There are as many opinions about how much Kratom to take—and when, how, and why to take it—as there are strains of Kratom for sale online. Thankfully, the universe of people who ingest Kratom seems to be in alignment on the following precepts, making it easy to generalize:
Take Kratom on an empty stomach the first time[s] to learn how a given Kratom strain “hits” for you.
The general consensus is that once you know what a particular Kratom strain feels like on an empty stomach at a given dosage—your benchmark dosage—you can then vary the dosage based on when you ate last (or take the same dosage next time, but with more food in your stomach if the Kratom “high” was too intense last time around, etc.).
Zooming the Kratom straight to the small intestine—where it can be absorbed into the bloodstream without competing with food—is the thinking here. Similarly, Kratom users generally advise each other to wait an hour after ingesting Kratom before eating food again. Please Note: It’s entirely up to you to decide if you want to do something called “taking Kratom on an empty stomach;” we’re not medical professionals.
Take the Kratom strain that will bring about desired results.
Decide what kind of Kratom experience you want. Do you want a mellow watch-the-clouds-and-ponder-the-sunset feeling? If so, you’ll want to explore the “slow leaf” (red) Kratom varieties. Or maybe you want to get hyped up and do some good old-fashioned work; in that case, you might want to explore the “fast leaf” strains of Kratom (green) and bang out a day’s worth of work in three hours flat. (For every up there’s a down of course… that little notion is yours to ponder; we’re not judging you here.) Perhaps you want something in-between slow and fast; in that case, you’ll opt for “moderate leaf” (white) Kratom strains.
Kratom vendors online are hit-and-miss as sources of good information; some are better than others. However, the more successful Kratom dispensaries (generally powder-Kratom dealers as opposed to those who sell only capsules) have some pretty good breakdowns of the Kratom types of “high’s” a person might hope to experience. Yes, they’re selling their products and they need your buy-in (literally), but because they’ve been in the industry a while, some of them provide some truly useful information for the discerning Kratom user.
Alternate Kratom Strains to Avoid Tolerance
In a perfect world in which Kratom is actually good for humans (and who’s to say it isn’t? Hint: Lots of people; Kratom is banned in Wisconsin, Arkansas, Indiana, Alabama, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington, DC), a Kratom user would have at least one strain for each day of the week where each strain is substantially different from each other strain (different synthesis of Mitragyna speciosa). This way, a person could avoid building tolerance to any one strain, the thinking goes, thus kicking the Kratom tolerance-building can down the road. There are plenty of Kratom vendors who would love you to embrace this thinking.
For example: A popular online Kratom vendor who’s been at the game for a while (and no, we don’t endorse any specific Kratom dealers here) suggests that if you take a green-leaf Indonesian Kratom variety on Monday (which has a “moderate projected speed”) you can take another moderate strain on Tuesday—an Indonesian red-leaf strain—for virtually the same effect (Kratom high) as Mondays’ variety because, purportedly, the Tuesday Kratom strain is different enough that your brain won’t interpret both strains as the same one as far as Kratom receptors are concerned, thus not triggering your brain to build tolerance to either strain (on the assumption that your brain doesn’t see either strain again for a week to 10 days following these Monday-and-Tuesday Kratom dosings).
Common Kratom Dosage Amounts (and Variations)
Some people take Kratom to ease pain caused by medical conditions, and they’ve learned to take the amount and variety/strain of Kratom that works best for their situation. Here, however, we’ll address the non-medical or “recreational” use of Kratom.
In lower doses, kratom is generally thought to be a stimulant that may increase focus, attention, energy, and alertness and, conversely, in higher doses, it can produce a pleasant and mellow “high” similar to opioid drugs. Of course, that’s all too general when one considers that various varieties of Kratom are said to “hit” differently compared to each other. Still, the lower dose/higher dose thing does appear to be a popular theme and is often stated as truth by experienced Kratom users.
The commonly-accepted dosage that many experienced Kratom users point to is taking two or three grams of Kratom on an empty stomach. This amount is said to be plenty to bring about the effects of Kratom—which can hit as soon as 20 minutes after dosing). Moreover, they suggest that, if you feel nothing 45 minutes after dosing, then you might consider taking more Kratom—another one or two grams. Then, if you still feel nothing 20 minutes later, try taking an additional 0.5 to 2 grams. That’s it. Taking more than this in a six-hour period of time is thought to lead to negative consequences including, but not limited to, listlessness, aggression, and nausea. All of the above is, of course, predicated on the assumption by experienced Kratom users that each individual needs to experiment to find their own “sweet spot” dosage.
The Kratom high is said to last four-to-five hours, after which (if you’re feeling like a hardcore Kratom maniac) experienced Kratom users say you can repeat the steps above and do it all again if you want, erring on the side of taking too little rather than too much. Kratom users vary their dosages depending on the experience they want to achieve; some take higher dosages (i.e. users who’ve developed tolerance to certain strains but still want to take those strains anyway), and some just want a specific type of Kratom experience that they’ve had previously, and they feel they can vary their Kratom dosage to match their expectations—whatever amount that happens to be.
A caveat to the above: Experienced Kratom users suggest taking THE SAME STRAIN of Kratom all day long because, they reason, tolerance builds more quickly if you take two Kratom strains on the same day because both varieties of Kratom fire the brain’s Kratom receptors simultaneously, so the brain interprets that is being one strain and “remembers” them both as one.