00:15:00)
- Mental health, masculinity, and emotional expression (00:20:00)
- Psychedelics and ego dissolution (00:29:00)
- Suicidal ideation, healing, and hope (00:33:00)
- Recovery protocols: red light, HBOT, integration (00:38:00)
- Future vision: healing others post-fighting (00:40:00)
- Movement, fitness, and somatic integration (00:42:00)
- Athletes Journey Home nonprofit & fundraising (00:44:00)
If you would like to attend one of our Ayahuasca retreats go to http://www.lawayra.com
Find more about Mark Irwin at http://www.athletesjourneyhome.com or on Instagram @markthesharkirwin
Transcript
Sam Believ: You’re listening to ayahuasca podcast.com.
Mark Irwin: I actually attribute plant medicine and psilocybin to turn professional and to pursue bare knuckle boxing all my professional fights under the influence of psilocybin. I had the knockout of the year award for bare knuckle boxing in 2022. I took five grams that day.
When I won the world title in 2023, I took seven and a half grams over the course of the day before the title fight. I have a lot of, its. Experience competitively taking psilocybin, and now I’m more interested in the reparative benefits of it, using it to help undo a lot of the damage that I incurred as a result of taking mushrooms and fighting
Sam Believ: plant medicines.
They’re not good. They’re not bad. They’re neutral. Yes. It’s like you can use plant medicines to heal, like in your case, heal traumatic brain injury and recovery. It’s all about the intentions.
Mark Irwin: Absolutely. And everything in between. It’s great for community building. Roy developing relationships. So yeah, I think it has medical therapeutic benefits.
I think it has performative benefits and I think it has social benefits. Feelings are a part of the human experience and part of being healthy is feeling those feelings and expressing them. And I think that psychedelics are really beneficial in getting people in touch with their emotions and their feelings.
We took a number of high profile athletes and put them through psilocybin therapy. And did a lot of data collection before and after with brain scans and gut biome testing blood work so that we can prove definitively that these medicines do have a therapeutic benefit.
Sam Believ: Hi guys, and welcome to Ayahuasca podcast. As always, really the whole assembly of. Today I am having a conversation with Mark Irvin. Mark is a bare knuckle boxing champion previous champion, right? He’s known for as Mark the Shark Irvin. He’s known for his aggressive style and he is also known for his mental health advocacy.
So yin and yang. Very good. He’s currently active in raising awareness for brain injury recovery and mental health in combat sports. This episode is sponsored by Laira Ayahuasca Retreat. At Laira, we combine affordability, accessibility, and authenticity. Laira connect, heal, grow. Guys, I’m looking forward to hosting you.
Mark, welcome to show. It’s a pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me. 20 or 30 episodes ago, I interviewed Ian McCall and they’re working on this project together. It’s called Athletes
Mark Irwin: Journey Home.
Sam Believ: Athletes Journey Home. Say that in your back. Basically they’re working on this idea of using psychedelics to treat traumatic brain injury.
And I think it’s a great idea, but before we start talking about that, mark. Tell us about your journey. What brought you to Bare Kn boxing and now to private medicines?
Mark Irwin: I started microdosing back in 2018 after a long amateur boxing career because I had read that psilocybin can be beneficial for people that have had traumatic brain injuries.
And having won a couple state championships as an amateur in my twenties, I had incurred a number of. Concussions and brain injuries diagnosed and undiagnosed. So in interest of investing in my brain health and mental wellbeing, I started microdosing and I got really positive results. I started using it with my training and again, more positive results.
And I actually attribute plant medicine and psilocybin to giving me the motivation to turn professional. And to pursue bare knuckle boxing, so I would use it. Performatively. I fought all my professional fights under the influence of psilocybin. I had the Knockout of the year award for bare knuckle boxing in 2022.
I took five grams that day. When I won the world title in 2023, I took seven and a half grams over the course of the day before the title fight. I had the fight of the year award in 2023. When I lost the belt I took seven grams. So I have a lot of experience competitively taking psilocybin, and now I’m more interested in the reparative.
Benefits of it, using it to help undo a lot of the damage that I incurred as a result of taking mushrooms and fighting.
Sam Believ: Have you considered fighting while in ayahuasca? No.
Mark Irwin: I have not. And probably would not have the best performative benefits. I’ve actually yet to do ayahuasca, but we do have an ayahuasca retreat scheduled for the fall.
Where we’ll be taking a number of athletes with traumatic brain injuries and putting them through ayahuasca therapy and integration. Very nice.
