← Dr. Trish Leigh Podcast
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Hey, welcome back for another episode of Desire rewire with me, Dr. Trish Lee. I'm trying out the new podcast title. How are you feeling about it? At the end of the last podcast, I asked you how you would feel about if I change the name from Porn Brain Rewire to Desire Rewire. The tagline will be better brain, better sex, better life. It's more difficult than ever to use the P word. So if you have a thought on that, please drop it in the comments because I want to reach as many people as possible. Because if you know me, you know I'm on a mission to help people leave explicit matter behind, heal their brain, their body, their identity so that they can get on purpose and ultimately find and keep a relationship that feeds their soul. So that's what the rebrand possibly is about. So let me know what you think about that. If you're up for emailing, please email info. Dr. Trish Leigh, we'd love to hear your thoughts now. Today, what we are talking about is the truth about porn induced erectile dysfunction. I know that there's a lot of difficulty understanding what it is and what it isn't. Many people are suffering in silence because of sexual arousal dysfunction. Sad on the continuum, but we're going to encapsulate it in pied, porn induced erectile dysfunction, which we know from scientific studies of late that more young people are suffering from erectile dysfunction than ever before. This also includes middle age and older people, but historically speaking, that group's been identified as they get older that there's more struggle in sexual arousal dysfunction. I would contend that porn was never considered for those older people. So it may still be porn induced erectile dysfunction. But let's break it down. Let's talk about what's happening when it comes to porn induced erectile dysfunction. Pied, I'm going to call it PI sad as you can imagine. Let's talk about what's happening in your brain, what's happening in your experience, and why it's happening and what you can do about it. I know that's a tall order for one short episode of Desire Rewire, but hopefully we'll be able to, you know, break it down and dive into that. So the primary aspect of PISAD is that you are able to get and maintain or sustain an erection when you're consuming pornography and masturbating, or, or if you're having a sexual experience that is considered to be, in my world, hypersexual. Hypersexual means the thing that you're doing is Producing super normal or very high levels of dopamine in your system. So hypersexual experiences can be casual sex, hookups, dating apps. It can even be objectifying your partner and having your partner do things to you. And for you to get the most amount of dopamine flowing in your brain and system, that's what I like to call the three ring circus. So you get the three ring circus going. And the goal is the highest amount of pleasure from the most amount of dopamine, from the acts and scenarios that do it for you the most. So if you're following me on this logic, when it comes to hypersexuality, the goal is the highest amount of pleasure that you can possibly get. Now, I know what you're thinking, Tris, of course that's the goal. But I will encourage you to stay with me and think about maybe there's another goal for your sex life, maybe it's not just the highest amount of pleasure. So we'll revisit that as we keep going. But what happens is, if you're doing that in your sex life, or especially if you're going to porn and masturbating, what happens is you are giving your brain a level 15amount of dopamine, a dopamine flood that literally bathes the dopamine receptors, receptors in the midbrain, in the reward center. Phase them, steeps them in dopamine. That's why you feel numbed out. That's why you feel the highest amount of pleasure. That's the dopamine drowning, as I call it. But you don't want to drown out your dopamine receptors. You want to give them a little bit of stimulation so that you can feel good for a time. You don't want to drown them so that then you're so numbed out you're in a dopamine deficit. Eventually, this is what happens. You flood your system, but then the flood dries up and you're operating in two extremes, what I call the pendulum effect. You're either drowned out in dopamine or you're in a dopamine deficit. And the way that it works is you're drowned out with dopamine when you're in the screen consuming explicit matter, then the flood dries up and you go back to your actual life. You go back to your work, you go back to your partner, you go back to your hobbies that are probably non existent. And the reason that these are no longer pleasurable is because there's not enough dopamine there. And you're actually in a deficit state, which means now those things become stressors. Going back to the scientific studies, there's one study from 2016 that shows that people who consume pornography have higher levels of porn induced erectile dysfunction. Pisad pied. And they also have less satisfaction in their sexual relationship. So they're not able to become aroused because they are not allowing themselves to build arousal in their real life through the healthy mechanisms in the brain as it pertains to dopamine. So if you remember nothing else about this is that when you consume explicit matter, you're flooding your brain with dopamine, ultimately putting you in a dopamine deficit back in your life, which then pushes you back to the link of hypersexuality and explicit matter to get more of that dopamine. Dopamine is the neurotransmitter of motivation, more. And