What Porn Does To Your Brain (& What To Do About It)—How To Use Proven Science To QUIT Porn For Good, With Dr. Trish Leigh.

My name is Ben Greenfield, and on this episode of the Boundless Life Podcast, the brain is not meant to be flooded with high levels of dopamine.

Almost every man I meet these days is on testosterone replacement therapy and they watch porn, and they're never making the connection between the depletion. Testosterone is first made in the brain before it's made in the sex organs. So this cascading effect of how it affects basically all biological processes. Then at the same time, it affects mental health. It increases anxiety, depression, something I call porn-induced ADHD. Many people these days go and get an adult ADHD diagnosis without ever thinking that ADHD is a neurodevelopmental disorder. You had to have had it when you were a kid. But it's because porn does the same thing to the frontal lobe it's proven scientifically to decrease function and actually shrink the structure also, which then also leads to porn-induced erectile dysfunction. That's the wake-up call for most people— sexual arousal dysfunction, which I call SAD.

Welcome to The Boundless Life with me, your host, Ben Greenfield. I'm a personal trainer, exercise physiologist, and nutritionist, and I'm passionate about helping you discover unparalleled levels of health, fitness, longevity, and beyond. Ben Greenfield: Well, as I was just speaking with my podcast guest today before we started recording, sometimes books show up at my house randomly. In this case, she sent it to me and they're books that I might not have otherwise grabbed off a shelf and I read them. And, right off the bat, I think, "Gosh, you guys need to know about the content of these books, in particular this book, "Mind Over Explicit Matter." I'm holding it up for those of you who are watching the video. And, the shownotes are all going to be at BenGreenfieldLife.com/MindOverMatter. Here's the subtitle to give you a little bit of a clue of what I'm going to get into with today's guest. The subtitle is "Quit Porn and Improve Intimacy Through Neuroscience." And, it's so interesting because I was in the gym today and I was listening to a popular fitness podcast. They were interviewing someone about relationships and that person was talking about some kind of new AI technology that— pardon the explicit nature of what I'm about to explain, but essentially it was some kind of a sex toy that allows men to sync the sex toy to to an AI digital girlfriend on the computer so they can essentially be having sex in real time with this sex toy that's plugged into their computer. And I thought, "Gosh, tech has come a long ways from back in the day when you had to wait 5 minutes on a 28.8K modem for a photo, a dirty photo that you wanted to see to pull up." And now, obviously, unless you've been hiding under a rock, you know this is an issue. So anyways, my guest is Dr. Trish Leigh. Trish is a cognitive neuroscientist. She's an addiction recovery expert, and she studies the actual neuroscience behind these things, which I think is important because sometimes I think we neglect to take into account the impact on neurotransmitters, on hormones. And sometimes the focus is just on, oh, this is dirty, this is bad, this is wrong, but there's some underlying biological mechanisms Behind Porn that I really want to get into today. So, Trish, welcome to the show.

Yeah, thanks. Glad to be here.

Yeah. Thanks for sending me this book. Yeah, yeah, you're welcome. I have lots of pages folded over in it as you can see. And, whenever I interview an author, I don't want to create a podcast that causes people to not read the book because you guys should read this. I like to take a deeper dive into some of the things that that I found quite interesting in the book. And, you often see books about porn written by counselors or pastors or maybe former porn addicts, but you're a neuroscientist. So, what got you interested in this?

The same thing that gets all those people interested is that a personal friend of mine and a client, I tell the story in the book, was really struggling, and I didn't know that porn was at the core of it. And even when I found out porn was at the core of it, I still was slightly perplexed because I knew all about the brain and how it functions and how it impacts behaviors and how it impacts mental health. But when I realized— it's just my nature too, I'm probably similar to you— the minute something comes on my radar like that, and especially seeing it impact someone I care about, I, I, the way I think about it is I was kind of perfectly set up. All I need to know was a little more. I already knew everything. And when I applied it to porn, it just blew my mind. And then I felt like I had the world a secret. The whole world didn't know. So I made one YouTube video, like, just saying, don't watch porn, it does this to your brain. And it, you know, had a viral impact. And from there, I doubled down.

Yeah, it kind of reminds me, have you ever seen that website, um, yourbrainonporn.com, I think it is?