Sam Believ: Hopefully before that, we’ll do to do another one with with the end. Yeah, I’d love to. Yeah. So fighting on mushrooms. That’s something that I remember Ian told me when I was interviewing him.
It’s it’s incredible. It’s not something you. Normally think of, I take mushrooms, all I wanna do is lie down and laugh. Or, maybe process some emotions. So how did you end up using mushrooms for that? What was the, that’s a, basically what was the discovery process?
Mark Irwin: It was a couple things that motivated me to start using it in competition. One thing was that I had read that the Vikings used to take massive doses of mushrooms and go raid England. Go Berser. Yeah, the berserkers. So they were a motivation. And then I had read a story about. A Pittsburgh pirate pitcher in the MLB in the seventies that pitched a no-hitter on LSD.
And so that was planted the seed and gave me the idea to start using psychedelics competitively, and I got great benefit from it. I find that it’s gives me a great cardiovascular benefit. Is great for confidence, helps me better activate flow state and really get into my groove. So to speak.
And it gives me a tremendous amount of confidence when I’m competing. So I think it’s the best pre-workout supplement you could take. It’s one of the best performance enhancing tools. And now I try to use my experience to really advocate for the benefits of psychedelics and plant medicine.
Sam Believ: Talk to me about the flow state. ‘Cause flow state, it can be used in fighting, can be used in other things like, what’s the protocol to unlock the flow state?
Mark Irwin: So I think for one, just competing how you practice, right? So using it in training so that I’m comfortable and acclimated to performing on psychedelics.
But I find that it really helps me get into my my groove, so to speak. And it really helps me. To, like I said, get into my flow state unlocks a lot of creativity and intuition, and I find that I just perform at a much higher level.
Sam Believ: So intuition as in like few seconds before the punch comes, you already know it kind, it’s coming and it’s yeah.
You get to those states.
Mark Irwin: Yeah. Your ability to feel it before it happens to be more intuitive.
Sam Believ: Do you reckon? It’s it’s like a form of shamanism combative shamanism or something like that. Have you ever heard about stories that like Shalon fight spiritual battles? Sure.
Mark Irwin: Yeah, absolutely.
And I think that’s one of the benefits of psychedelics from a medicinal standpoint, is that it can really help us overcome a lot of mental and emotional trauma. To fight those spiritual demons like you speak of, yeah. So from a clinical therapeutic standpoint, I think it’s very beneficial as well as a performative standpoint.
Sam Believ: Yeah. So do you reckon, is it legal? Have you ever gotten trouble or it’s you’re consuming can it be considered doping or not really?
Mark Irwin: So that’s a great question. Combat sports are regulated by the athletic commissions. The athletic commissions have a list of band substances that you are not allowed to take prior to competition.
Psilocybin is not on the band substance list, therefore it’s technically not against the rules to take massive amounts of mushrooms before your fights. And to that end, actually Ian, my coach, who was a MMA world champion and a UFC star. After I won the world title, he went on a podcast and he was bragging about how his fighter me took seven and a half grams and won the world championship, and he was on five in my corner at the time.
This clip went viral and it made its way around the internet. My opponent and his team saw the clip and they started sending it to my organization, the athletic commission, saying I should be stripped because I cheated and I should be banned. But again, as it turns out, it’s not against the rules and therefore it was not a violation.
Yeah.
Sam Believ: Yeah. He spoke about my podcast as well, and it’s it’s just it just breaks the pattern because you don’t associate psychedelics with fighting, it’s count, dude. It’s what do you mean five grams? Like you roll the ball and you sit in the corner and bigrams or fighting.
What do you mean? But but it’s pretty cool, and it’s a great example that plat medicines don’t really have a specific. They’re not good. They’re not bad. They’re neutral. Yes. It’s like you can use plant medicines to heal, like in your case, heal traumatic brain injury and recovery. You can use them to kill, potentially, let’s say you’re not a UFC fire, you’re a berserker.
You take some shrooms and you go and raid the village. So it’s all about the intentions.
Mark Irwin: Absolutely. And everything in between. It’s great for community building. Developing relationships, amongst people I think is another great benefit of it from a social standpoint. So yeah, I think it has medical therapeutic benefits.
I think it has performative benefits and I think it has social benefits. But yeah, it’s whatever your intention is to your point, and what you wanna get out of the medicine.