pleasure. It's going to motivate you back for more, more, more, more, more insatiably from the source that you've gotten it when we're talking about these high levels. So that's what's happening. That's why you can't perform in your real life sexual experiences. Now at the same time, you're also robbing your brain of building the muscle memory of becoming aroused in a real life sexual experience. Follow my logic. So if every time you become aroused it's zero to 60 through explicit matter or the three ring circus, your brain doesn't learn how to build arousal like it would in a healthy sexual experience where you and your partner decide you're going to be together and your brain starts tingling because you know you're going to be with a real life human being woman who actually wants to be with you. Which is way better than the cardboard butterfly effect of porn, which is an unreality. It's not real. But your brain can't really discern that. And that's probably for another episode of Desire Rewire. But the idea is when you know you're going to be with a partner, your brain should be able to build arousal over a little bit of time. And then, you know, you close the bedroom door and you make sure all five of your children aren't around. You know, if you know what I'm saying, then your brain should be like, lighten up a little bit because you know you're going to have the opportunity to feel real world pleasure with your partner. Now to double back to the goal is not the most amount of dopamine as humanly possible. The goal is what's Called the happiness trifecta. So it's about getting healthy amounts of dopamine, which allows you to feel pleasure. You also want to have healthy amounts of serotonin, which allows you to feel joy and happiness too. We'll think about this in a second. And healthy amounts of oxytocin for connection. Happiness trifecta. We want to swap out the goal for you to leave behind hypersexuality and hyper pleasure. And now the goal is the happiness trifecta. It's longer lasting, it's sustainable. We know this about serotonin and oxytocin. You feel connected to your partner. Pleasure's coming from your real life, not from a distorted reality unreality, not from people you will never be with. So the idea is now your brain's linked to a person who wants to be with you, and you can be with again in three to five days, probably, if your life's anything like mine. So this is the goal. Let's reset those pleasure pathways back to a human partner. Now, I know if you're saying I don't have a partner, you may never find one. If your brain is linked to explicit matter. This is how dopamine works. You've linked your brain to it, so it's where it wants to go for pleasure. Which means when you go into the world and you have to work to meet someone and build a relationship and build arousal, that is delayed gratification. It's executive function, planning, organizing, building intimacy, having that intimacy increase in multiple ways, finally to a sexual experience. That's the polar opposite of the instant gratification of the dopamine flood from explicit matter. That's why the goal has to change. It has to change from instant gratification 0 to 60. Pleasure at unhealthy levels. That is literally damaging the reward center in your brain, Shifting that goal to the new goal of lower levels of pleasure that are combined with happiness and connection, with delayed gratification. And it's sustainable. That's what makes an amazing life and an amazing sex life. But I am off target now. So let's get back on target of what's going on. How does this happen? So what I've already told you is all about the dopamine. But we have to consider neuroplasticity. So if you remember, neuroplasticity can be your best friend or it can be your worst enemy, depending upon how you use it. So you've probably heard about neuroplasticity before, but what you might not have considered is it's actually A neutral concept. We think of neuroplasticity as a really powerful, wonderful concept. It's actually neutral, depending upon how you use it. It's like your car. Your car can be the greatest thing that you have. It gets you from place to place. Or if you speed and you crash, it can be the most dangerous tool that you have. It's actually a neutral thing, depending upon how you use it. And I will tell you, I just got a new car, another Tesla. I never thought I would like Teslas, but I got a Tesla X, which I have affectionately named Excalibur. He's kind of the color of. You know how I used to have graphite Beauty. My old car, it's kind of the same color, but it looks like Excalibur, the color of the sword. So Excalibur, he's neutral, even though I do love him. But if I use him well, he's going to serve me. If I don't use him well, he is not going to serve me. This is how neuroplasticity works also. So this is what you have to remember. Neuroplasticity is built on something called Hebb's Law. H E B B. Heb's law. Hebb's law says neurons that fire together wire together. Neurons that fire together wire together. So this is why I say you've linked your brain to explicit matter in the screen. Because those neurons have been firing and wiring together, you know, multiple times a week or multiple times a day for years or decades. That's a lot of firing and wiring together. So we need to unwire that brain pattern linked to explicit matter. Now, thankfully, neuroplasticity also includes something called anti Hebbian learning theory. This means when we no longer fire and wire together, then those neural pathways can die off. And at the same time, we're going to fire and wire together