← Dr. Trish Leigh Podcast
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Hey, welcome back to the podcast with me, your hostess with the mostess, Dr. Trish Leigh. Today, what we're going to talk about is important. It's the science of digital. How social media is becoming your enemy while you think it's your best friend. Shall we call it your frenemy? I want to remind you that this podcast is sponsored by my nonprofit organization, Porn Brain prevention dot org. If you'd love to help me go upstream and help young people from ever getting hooked on explicit matter, that's your chance. Please go over to pornbrainprevention.org and help the cause. I match every donation. Okay, let's move on. Let's dive in. We all think social media connects us, but what if it's actually making us forget who we really are? Every scroll, every, like, every swipe isn't just passing time. It's reshaping your nervous system, training your brain to crave stimulation instead of stillness and comparison instead of contentment. This is what I call the digital envy loop, a neurochemical trap that keeps your brain chasing validation while your spirit slowly disconnects. Let's dive into the science of digital comparison. When you scroll, your brain releases a tiny hit of dopamine. But here's the catch. It's not from true joy or creation. It's from novelty and comparison. Every time you see someone's perfect life, your brain's reward circuits light up and your stress circuit activates simultaneously. It's a double hit. Pleasure and pain intertwined. I've seen this pattern a thousand times on QEG brain maps. The social media brain lights up in high beta red chaos, showing anxiety, hypervigilance, and overstimulation. The very tool meant to connect you leaves your nervous system fragmented. It's like eating sugar when your body really needs real food nourishment. You feel full for a second, but you're starving on the inside. Okay, so of course I know this loop too well. Every time I open social media, even now, after decades of studying the brain, something inside me starts to whisper. You're not enough. It's quiet at first, but almost imperceptible. But as I scroll, it grows louder. This is why I don't really scroll, just so you know. Because every time I do it, I feel this. I see someone celebrating a book launch, a friend with a perfect home renovation, a colleague with hundreds of thousands of views. And before I can catch it, my whole nervous system shifts. I'm aware it's not good for me. I try to stay away from this. My Chest tightens my. My breath shallows. There's a subtle ache behind my sternum, like a hollow space where my worth used to live. My thoughts start racing. You should be doing more. You should look like that. You should be there by now. And the irony is, I teach this stuff. I know what's happening. But even knowing doesn't always stop this pain pleasure surge that I'm talking about. That's when I realized this isn't a thought problem. This, my friend, is an arousal problem. It's. We need to look at it this way. When people think of arousal, they usually think of sexual arousal. But arousal simply means activation. It's how your brain and body prepare for engagement, to move forward towards what feels rewarding. When you consume explicit matter, the brain's sexual arousal system is totally hijacked. It's overstimulated by novelty, by fantasy, by dopamine surges that ultimately leave real intimacy feeling dull. When we consume social media, it's the same circuitry, only now, instead of sexual arousal being hijacked, it's emotional arousal that is being so. So. It's not naked bodies this time. It's curated lifestyles or fomo. Fear of missing out. So it might not be sexual fantasy, but it's fantasy of success, or whatever you're looking at in terms of comparison. Both tap the same neural pathways that crave novelty, validation, and approval. They both feed the same dopamine loops that trick the brain into thinking it's connecting, when really it's comparing. Your nervous system doesn't know the difference between scrolling through bodies or scrolling through achievements. To your brain, it's all stimulation. The same flood of dopamine followed by the same crash of shame. That's why after 20 minutes online, you don't feel connected. You. You feel less than because your reward circuitry has been lit up and drained. Just like with explicit matter, your system is overstimulated. Your sense of self worth is undernourished. And I want to be honest with you, there have been times I've closed social media feeling like I needed to achieve more, to post something better, to look more perfect. But that was the moment I started to see the pattern. This isn't weakness. It's not weakness in me. It's not weakness in you. It's a brain hijack. A nervous system trained to seek worth through performance instead of through presence. Once you can see this clearly, you begin to understand you were never broken. It's just that your brain was bent, baited. Okay, so now I'm trying to Talk about not only explicit matter, but digital overstimulation through a lens that I'm calling sacred neuroscience. Because I want you to think about it more than just brain function. It's how brain function connects to your divinely inspired purpose. How scrolling is taking you away from it. St. Augustine once wrote, our hearts are restless until they rest in the. In divinely inspired purpose. That restlessness, that's the hijack, my friend. The nervous system stuck in a perpetual scroll. Never landing, never resting, always seeking, always searching, looking for the next hit of artificial meaning from the outside world. But guess what? It's not there. The sacred neuroscience lens invites you to rewire your brain from the seeking and the searching to the being on the inside. From scrolling for validation to settling into your sacred worth. You have seen such worth from the inside out. There's only one you. That is what you should anchor into. How are you going to rewire this? Well, if you want to take your power back from the algorithm, you're going to need a beginning place. You're going to need a starting position. So let's start with these three super normal strategies. Number one, before you scroll, pause, notice your body. Is it grounded or is it grasping? This single pause reclaims your agency. Then number two, rebuild real reward. Create something. Write, paint, walk, connect in person. True dopamine is earned through creation, not consumption. Number three, reclaim sacred stillness. Your brain can't access peace while it's completely overstimulated. Stillness, my friend, is your superpower. It's how you rise above the hijack and you return to that QEEG brain map of the Green Zone of clarity. Okay, so, in closing, I want you to know that the algorithm is what profits from your restlessness, but it is your spirit, your true self, that authentic, higher self version of you that profits from your peace. You can't find enoughness in the feed because you were never meant to. When you step out of the comparison loop and back into sacred order, that's when you truly become super normal. Okay, stay tuned for the next episode. The supernormal rewire, the dopamine detox that restores your worth. Coming up next week. And as always, please remember to control your brain, or it will control you. I'll see you next time.