Sam Believ: What about the tolerance? Because mushrooms are known for developing tolerance pretty quickly, so Yes. Are you aware of that?
How do you manage that? Or is it actually a desirable outcome?
Mark Irwin: That’s a great question. And to your point, I do have quite a high tolerance with psychedelics as I have an extensive history with them and that’s why I’m able to take such large doses and compete. Whereas I think most people would find that nearly impossible.
Because I’ve built my way up to that level of having taken large amounts. I’m able to perform at a high level, even under God-like doses of psychedelics. But for me these days, I think. The most important thing is intention, right? I think in the past I used to use it much more recreationally, right?
For fun, going out with women or going to a party and all kinds of things, right? But now I really try to be more intentful about how I use the medicine. So I use it very specifically specific for training, competition, or for recovery.
Sam Believ: Very nice. So let’s go back and past. And talk about, fighting.
I, as I told you I also fought, did some boxing when I was a teenager. My, actually, my very first time at the boxing gym I was seven years old. Like I watched it was like one of those kung fu movies or whatever about karate, whatever. And I enjoyed it. And I was like, ha. And my dad was like, oh, you wanna do boxing?
And my brother was doing boxing, so I was like, I ended up in the boxing gym and not enough. I. Train together. If I put it all together, it’s eight years. But I’m a peaceful guy. I never fight. Nobody tends to wanna fight me, so I never, but I, but you know how to fight. So it’s like a skill that sits there.
So in my case, it was just like my, my, my dad said you have to do it. Like I want, it’s he is in European way. You just, yeah, you do martial art or you’re not, you’re not a boy, you’re not a man. It’s and my dad trained boxing and my granddad trained boxing, what what brought you to martial arts? What brought you to boxing? We’re talking about boxing and mental health. So a lot of time when you start digging deeper, yeah. It’s maybe bullying and security. Fear. Was there any story like this that made you have to overcome something and become stronger and become world champion?
Mark Irwin: Yeah, so I’ve been a fan of combat sports my whole life. I grew up as a kid watching old fights with my dad. He had this massive VHS collection of old fights, and we’d watch ’em and he’d tell me about all the old fighters and the history of the sport. And I fell in love with it. And so we’d watch all these old tapes and so I’d always been a fan, but I actually started rather late in life.
I ran track and field in college and I dropped outta school and I was looking for something to pursue athletically. I was interested in and some friends of mine bought me to the boxing gym and I fell in love with it right away and I found it was something that I could really put my all into.
Alright, so I started competing. Ended up winning a couple championships as an amateur, working in gyms, training people, and yeah, I’ve been doing it ever since. So I love combat sports. It’s really given me an identity and a platform for which I’m now able to use to advocate for other causes like mental health and recovery.
Sam Believ: In a way, it’s good you started later because traumatic brain injury is worse in childhood. Yeah. And it accumulates. And then now you’re doing things to recover your brain, let’s talk about traumatic brain injury. So obviously you have the project together with Ian. You’re working on that.
So what, I know you’ve already done one little study. What have you found so far with traumatic brain injury and psychedelics?
Mark Irwin: One of the benefits that most people are aware of is that psychedelics. Help improve neuroplasticity of the brain, which means that your brain is able to create new neural pathways for information to travel.
So the potential healing benefits of that are very great as it comes to brain damage and traumatic brain injuries. We partnered with experience onward in Portland, Oregon. For our first research study back in March. We took a number of high profile athletes. And put them through psilocybin therapy and did a lot of data collection before and after with brain scans and gut biome testing, blood work so that we can prove definitively that these medicines do have a therapeutic benefit.
Yeah. So we’re really excited to get the results back from that study as well as conducting other studies in the psychedelics.
Sam Believ: So you’re still expecting the results, right? But, end love one observationally. What what do people say, what do the athletes say? Did they feel improvements, maybe a lot, know less headaches or what would be the good metric?
Mark Irwin: Yeah. Anecdotally, everybody that went through the therapy reported to have improved mental and emotional clarity. I felt lower levels of anxiety, depression, things like that. So those would be the main things that I noticed, just emotionally. And like I said, we’re really excited to get back the data as far as the brain health.
Sam Believ: Yeah, it’s it’s very curious. I I had a traumatic brain injury when I was a kid. I was just playing and I fell and hit my head. I had a bump like this on my I looked like unicorn and I was. Basically, I had headaches for three years. Oh, wow. And even later when I was training boxing, I think I was 16, I had to stop training boxing because as and I wasn’t in many competitions like my parents, they wanted me to train, but they didn’t want me to participate in competitions.
