Psychedelics Helped Former UFC Champion Overcome Past Traumas: ‘I Cried Heavy and I Cried Deep’
Former UFC bantamweight women’s champion Miesha Tate recently shared a psychological breakthrough she experienced while experimenting with psychedelics.
While psychedelic-assisted therapy is still illegal on a federal level in the United States, recent research has suggested that the use of psychedelics has proven beneficial for those suffering from depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.
During an interview with psychiatry and neuroscience expert Dr. Jonathan Edwards, Tate shared her own experience with psychedelics and how the treatment helped her become more one with herself.
“My friends were doing this more and and people were having great stories of how they came out on the other side of this better and I thought okay well I’m not going to a rave and eat mushrooms this is not, my intention is actually to like sit in my backyard and try to become more one with myself,” Tate said. “Yeah, and that’s exactly what I got out of it.
“It was hard though because it brought up some traumas right… and I had to work through those traumas while being in this different state of mind. And so I cried heavy and I cried deep and then I said okay now it’s time to let go of this you know. So I’m going to change I was inside at first and then I went outside to my pool and I just noticed everything about the outside and in a way that I felt like I had never been connected to nature before.“
Will Miesha Tate Return to the UFC in 2025?
After more than five years away from the sport, ‘Cupcake’ returned to the Octagon in 2021 and secured a third-round stoppage against Marion Reneau. Feeling a new wave of momentum, Miesha Tate climbed back into the cage four months later against Ketlen Vieira.
This time around, Tate would suffer a decisive unanimous decision loss. The defeat prompted Tate to prepare herself for a drop from bantamweight to flyweight.
Tate successfully made the 126 limit for a non-title flyweight fight but delivered another lackluster performance against Lauren Murphy at UFC on ABC 3.
“First of all, I think all my hormone levels were off — well, I know that they were [off],” Tate said in an interview with MMA Today. “As a female, you get irregular cycles and things like that when you cut your weight or you lose your cycle. For me, I lost it for a while.
“Then it was like hormonally it’s one of those things that you are like “OK, I messed up…’ The feeling of tiredness, exhaustion and hunger. Even when I could eat, and I was full, my body was like you’re still hungry. My relationship with food changed from depriving myself for so long,” he added.
Tate promptly returned to bantamweight where he climbed back into the win column against Julia Avila in December 2023. The third-round submission victory scored her a $50,000 performance bonus and landed her in the bantamweight top 15.
Cupcake’ has not yet revealed when or if she’ll return to the Octagon in 2025.