Yeah, yeah, thoroughly. Yeah, Gary Wilson, he was kind of the, um, you know, the forefather in all of this, bringing attention to porn as an issue. But what he didn't do was present the solution. You know, he's like, porn's really bad for you. And in his book, Your Brain on Porn, you know, he substantiated. But then on the website, he does go into, you know, what you can do to help yourself.

Yeah. And, I know there's obviously a porn epidemic right now. I mean, it's everyone's beck and call, but you described the porn addiction epidemic. So, how bad is that exactly? What is the porn addiction epidemic?

Yeah. It's the same thing that you're thinking, you just don't realize it's porn addiction. You think it's a porn use or consumption, but I know that Many, I would say most, I actually would probably reach out to say all the people who consume porn regularly are either actually full-blown addicted in the current moment, or they're moving towards that. And in the book, I describe it that use becomes misuse becomes abuse becomes compulsion. So the compulsion is a person has to go back, that it's not a choice anymore. And we know with porn use that the seeds of addiction are basically planted in childhood, adolescence, And, like you said it, now everybody has a phone in their pocket. So, this generation of young people, digital natives as they call them, who are the first generation to have porn in their pocket, we see a stark increase in addiction.

Ben Greenfield: I heard, and I don't know if this is true, you might know this, that many young people who become addicted to porn first experience it accidentally, like it gets served up via an ad or a pop-up or something like that. Is that the case?

It is the case that exposure is typically not on purpose. Yes. I mean, just think about it. I mean, think of the things that you'll search. And, you know, it might not be full-blown porn, but it's, you know, explicit in nature. The thing I really like about— I actually named the book Mind Over Porn, and the publishing company had me change it to Explicit Matter. And I was a little I was more than a little— I did not want to change from porn to explicit matter because I'm like, we're watering down the subject. But then I really grew to like that because my point being is it covers, you know, all matters of it in terms of social media. So think about kids now. You know, I am the mom of 5 kids. My youngest is 14. My oldest is 22. They're all subjected to hypersexuality on social media. So it's running rampant. And yeah, so now everything's hypersexualized.

What do you mean when you say hypersexualized?

I mean that kids go onto social media. I mean, if you knew the research behind this, it would— it's staggering how many kids share nudes with each other. Girls are sharing nudes, you know. Men are— young men, boys are asking girls to share explicit matter with them. And, they're looking at each other's feeds just for the dopamine hits that come along with looking at the images of girls that aren't wearing a lot of clothing and men are consuming that primarily right now.

Ben Greenfield: How bad is the OnlyFans part of this where you can— and I mean, I sound like a total Luddite here, I've never actually been to an OnlyFans. I don't even know if it's a website. I don't even know how it works. I'm that much of a Luddite. But explain to me how, how that's feeding into this.

It is. Someone said it to me the other day that, you know, when you go on a porn site, you know what you're getting. OnlyFans is, you know, pretending it's kind of like porn with a dress on it. You have to like look harder to realize that, you know, very much of the same thing is happening there. But the easiest way to think about it from, from a scientific and a neuroscience perspective is that All explicit matter exists on a continuum of supernormal stimuli. Porn proper, and which tends to be very violent, it tends to have acts and scenarios that you can't find on lower-level supernormal stimuli. It's at the top, but then OnlyFans is just one notch down.

Okay. Yeah, I mean, the way I think about this is sometimes through an ancestral or what some might call an evolutionary lens. I think, well, kings and queens of old who were the wealthiest people with the most access to, let's say, a high number of sexual partners had nowhere near the ability to be able to view image after image or be in a situation where you're subjected to that much sexual activity all at once. And yet, We just less than 100 years later are in a scenario where our brains can be bombarded by this. And, it's kind of like our current access to hyperpalatable foods, 24/7 at our beck and call. We simply haven't even developed the— we have these built-in calorie conservation mechanisms that kind of freak out when we begin to consume that much food. And, it kind of seems like porn is a little bit similar. But, what What exactly are, and I realize it's kind of a big question, but what are the damaging effects of that amount of neural stimuli of something that the human brain doesn't even seem to be conditioned for?

Yeah. And, I love that perspective because I thought the exact same thing. Thinking about it from an evolutionary sense, back in the day, who could get this level of stimulation? I thought that myself that it was only people with harems.