Yeah. Because of traumatic brain injury. But as every time you hit a bag, impact forces, a bit of that force comes back to you. And my favorite thing to do, and I think it was a mental health thing as well, but I was like, my, my dad was really abusive. My childhood wasn’t like really happy and what I really enjoyed about boxing, I think boxing kept me sane as well.
’cause I had this emotional release yes, every day. But there was this bag in the corner of my gym and it was like a water bag. And I had those like very light gloves and I would just go there in a corner. For five, six rounds just wow. Like it was so enjoyable. Sure. First. Sure. I started getting headaches again, and then I had to stop boxing because I, my head was hurting and it was literally like, I would hit the bag and it would start hurting.
So I quit boxing and I went to gym. That’s why I’m so jacked about. I’m just kidding. But I was like, I was last time I fought, I was, I fought in 75 kilo category. Right now, I’m like 95. And I was like, still same height, but I was like really skinny. I was really fast. Yeah. Long long hands.
So I guess a clinchco style, like yes. Keep the distance in jab and grab, yeah. Yeah. Something like that. But I don’t have any claim to fame. I was never really, I was never really a fan. I just did it ’cause my dad wanted to. But I understand it’s also a great exercise and it’s great to know how to fight.
But yes. Let’s talk about that aspect of mental health and fighting, like why a lot of, I don’t know, maybe your journey was different, but have you noticed people using fighting as a mental health tool as well to release and let go?
Mark Irwin: Definitely. My coach Ian, he always jokes that professional fighters are grown men in their underwear acting out their childhood traumas for the world to watch.
And I think that’s a good description. We’re all fighting our own metaphorical battles, and I think a lot of fighters traditionally come from a background of trauma, as far as me as a kid, I had a pretty traumatic upbringing myself. I was addicted to drugs and alcohol for a long time as a teenager.
Lots of fights got expelled from school, jail, rehab, right? I’ve been homeless. I’ve had loaded guns pointed at my face. I think all those experience actually primed me to be the fighter that I was, because I learned that I’m very hard to kill, I’m very resilient and that I can overcome anything.
I’ve had to rebuild my life from scratch a couple times over. And I think that those experiences made me the fighter that I am. And I think there’s a lot of parallels between fighting and life because life is a fight, right? And I think for a lot of us. It gives us an opportunity to fight those spiritual demons and act out a lot of those traumas, and get that release like you talked about. So yeah, I think there’s a lot of therapeutic benefit to training combat sports. I think there’s a lot of benefit, like you said, to knowing that life skill. I always say martial arts is for everybody. It’s a life skill. Just like swimming is a life skill. You don’t need to know how to swim, but if you fall off a boat, you’ll fucking wish you knew how.
Yeah, you don’t need to know how to fight, but if someone ever comes and brings violence to you, it’s good to know how to protect yourself. So I’m a big advocate for martial arts for everybody because the peace of mind that comes with knowing how to protect yourself is invaluable. I never worry for my safety or wellbeing when I go out and about because I know that I can take care of myself.
Sam Believ: The peace of mind the confidence, the sort of masculine feeling like, you kinda, you can take a lot of guys, it’s, it definitely, whether real or not, or illusionary or not, this still helps and it. Makes you present in a certain way in the world. And I wanna talk about masculinity later, but first you talked about childhood trauma and like you being a rebellious kid, so obviously you address psychedelics from the point of view of performance and then a healing traumatic brain injury.
But have you noticed that maybe you’re less rebellious now, maybe like that? What do you think caused that? To be, to behave that way. And like, how are you working with that?
Mark Irwin: Yeah. Like I said all that trauma I think definitely instilled a lot of anger inside me. And for a long time that was a driving force that led me to drug and alcohol abuse and violence, getting in street fights and in jail and all kinds of legal problems.
I think that. Using psychedelics has brought me a certain level of peace that for a long time I was lacking and has really helped to make me a more calm, loving, empathetic, sympathetic individual as a result of my vast experience with plant medicine.
Sam Believ: So are you worried that taking away that anger and bringing your peace might take away your edge?
And like you’re no longer gonna be Mark the Shark Irving, you’re gonna be mark the Teddy Bear Irvin, or something
Mark Irwin: like that. That’s a great question. If I’m being fully honest and candid with you, I think that to some degree at this point, psychedelics probably have taken something from me as a fighter, right?