back into pleasure in your life. So what that means is, yes, you have to stay away from explicit matter and mast. Masturbation. You don't want to be in a relationship with a screen in your hand, do you? No. And I don't want that for you either. What I want for you to do is reset those pleasure pathways back into your life either back into the honey that you probably lost sight of. How amazing it is to be with her or him. Because that's what porn does to your brain. We know it. And my new book will be coming out on March 18th. Mind over explicit matter. There's chapters in there on how scientifically this happens. There's less Relationship satisfaction. You're less satisfied with your own body and your partner's body. You know, everything starts to disintegrate because there's no dopamine in your life. It's all in the screen. So in this pleasure pathway reset, you will have new eyes for your partner. Or you will have the newfound ability to go into the world and create relationships, whether they just be friendships or with healthy intimacy, or finding that one person who can become a life partner and a sex partner to you. So we're going to use anti Hebbian learning theory, capitalizing on the power of Excalibur, of neuroplasticity, to stay out of porn and explicit matter, unwiring that pattern. Then we're going to capitalize on Hebb's law. We're gonna wire and fire back into your life, resetting the pleasure pathways in your brain and the pathways back into your life. So powerful. Let's do this thing. So you have to remember that neuroplasticity and conditioning is another key component. The neurological dysregulation that happens from porn is at the core. It's the crack in the foundation. It is the crack that happens under the ocean in the tsunami of explicit matter. Again, you can read about that in my book, but we know neurological dysfunction, dysfunction in the brain is the root problem, and we're going to talk about that in a minute. But also the conditioning then reinforces that brain pattern, that unhealthy neurological pattern in your brain. Neuroplasticity. Let's make it your best friend, and let's use these pathways healthy in a healthy way. Now, why do you have to give up porn altogether? Because unfortunately, there's a transcription factor called delta phos B that's kind of like the cement on the neural pathways you've been using. We know this from studies that when compulsion and addiction set in, when you've traversed those pathways so many times back to explicit matter, they kind of get a little bit of cement, or sometimes a lot of bit of cement concrete on them. So then what happens is you have to not go down those pathways ever again. Because if you do, basically you go over them one time, the concrete shows through the weeds again and you will be back in full effect. That's why a slip becomes a full relapse, becomes a binge, which becomes a bender, and you're flooding your brain again. So not consuming porn is much easier than thinking you can consume it a little. It's off the plate. Neuroplasticity, let's make it your Best friend. Now, we've also talked about that all leads to dopamine desensitization in the reward center and the reward pathways in your brain. So we are no longer desensitizing. That's why I can't go back to explicit matter. Not even in social media, sexual media, not dating apps, nothing. Because we don't want you to desensitize your brain anymore. We're all about resensitizing. And I'm going to share with you a couple ways you can resensitize in just a minute. We also know that over time, escalation and tolerance building happen. So as your brain gets used to very high levels of dopamine, those levels no longer do it for your brain. Your brain needs more and more the insatiability of dopamine. So what this leads to is tolerance building, which then leads to escalation. And if you've had this experience, I want you to know this is an escalation behavior. You see something pop up and you feel the excitement of clicking a link because you want to know what it holds. What it holds is more dopamine. And that can be more violence, that can be illegal content, which more and more people than ever are clicking on links that are illegal and getting themselves into legal trouble. And it's because there's so much dopamine flowing in the brain, something called the narcissistic bubble, that you lose sight of the consequences. The instant gratification from what could possibly be on the other side of that link is the most important thing for you. So just know it's an escalation behavior to get more dopamine. It means your brain is out of control. And you know how I feel about this. I want you to control your brain, not it control you. You're clicking on a link for more dopamine. It's controlling you, my friend. Escalation, intolerance building. Now, this also will come into play. We've got desensitization, we've got neuroplasticity, we've got tolerance, we've got escalation. Then what happens is this all leads to that reinforcing of the dysfunctional brain pattern at the core, the crack. But unfortunately, what happens there too is now it's going to contribute to performance anxiety. And then, of course, not being able to perform increases those mental health and psychological factors at play. So it goes something like this. You're going to be with your partner. You might even be using ED meds. And those pills may not even work for you if they don't work for you, it's because there's very high level of desensitization in the brain. For ED pills to work, there has to be a certain amount of sensitization of the dopamine receptors