Right, freaking King Solomon with his, what, 700 concubines or whatever.

Exactly. That's what I thought. And it wasn't even at the level because, you know, he, you know, there's just— yes, I think about it the same way you did, you do. But, you know, the idea is that the brain is not meant to be flooded with high levels of dopamine. And especially many people that I work with, at least, they engage in something called edging, which means they keep going back for more and more and more dopamine. So they consistently flood their brain with high levels of dopamine, and it desensitizes the dopamine receptors in the reward center. And that causes— it changes the way that the brain uses electrical energy, which is what I primarily focus on. And then it does change the way that neurotransmitters cascade, hormones cascade. And, you know, men, almost every man I meet these days is on testosterone replacement therapy. And they watch porn, and they're never making the connection between the depletion. Testosterone is first made in the brain before it's made in the sex organs. So this cascading effect of how it affects basically all biological processes, then at the same time it affects mental health. It increases anxiety, depression, um, something I call porn-induced ADHD. Many people these days go and get an adult ADHD diagnosis without ever thinking that ADHD is a neurodevelopmental disorder. You had to have had it when you were a kid. But it's because porn does the same thing to the frontal lobe. It's proven scientifically to decrease function and actually shrink the structure also, which then also leads to porn-induced erectile dysfunction. That's the wake-up call for most people— sexual arousal dysfunction, which I call SAD.

Ben Greenfield: Wow. Okay. I want to double-click on a few of these things. Let's rewind back to the testosterone piece. I haven't heard this before. So, explain to me what you were just saying in a little bit more detail about the link between porn use and decreased testosterone. And, by the way, I ask this because some people might think, well, you're looking at— let's say you're a man looking at a naked woman, you'd think biologically that would cause a massive surge in testosterone.

Well, it is spiking testosterone in the moment, and the same thing with dopamine. But, you know, I call them all easy button behaviors, and you're likening it to food is very similar. Porn has been very much, uh, you know, kind of put on a parallel of junk food. So if you're hitting that easy button to get extra testosterone, you're depleting the system. It leads to overall depletion, and it works this way. Is the way I think about it, and I talk about it with dopamine, is when you start to get a drip of it, that's extra dopamine. And the same thing might apply, and I've looked at the science, it does apply to testosterone. Then you flood your system with it, and that's why people feel numbed out after they've consumed pornography. They feel numb, dissociated, extra calm. That's a flood, a drowning of dopamine. But now you go back into your life and you're in a deficit state. That's the depletion. Because when you put yourself in a position where you're making your brain produce extra of what's not supposed to be produced at those high levels, especially frequently and consistently, and some people linger there for a really long time, now you really create deficit and depletion.

So the way I understand from what you're saying about the dopamine is if I'm viewing porn, and this would apply whether I'm a man or a woman because I know a great percentage of women now view porn.

Yeah, there's an increase for sure.

Yeah. So, I'm getting a surge in dopamine and then are you saying there's a subsequent drop in dopamine that would then drive me to engage in other reward-seeking behaviors and experience ADHD-like tendencies?

Yeah, that's exactly right. So, what happens is once you flooded your system, then when you— so basically with continued consumption, the brain is becoming conditioned to feel okay, not even good, okay, when it has high levels of dopamine in the system. So then when you go back into your work and your hobbies and your relationships where dopamine actually should be, Now there's not as much there. And the way I characterize it is that you're conditioning your brain to need level 15 or level 20 dopamine, which then does affect testosterone. So now you go back into your life, work should be dopamine producing. You should enjoy your work. A lot of people can't focus because now their frontal lobes are not functioning. So this is why a lot of people feel discontented in their life. So just to double down on the science for a minute, everything I'm telling you is proven by science. This isn't my, my opinion, is that people have difficulty with focus and productivity. They have decreased relationship satisfaction. They have decreased body image. They see their partners as less attractive. People stop engaging in their hobbies and they just keep going back for the high levels of dopamine. Then, of course, That is a tolerance-building behavior that leads to escalation, which leads that person to, you know, click buttons that have more violent, you know, scenarios in it, and they— and it goes up from there.

You need a higher level of stimulation. Has anybody ever done brain scans on people who, say, view porn frequently versus those who do not?