I think for a long time it was to my benefit, I was using them performatively. Having undergone psilocybin therapy and integration therapy and emotional therapy, with a clinician and working through a lot of my past traumas and things like that, it’s helped heal a lot of those past unresolved issues.
And so it probably isn’t good for the fire in my belly, so to speak, that can be beneficial to a fighter.
Sam Believ: Absolutely. It’s probably good for you though, as a human being long term because that anger that drives you and makes you achieve things or prove something to someone, it’s also the same anger that eventually will like, kill you slowly or get you addicted or what, like a lot of CEOs, so a lot of VC people are really afraid about their CEOs going to drink ayahuasca.
Because they’re afraid that they will lose their edge, and they’ll be like, why am I trying to prove something to someone? Why am I doing something I don’t need to do? And they just retire and go be happy. So it’s it’s a double-edged sword. So I don’t know, I’m, I’ve definitely had plenty of Ayahuasca experiences and I’ve asked myself like, am I doing things just because I want to do it?
Am I doing it just to prove something to someone? And I guess if there was, just from the point of view of proving it, it would probably just be gone by now. Yeah. So I guess in the end you stay you’re still left with drive, but now your drive is like, how can I help people? How can I make a world a better place?
And I have a feeling it’s gonna lead to better things and talking about better things. So we’re coming to you guys from Maps conference right behind us. This way. I’m looking as a, as an exhibit hall. Bunch of people trying to make the world a better place and create products. And mark is here collecting funds for his program, for developing veterans.
How’s it going with the, with raising money?
Mark Irwin: It’s a slow going. All of our research is donation based. Our first research study, the psilocybin therapy that we did in Portland, Oregon last March was funded entirely by my organization, BKB Ver Knuckle. The president of my organization wrote us a check after my last world title, fight to fund the research.
So thank you to Mike Vasquez, BKB, bare Knuckle President. But yeah, all of our research is donation based. So we’re currently looking for poor donations to fund our next round of therapy. We are a nonprofit. All of our donations go 100% to sponsoring the therapy of these athletes. We don’t have a salary, we don’t take a commission on that, right?
We are solely based, we’re solely focused on helping people recover and collecting data to help advance the cause and the mission.
Sam Believ: Amazing. I’m talking to Ian now. We can organize something. I’ll give you guys a giant discount to make sure he can come drink some medicine at La Wire.
We’re talking to Ian as we speak, so hopefully we can make it happen. Yeah. Thanks to the founder of BYB. Dana, if you’re listening, come give us some money. We will we’ll take some we’ll take care. Ex fighters will fix them up a little bit because they deserve to be happy as well.
So I’m sure he is not listening, if someone knows someone who knows him, pass the word along because it’s not a lot of money. Like 10, 20,000 bucks. We can take them all to the wire for a week and that’d be amazing. Yeah, probably. Create some good content as well.
Definitely. It’s probably gonna be funny as well.
Mark Irwin: Yeah. And we have a media team actually. We need help with that. We have we’re producing a show based on my life behind the scenes. It’s gonna be on my organization’s YouTube channel. It’s called The Shark Show. But yeah, we would love to collaborate with you guys.
Sam Believ: We’re we’re currently filming a documentary about ayahuasca. Cool. The angle we’re taking is actually. A more unique angle. It’s like a comedic angle, like the, it’s deep, but let’s talk about, let’s look at it from a funny side. And as a lot of comedians are also into UFC.
Sure. Hopefully we can find an angle there, maybe get some content. Maybe we can get, I dunno, support from Joe Rogan or someone like He, he is big into ayahuasca. He is big into comedy. He is big into UFC and I believe he still hasn’t had any ayahuasca. Talks about it, but he never tried it. Joe, if you’re listening, you know you’re invited.
Mark Irwin: Yeah. We’d love to come on the podcast and talk about all the psychedelic research we’ve been doing.
Sam Believ: Yeah. Ian has been on this podcast couple times, right?
Mark Irwin: Yeah.
Sam Believ: My podcast is not huge. We are close to a hundred episodes, but I think I’ve already had four or five guests that had been on Joe Rogan.
So there’s definitely some kind of inter lab. Anyways we touched the topic of if you’re a fighter, you feel more secure, you feel more masculine. Let’s talk about masculine energy, feminine energy, balance, psychedelics fighting, anything that comes to mind.
Mark Irwin: Yeah, I certainly think as far as combat sports is concerned, it’s definitely a very hyper-masculine sport, right?