in your brain. So if they are so desensitized, the meds won't even work for you. So now you feel stressed out, you feel anxious, you want to be with your partner, and of course your partner hopefully wants to be with you. And you're not sure if you're going to be able to do it or not. What this does is it increases the wired pattern in your brain especially and the tired, the pendulum effect brain that I call strain brain, a stressed out brain that's completely overwhelmed. It's the opposite of healthy baseline arousal. Healthy baseline arousals in the middle at level five, just feeling calm and alert. So if you feel calm and alert, you're in healthy baseline arousal. You feel stressed, you feel fatigued, you can't concentrate, you can't focus, you have ed, you're very much in the extreme of far, far away from healthy baseline arousal. So that leads to performance anxiety. We know these neurological dysregulated patterns. They are at the core of depression, lack of motivation, anxiety, adhd, focus issues, brain fog, dementia, the list goes on and on. There's a long list of dysregulated brain patterns, all of which I can see on a QEEG brain map. So if you want to know if your brain has the trauma pattern or adhd, ed, sexual arousal dysfunction that can all be visualized on a QEEG brain map, that's the first step that me and my team offer to be able to help you. If you struggle with ed, you can see it in your brain. I want you to know that you can see how it's driving your symptoms. It's incredibly powerful. And it also allows you to know this isn't in your head. And this is my point about the psychological factors. It's not in your head. It's a neurological problem with a neurological solution. So let's get to solution. Okay, what's the solution? Now? From my standpoint, it's neurofeedback. And I will tell you I am a neurofeedback provider, but I didn't start as a neurofeedback provider. If you know about my education and kind of the development of my life professionally, you will know I actually had a bunch of professions before becoming a full time neurofeedback provider. And I'll tell you why. That happened. It happened because I was using more traditional methods. And I'm like, there has to be something more powerful than this to help people. And I continue to get to degrees that's for a different show that has to do with my identity and my need to be validated through education. But what I learned was we can use neuroscience and advanced technology to help people as quickly as possible. That's what neurofeedback does. What it does is after we identify the dysregulation in your brain, neurofeedback is like stitches. We can see the arousal gap and then we can close it using neurofeedback. Basically what it does is it takes where your brain is and it is a workout for your brain. It teaches your brain to use more of healthy baseline arousal and to use less of the wired and tired brain pattern. So what also can happen is if you've struggled with strain brain for so long, strain brains, gassing and breaking in the brain. I call it strain brain because it creates a lot of tension in the system. A brain wasn't designed to stay in that pattern long term at all. So what can happen for many people is their brain tips into what I call drain brain. Drain brain means now you're stuck in artificial neutral. This essentially creates semi permanent sexual arousal dysfunction. And ed, I say semi permanent because it feels permanent to you, but it's not permanent. We can use Hebb's law, we can use anti Hebbian learning theory, we can use neuroplasticity as your best friend through neurofeedback. It does it for you. This is the power of neurofeedback. It will close that arousal gap and you never have to think about it. But of course I want you to think about it. So we include coaching, cognitive behavioral therapy strategies, helping you to make lifestyle changes, helping you to stay away from the desensitization of explicit matter, helping you to be able to stay the course of the pleasure pathway reset. Now, lifestyle changes are imperative. Neurofeedback and coaching is a number one defense. Abstinence from pornography and explicit matter, absolutely imperative. And at the same time, we want you to gradually recondition and set those pleasure pathways back into your life. And having a support group to be able to hold you accountable and to be able to support you in this journey can be imperative. All of these pieces are in the program that I offer. So if you're looking for help, please go over to Dr. Trishleigh.com I want you to know this situation. Semi permanent porn addiction semi permanent. You do not have to stay in it. Porn induced sexual arousal dysfunction or ed semi permanent, you do not have to struggle with it in silence long term. I got you. I do. You can look on Google. You can look at my Google reviews. For me and my team, it's not me alone these days. I have a beautiful team of brain health and sex addiction recovery professionals who we work together to help people succeed at this journey as quickly as possible. There's five star reviews from people who have succeeded using neurofeedback, coaching, lifestyle changes, support groups, the whole shebang. So please go over to drtrishleigh.com and I want you to know you have to control your brain or it will control you. But it doesn't have to. All right, hope to see you over there. Until next time on Desire Rewire or whatever we decide on, I really thank you for helping to contribute to the name change. I'm on a mission. I want to reach as many people as possible. All right, I'll see you next time.