Yeah, that's a great question. There are studies with there's two primary studies that looked at the brain scans that prove that, that function and structure had changed due to porn consumption. Um, one of them, the author is usually, uh, quoted as saying that porn creates underdeveloped brains, which is true, but I think it has a level of hyperbole to it, you know. But I can explain that one to you in a second. But the very cool thing is that I'm in the midst of doing a study that has already shown significant results with almost 400 brains. So I myself have seen this effect in, you know, probably about 1,000 brains. I've seen it in myself, and I'm in the midst of doing the study to, to prove it and to prove the correlation to erectile dysfunction too.

What do you mean about the underdeveloped brain part?

What I focus on is EEG, electrical energy in the brain. So What happens in the brain is that— and I love this stuff. I think once you know about it, it's logical— is that when you— when babies are born, you know, they sleep all the time. That's because their brains are using extra slow speed. Developmentally, that's what's supposed to happen. Then as they grow a little bit older into toddlerhood, then their brains are still using slow speed. They still sleep a lot. Developmentally, your brain is supposed to speed up to the speed of calm focus. So if porn is introduced into the system, it keeps the brain in those slower patterns. Those slower patterns are actually what is at the core of ADHD. So essentially, brains develop until the age of 28, but when a person finds porn at 10, 11, that's Actually, the average age is down to under 10. Now, their brains get stunted in this slower speed. And, you know what happens then? It requires more stimulation.

Ben Greenfield: That is super interesting. I saw an interview with an OnlyFans— I don't know what you would call a model or star or whatever named Lily Phillips. She apparently slept with 100 guys in 24 hours or something like that. She said in this interview that she started watching porn, I think, when she was 11.

Yeah. So, you know, this is the hypersexualized brain. So the brain gets linked to sexuality, and it, it craves it. That's the way that it gets dopamine. And it becomes a maladaptive behavior. There's so many things at play here. That's why people don't understand, because there really are a lot of working parts. So in the stages of development, psychosocial stages of development that you know, are long known. We move through these stages to become more emotionally mature. But if you find porn and it becomes the thing that you use to soothe and stimulate, then something difficult comes along, and instead of being able to emotionally regulate yourself, now you turn to porn to feel better. You know, you're escaping those challenging things in life. And so we know that people's identity changes because of porn use. And, I know that's a big concept to throw out there, but it's true. This maladaptive behavior makes it so that their emotional maturity doesn't develop like it would have without porn.

Ben Greenfield: Okay. So, the erectile dysfunction piece, here's what I might not understand. I always thought that if you get erectile dysfunction because you've been frequently viewing porn, it is because you're no longer excited by what might be considered to be a novel or stale or boring sexual environment and you need more stimulation to actually get it up. It sounds to me like you're saying there's more to it than that. And that there's like a biological component too.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. And it's proven scientifically also. But, you know, they are linked, those two ideas, because what you're talking about is the, the behavioral nature of it. So, if you're watching porn and you're watching violent, you know, most of it's violent, and I call it the friction point. I took motorcycle lessons. A few years back. And you know, when you're hitting the throttle and it's like arousal but also like anxiety in the system, that can be really stimulating for a person. So most of the porn that people consume has that nature to it. You're watching this super high stimulus, there's multiple partners, there's a lot of working parts, most of it has, you know, violence to it. Now your partner who does not want those violent acts done with her. And because in porn, those things are done on a person, it's objectification, it's using another person for very high levels of pleasure, whether you're consuming it through the screen, or you want to do that with another person. Healthy sexuality is supposed to be about connection, it's supposed to be more rounded out dopamine, more rounded out serotonin, oxytocin for connection. So it is— now you perceive your partner as boring. But again, logically, if you weren't watching all these super hyper stimulating, overstimulating scenarios, would you think sex with your partner was boring? You know, I work with a lot of people, they're like, my wife is a 9.5, she's drop dead gorgeous, she'll do anything with me sexually, and I still can't get an erection.

And those people are porn users.

Yeah, and that's because they're using level 20 in porn. And I always joke, you know, your wife on a good day, if she is if it is her very best day, she's only a 9. You know what I mean? There's no partner that can be a 10 in terms of stimulation for your sexuality. But porn can be, you know, a 15, a 20, depending upon what you're consuming.