Which has pros and cons. I think psychedelics can very much have a deflating quality to the hyper-masculinity. I always say psychedelics have really helped kill my ego, which I think is important for a long time in fighting. It’s predicated on the idea that you have this hyper-masculine, like super dominant ego.
I’m the best in the world. I can beat anybody that they put on the other side of me, right? You need that. To be beneficial, but I think in a more real world setting, I don’t know that type of mindset and mentality is always beneficial for yourself or the community. And that’s where I think that the disillusion of ego as far as psychedelics concerned, is greatly beneficial from a social and communal standpoint.
Sam Believ: Yeah, there’s there is, I believe a different kind of masculinity, like a more, as opposed to roaring shiny flame. Like a soaring, a quiet confidence. Yeah, like a quiet confidence. And also balance with feminine energy, because it’s kinda less of a fighter energy, but more of a father energy.
It’s it can be gentle with your kids, but it’s like paternal. But then if somebody like, oh, like attacks you that you like.
Mark Irwin: Then you’re the defender of the tribe, right? Absolutely. The soldier. And that’s the male’s role I think in society, right? Hunter, gatherer, soldier, defender of the tribe and the family unit.
Yeah, but you can’t have one without the other. If it was only masculine energy, there’d be no balance. So you need to have both. And I think that to your point, psychedelics is good at calming down that hyper-masculine mentality. And like helping to find a balance.
Sam Believ: Yeah, I’m still working on it myself.
I haven’t figured it out completely, but it is an interesting journey because we take a lot of things for granted. It’s oh, you come from a certain culture and that’s how you should be. You should never cry. You shouldn’t feel those things. Like I, I was, one of the things I was working with that Oscar for a very long time is like feeling my emotions.
I went from like never crying at all to like sometimes crying in a word circle, and I don’t, it doesn’t make me feel weak. No, it’s actually the other way around. But it is like culturally, we, our version of masculinity, I think has been a little skewed.
Mark Irwin: Yes. Yeah. To your point, we’re trained as men at a young age to not cry.
To be tough and to walk it off. Don’t be a whim. And so that gets ingrained in us from a psychological standpoint. But, feelings are a part of the human experience and part of being healthy is ex feeling those feelings and expressing them. And I think that psychedelics are really beneficial in getting people in touch with their emotions and their feelings.
One of the great benefits I think of psilocybin specifically. Is that if there are like mental and emotional things that maybe you’ve been avoiding or ignoring, it really brings that to the forefront of your mind, right? And forces you to, to confront and deal with those things that maybe you’ve been trying to sweep under the rug, so to speak.
And I think that emotional intelligence. It is really important for being an overall like healthy person, mentally, emotionally, and physically, right? It’s all one and the same and they’re all interconnected. So being in touch with your emotions and being able to express your emotions in a healthy calm manner is really important.
Especially as men because so often we’re told by society not to do that, and that can create all kinds of problems, right? So I’m a big advocate for. Using psilocybin performatively rehabilitative from brain injuries, but also mental and emotional trauma.
Sam Believ: Yeah. Because also if you repress your feelings, anything you repress eventually explodes.
Yeah. As you repress your anger, you repress your sadness, it then results like ugly stuff. What would you say to like young men that let’s say are struggling with mental health or. Masculinity, lack thereof, may be lack of paternal figure. Any guiding words?
Mark Irwin: Yeah, absolutely. And that’s a great question.
I’m glad you asked that. For my last world title fight, I dedicated my fight to my older brother Daniel, and my friend Jeff, who boast unfortunately lost their battle with mental health and took their own lives in the lead up to my last fight. So I really wanted to use the platform to advocate for mental health and suicide prevention.
And the one piece of advice I would give to any young person that’s struggling with mental health is just to hang in there and keep going. Most people that commit suicide statistically are young men, and the reason is because they do not have enough life experience to realize that you might be going through, a hard time right now.
You’ll get through it. Life is up and down. It’s a rollercoaster, so sometimes you’re up and sometimes you’re down. I think when you’re up, it’s important not to get too high and when you’re down, not to allow yourself to get too low, because you know that it’s gonna change one day from one to the other.
And that’s life is just a series of highs and lows. When you’re young and you’re going through hell, it seems like it’s gonna be forever, but you just have to keep going because the truth is it’s not and nothing is insurmountable. So if you’re going through, hell, keep going. If this world has knocked you on your ass, that’s okay.
