There is an idea going around the Internet that there is nothing you can do to speed up recovery from benzo withdrawal in forums and all you can do is to figure out why your brain slowly recovers healthy GABA activity, but the process by which the brain repairs itself known as neuroplasticity can be influenced in a number of ways to shorten the recovery time.
 
How long it takes a person to recover from benzo’s or any other drug for that matter you are you like is as varies enormously it depends on:-

1. the individuals’ neuroplastic abilities which can vary a lot between people
2. the strength of the factors that cause damage to the brain and work against neuroplasticity, e.g. hidden chronic inflammation in the brain

Elsewhere I discuss how both of these things can be changed in the positive direction to shorten the recovery time from any drug that has caused habituation; I have been developing treatment methods to up-regulate neuroplasticity by increasing BDNF production and eliminating or reducing the factors that work against neuroplasticity since 2012.
To read about this treatment
click here: Benzo Withdrawal Treatment with Natural Remedies
 
BDNF is produced in the brain and promotes the growth of new dendrites, the branches that extend from one neuron to another to form new synapses (synaptogenesis); so up-regulating BDNF production increases the rate of growth of brand-new synapses that have not been desensitised by benzos all other drugs this is a key component of my drug recovery treatment.
 
Not only can neurons grow brand-new synapses but the synapses themselves have plasticity, called synaptic plasticity. Benzo drugs are notorious for quickly and aggressively desensitising GABA synapses, they literally cause the synapse to lose active receptor sites, after you stop taking the drugs however the synapses can regain their sensitivity by restoring the number of receptor sites. Research in this area is thin, but it appears that we can influence synaptic plasticity and speed up the re-sensitisation to GABA of the ‘damaged’ synapses.
 
In addition to up-regulating BDNF production and synaptic plasticity, it is critically important to eliminate or at least minimise the factors that work against neuroplasticity, things like:-

• Free radical,
• Oxidation and nitrosative damage,
• The presence of highly neurotoxic substances such as heavy metals,
• Hidden chronic inflammation in the brain,

There are several things that can trigger inflammation in the brain including:-

• Overactivation of the body's HPA stress system from stress, trauma and genetic makeup,
• Dietary errors and I meet people every week that think their diet is good, but it has errors that inhibit neuroplasticity
• Infections whether known or stealth,
• Faults in gut permeability, the microbiome or the gut-brain axis,
• A topic disorders (allergies, autoimmune conditions)
• Common deficiencies in specific vitamins (D3, B12, folate and methylating vitamins especially if you have the MTHFR gene mutation),
• A high BMI index (being overweight) especially excess internal visceral fat,
• Inadequate sleep,
• Smoking, the good news is that nicotine  actually good for neuroplasticity so you can carry on taking nicotine but you have to find an alternative delivery system to inhaling smoke,
• Too little and even too much exercise.

You have to create the right physiological conditions in the brain before you can significantly up-regulate neuroplasticity, a gardening analogy would be a seed will not start germinating unless the environmental conditions are just right, if the soil is too wet or too dry, too hot or too cold, too acid or too alkaline the tiny little delicate roots will not grow. Eliminating inflammation and the other things on the above list is creating the right environment, increasing BDNF production is like adding seedling and root growth fertiliser. When you put these 2 things together you give nature a helping hand speed-up the brain’s innate ability to recover from drug withdrawal.
 
In my practice, I’ll combat every single one of the above things just to be on the safe side because if any one of them is left unresolved it could inhibit progress and I don’t want to be several months into the treatment and hardly anything it happened because I didn’t target one of the above. Furthermore even when something on the above list is not that significant combating and improving it may contribute a little bit more healing, let me put it like this I’m prepared to ask someone to do something difficult like give up their favourite food even if doing so would only make 5% improvement because when I had that 5% and all the other 5% I obtain from all the other components of the treatment it could add up to a significant contribution moreover that last few percents may be what’s required in an individual to reach the tipping point from negative plasticity maintaining no progress to positive plasticity and recovery. This can make the treatment feel very demanding for some people and I want to be upfront about that. Benzo’s can be one of the hardest types of drug to give up, for some people when they try to discontinue benzos they discover that these drugs have desensitised their brain to GABA so when they stop the drug GABA activity in their brain plummets producing horrendous even dangerous withdrawal side effects; benzos can even induce severe anxiety in people that never had anxiety in the 1^st place.
 
Some lucky people brains bounce back and recover GABA sensitivity relatively quickly within a few weeks to months, for many others unfortunately recovery can be painfully slow taking perhaps 1 to 3 years and then in some very unfortunate individuals their brains neuroplastic abilities are so weak that they don’t fully regenerate.
 
In Summary
Recovery from benzo’s is a natural healing process, how long it takes depends upon how severely your GABA synapses have been desensitised by the benzo drugs in the 1^st place, then it depends on how good or bad the neuroplastic abilities of your brain are on the one hand versus the strength of the opposing damaging factors such as hidden neuroinflammation. We can change these things significantly in a positive direction to speed up neuroplastic recovery from benzo’s and other drugs.
 
Another misunderstanding I’ve seen in forums is that any substance with GABA boosting effect including natural remedies like theanine, valerian or passionflower attaches to the GABA receptor sites in the same way that benzo drugs do and can cause desensitisation
 
Another misunderstanding I’ve seen in forums is that natural remedies with GABAergic effects including remedies like theanine, valerian or passionflower must attach to the GABA receptor sites and cause desensitisation of the synapses in the same way the benzodiazepine drugs can do. If this is a concern you have and want to read more about it click here Are Natural Remedies Safe Benzodiazepine Withdrawal?
 
If you are suffering from prolonged with benzo withdrawal and want to read more about my treatment methods to both ease and speed up the process click here: Benzo Withdrawal Treatment with Natural Remedies