Yeah, yeah. And back to the boring piece, by the way, my wife and I have a ton of fun in the bedroom. She's not only a smoking 9.5, but we also have an incredible time. Nothing, nothing boring about our sex life.

That's a beautiful thing. I tell people, that's what you have to create. And some people say to me, you know, I haven't had sex with my wife in, in 10 years. I'm like, well, you need to talk with her about it. And the conversation's 9 years and 360 days too late.

Now, we've been married 23 years and it's like better.

Nice. Yeah, me too. Me too.

Same. That's awesome. Okay, so another paradox here. You'll often hear people talk about how like, masturbation can help you to sleep. And of course, a lot of times that's tied to porn use. You actually have something I've never seen before in the book. A lot of people have sleep issues and of course, a lot of people also struggle with porn. What's the link between porn and disrupted circadian rhythmicity?

It's very much linked. So, there is a type of insomnia called alpha type. And alpha, so I already told you about delta and theta, the very slowest speeds in the brain. Alpha is the medium speed for the feeling of calm.

Right. It's like 8 to 12 Hz-ish range, the alpha zone.

That's exactly it. So the cool thing about the study that I'm doing is the actual parameter that I wanted to prove, because I've seen it in almost 1,000 brains now, is that there's excessive low alpha. Low alpha is, you know, that 8 Hz, which healthy alpha, and I'm sure you know this, should be closer to 9.5, 10 Hz. So what happens in the brain is the brain is getting stuck in this 8 Hz mode. So if you flood your system with dopamine, now you are stuck in alpha. That I call drained brain. I call it drained brain. Just try to make it easy for people to understand. And I can tell you the other brain pattern I talk about too. But drained brain is you're stuck in alpha. So if you're stuck in 8 Hz, that's why you can't get stimulated. The way I talk about it is you're stuck in neutral. 8 Hz is neutral. So if your car's stuck in neutral, can you make it go 65 mph? No, you can't.

Okay, so what's that have to do with sleep?

So now when you're stuck in, in alpha in the day, then it becomes— if you're stuck in any brain speed, let's put it that way, you're not using circadian rhythms. Circadian rhythms is your brain is supposed to flow throughout these states throughout the day, and then you would become naturally tired in the evening, but people use porn and masturbation as their, as their sleep medication. So what they're doing is many people will use porn and masturbation at bedtime. So they're stuck in alpha throughout the day, but then they're increasing their alpha through masturbation before bed. But then now you're in basically like extra neutral, which means your brain can't shift between acceleration and braking. So they can't accelerate in the day for thinking, and they can't brake at night for sleep.

When you see brake, you mean like shift into, say, like theta or delta from that slow alpha?

That's exactly right. They stop shifting. So the way I talk about it is it's neuro rigidity. You're not— you're locked in these brainwave patterns. Neuroplasticity is the solution, obviously. So healthy circadian rhythm has a lot of neuroplasticity to it. You're able to, you know, you wake up in the morning and you're a little groggy, but you shift out of sleep. But then for most of the day, you can feel calm and focused. Then you get back in bed and you start to feel drowsy. It should take 20 minutes to fall asleep. If you're crashing, you're in adrenal fatigue. Adrenal fatigue comes out of another brain pattern that I call strained brain. It's using too much high beta stress, anxiety. This is the primary culprit, culprit, and too much theta, but mostly too much high beta.

Can porn cause high beta?

It does. So what it does is it causes high beta when a person hasn't flooded their brain with dopamine. So when you get stuck in neutral drain brain, it's because you're consistently hitting the easy button of porn. This is why a person has withdrawals too, because under that it's stressing the system out. It's, you know, like, it's like we already talked about, it's taking all the natural processes and distorting them. So the brain isn't working in the way that it's supposed to. It's working based upon when a person consumes porn or not.

So basically, I— there's two different scenarios that could be created if I'm using porn. One would be that sluggish alpha state of 8 Hz or so, and then the other would be the stressed-out beta state.

Yep, wired and tired.

Does it matter? Because you couldn't obviously get both at the same time, the alpha and the high beta, could you?

You can actually, but usually it's a transition state. So, strained brain, the high beta comes first. You're taxing the system and then you keep hitting the easy button. And then, after you've taxed the system but you keep getting more and more and more dopamine, Then, you flood, flood, flood, flood, then it shifts into the alpha drain brain. So, it's a transitional state from strain brain to drain brain.