I’ve been knocked on my ass in the fight game. I’ve been knocked on my ass. In the real world, you have to get up and you have to keep fighting because that’s what champions do. If that’s the advice that I would give to anybody struggling with mental health to keep fighting and to reach out, don’t be quiet.
You don’t have to fight this fight alone. You can confide in a friend or a mentor, right? Because we’re all here to help each other, we are social creatures. We cannot exist without a community. So if you’re struggling, reach out to those that you trust and that you love because permanent solution to a temporary problem is never the answer.
Sam Believ: Yeah, it’s it’s a very strong topic because suicidal, suicide is rampant to see it is going higher and it’s like social media and all the life we live now, it’s it doesn’t help. We get lots of people buying one way ticket to come to my retreat because they’re like, if I’m like desperate, if this doesn’t work, I’m gonna hand it.
So far, all of them are, get better and then they buy a return ticket and they’re better than before. So definitely keep fighting as mark says don’t give up. And if you are at the, at your whims edge or what’s the phrase? You’re, you’re, there’s nothing else you can think of and you’re about to give up.
I say try ayahuasca, try psychedelics, try mushrooms. Whatever is available for you, if you come, if you can come to Ara, like I can guarantee you it will reset something and give you a different perspective long enough for you to get on a more productive mental health healing journey.
Because it’s just that’s the beauty of psychedelics. It’s almost instant that you can. Like reset and all of a sudden you’re like, oh my God, what was I thinking? And but in the end, we still need to do the work And psychedelics is not an end all be all, but it is a good, beginning. What are your thoughts about psychedelics and suicidal ideation?
Mark Irwin: That’s a great question. And to be completely honest, I’ve been at points in my life where, I’ve been contemplating suicidal thoughts as well. I’ve lost everything in life a couple times over. Like I said, I’ve been addicted to drugs, alcohol, homeless, jail, rehab most of the worst things in the human experience.
I’ve experienced them. But nothing is forever, right? Everything is temporary. So hanging in there, pushing through and I think psychedelics are a great benefit. But to your point. Psychedelics just in and of themselves are not gonna cure your problem. You do have to do the emotional work.
And that’s where therapy and integration coaching can be of great benefit to people to help them work through those traumas. Because psychedelics aren’t a solution. It’s a tool that we can use to fix the problem. But that’s where the coaching and the mental health and everything comes into play as well.
Sam Believ: So apart from psychedelic work what other routines and practices do you have that, that help you on your journey?
Mark Irwin: Yeah, so I’m very concerned and invested in physical and mental health. So I do quite a protocol. I’m sponsored by a recovery center called Restore Hyper Wellness. It’s a national brand.
They have all kinds of different healing modalities, including hyperbaric oxygen therapy, red light therapy, cryotherapy, infrared sauna. So on a weekly basis, I make sure to make use of all of those amenities. Hyperbaric, ther, hyperbaric oxygen therapy and red light has been huge for my recovery from traumatic brain injuries.
So to anybody that’s struggling with TBIs and concussions, I would strongly recommend doing some research on psilocybin and hyperbaric oxygen therapy.
Sam Believ: Yeah, I actually recently started doing hyperbaric oxygen therapy as well. Synchronistically, so like I just ended up.
Randomly the clinic and it’s oh, I’ll do it. And luckily, so it’s very affordable in Columbia. So if you weren’t a fighter or let’s say tomorrow mushrooms take away any anger and you just can’t fight anymore, what would you do?
Mark Irwin: I’d continue what I’m doing with the the nonprofit, right.
Trying to help. Heal people from traumatic brain injuries as well as emotional and mental trauma. I’ve incurred a lot of TBIs through my fighting career and my life. I’ve incurred a lot of mental and emotional trauma, through all my personal experiences. And I don’t want anybody to have to suffer the way I’ve, gone through the things that I’ve gone through.
So I’m very focused and interested on my healing journey as well as, trying to share my knowledge and experience with other people to help them on their healing journey. My fighting career is not over, but it’s definitely, I can see. The light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak.
The hour, the sand and hourglass is winding down and the next phase of my life is gonna be about helping heal people.
Sam Believ: That’s very yin and yang as well. You punch people and then you help ’em heal.
Mark Irwin: Yeah.
Sam Believ: Find the balance,
Mark Irwin: And at that point I was talking a lot in my last fight.
It’s ironic. I was using the platform to advocate for mental health and the nonprofit. So I had to go out there and give and receive brain damage in order to raise money to help heal brain damage. Yeah. But I think there’s something very poetic about that.
Sam Believ: Hey, yeah. Sometimes it’s it’s, sometimes to get peace you need more war.
Yeah. So I think there’s a phrase Latin. No, it’s if you want peace, get ready for war.
Mark Irwin: We have a similar expression in English. It’s nobody knows the amount of violence it took for me to become this peaceful. Yeah. Yeah.
Sam Believ: Life is paradoxical. Yeah. Psychedelics is, are paradoxical. It’s a very interesting journey.
You mentioned integration. Tell us about it. What are you any favorite tips and tricks? What do you do personally to integrate your psychedelic experiences?
Mark Irwin: So I’ve worked with integration coaches in the spiritual sector. And I also do clinical emotional therapy as well, talking to a therapist.
About my problems. In addition to, like I said, hyperbaric red light exercise daily is a big part of my protocol as well, because if you’re not physically healthy, you’re not gonna be mentally and emotionally healthy. And exercise is very important for brain health, especially cardiovascular exercise.
So I make sure that I make that a part of my daily routine, working out at least five to six days a week. And then eating right because nutrition is a big part of overall. Physical health, mental health, and emotional health as well. So making sure that I’m eating right, living right, and all the things physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually.
Do you journal a little bit? I’m trying to make it a more regular part of my routine. I’m inconsistent with it, but I do like to time, from time get out a notebook and a pen and write down what I did for the day or what I’m feeling and experiencing because I think there’s a lot of benefit to getting it out.
Sam Believ: Yeah, it’s hard. I, I prefer to do audio recording. It’s easier, like you go on a walk. It’s interesting the angle to use exercises, integration, it’s really rarely spoken, but, somatic in your body. Movement, punching stuff. If you’re angry, punch some stuff. We have at my retreat, we have a gym.
Yeah. There is a punching bag. Some people go and they do it. We did some somatic stuff where. People are like punching pillows and screaming. Yeah. Oh, show meditation. Yeah. There’s lots of interesting things.
Mark Irwin: And for sure, and it’s great for that, but to anybody watching this, it doesn’t have to be strictly combat sports.
Like I’m a big runner. I do a lot of long distance running. I love lifting weights as well as boxing and martial arts. It doesn’t have to be combative sports, but including exercise. To be, again, physically, mentally, and emotionally healthy is important for all of us. Your body is designed to move by nature, right?
And through modern advances in technology and science, we have a much more sedentary lifestyle now. And I think that has been the cause of a lot of these neurogenerative diseases, these chronic lifestyle diseases that are having such a exponential uprise. And it’s because people aren’t exercising and eating right?
Sam Believ: Yeah. Anything else you wanna talk about? I’m done with my questions.
Mark Irwin: Yeah. It’s been a pleasure to be here. If you guys haven’t seen it. There’s a small documentary called Athletes Journey Home on YouTube that documents our last research project when we put a number of high profile athletes through psilocybin therapy.
We’re currently raising funds for our next research project, which will be in Aya Ski Retreat in Peru this fall. For more information or to donate, you can go to athletes journey home.com or if you want to get in touch with me personally, you can get in touch with me on Instagram at mark the Shark Irwin.
Now.
Sam Believ: Yeah, guys if you have some if you like to collaborate with people and donate and you have some disposable income, that’s definitely a good cause. And hopefully. Yeah, hopefully we can do something together as also.
Mark Irwin: Yeah. And to that point, all donations, a hundred percent of donations go to sponsoring the therapy of athletes.
And it’s also a tax write off, so there is some benefit from you there at the end of the year for tax season as well.
Sam Believ: Amazing. I think especially for Americans. For sure. Cool.
Mark Irwin: Walmart. Pleasure talking to you. It’s been a pleasure, my friend. Thank you for having me on. I’d love to come on again.
Yep. Yeah, absolutely. Cool.
Sam Believ: Thank you guys. You’ll be listening to Ayahuasca podcast, as always, the as always with you, the whole and believe, and I will see you in the next episode. I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you’d like to support us and psychedelic Renaissance at large, please follow us and leave us a like wherever it is you’re listening.
Share this episode with someone who will benefit from this information. Nothing in this podcast is intended as medical advice, and it is for educational and entertainment purposes only. This episode is sponsored by Lara Ayahuasca Retreat. At Lara, we combine affordability, accessibility, and authenticity.
Lara Connect, heal. Guys, I’m looking forward to hosting you.