Yeah, it's almost like overtraining. So, if I am really pushing in the gym, I'm getting a ton of beta brainwave sympathetic nervous system activation. And, if I do that for long enough, I eventually shift into low heart rate variability, low beta brainwaves, a more parasympathetic state because my body has just hit a wall and now it's hard to even walk into the gym and train at all.

Precisely. That's exactly it. Sympathetic dominance leads to then the draining of the system. That's exactly it.

Okay, interesting. So, here's possibly a curveball, maybe not for you because you're a neuroscientist. I've done neurofeedback before where you actually sit and look at a computer screen and it will like upregulate sluggish alpha or downregulate excessive beta. Have you ever come across the idea of using neurofeedback or something like that for porn addiction?

That's exactly what I do, Ben. I have a global neurofeedback coaching company. I have my own app, my own app, Dr. Trish Leigh, with proprietary neurofeedback. I actually work with the leading company around the world that my app is powered by. I have been practicing neurofeedback for over a decade, and I'm the— without tooting my own horn, I'm probably the lead practitioner across the world. I work with people in every country.

I never know what to think when people say neurofeedback because there's like the Muse headband and then there's like the clinical, like sticky gel electrodes that you stick all over your head. And then, there's just audio cues you listen to. So, what does the porn management version of this look like?

Sure. So, my husband and I have a practice in Chapel Hill where I live. It's called Lee Brain and Spine. There we have CAPs and gels and big giant computers and all that stuff. So, that is how I started, but then I wanted to take my show on the road so I can help more people.. And so now I have an app with an online portal which still has all the utility. I take the brain map using the Muse headband as the hardware, but the Dr. Trish Leigh app is the software. So when people work with me, I have them purchase a Muse, then they have to purchase a sensor to connect into the port. Then they're able to take their brain map in the app. Then I'm able to see that brain map on my online portal. I can see exactly the dysfunction in the brain, and then The beauty of what I have going on is that I have seen all those brains I was talking about seeing. That's EEG in my QEG brain maps in my, in my portal. So I have developed proprietary protocols. To me, the protocol is probably the most important thing. When you go to a practitioner, they have to know what they're looking at and they have to know how to set the protocols exactly for what the person needs. That's what I've learned over the last decade.

Okay. So, what's it look like? I come to you. I actually have a Muse headband. So, I've got a Muse headband. It sounds like I need an extra piece of hardware to connect that to the computer so you can see my brainwaves. And then, what am I doing? Talk to me about how long this takes. Let's say somebody's severely addicted to porn. How's it work?

Yeah, it's awesome. My program is 4 months long. So, I tell people this all the time. It doesn't have to take a lifetime to recover from porn. It does take a lifetime for many people. But if we can identify that dysfunctional brain pattern, and then if I can set the precise protocols that a person needs, and if they do the training frequently— and this is the beauty of not having to go to an office— most people I work with, they will get 2 sessions a day. You know, in the extreme cases, once I've seen it in a brain map, a person will do 3 sessions a day. Especially if they have erectile dysfunction. So like, a gentleman just wrote a 5-star review for us. 4 months later, he had been addicted to porn for a lifetime. I think he's 56 years old, and, and he also had ED for 10 years. 4 months later, no ED, no porn.

And is that just the neurofeedback, or is there anything else that they're doing?

We do coaching. I have a team of coaches too. So, um, one of my favorite stories to tell is this gentleman, his wife made him do neurofeedback with us. And in the brain map session, he's like, I'm not doing one other thing. And he's like, I'm a skeptic, I'm not doing one other thing. And I'm like, you know, I've met a skeptic or two before. You don't have to do anything, just get training. And it's like workouts. If you start working out, what's going to happen? You're going to get more fit. And once you get more fit, you're going to be like, oh my gosh, workouts work. You know, it's a brain workout. 30 days later, he comes on the meeting and he's like He's like, I literally can't believe this works. Then he's like, tell me anything you can tell me to help. So that's what we do. We add coaching to it. And the benefit of the way that I offer neurofeedback is I'm constantly looking at all the data of how a person's brain has performed. So I can see if a person has had a slip or relapse. I can actually see if they've had an urge. I can see if they've had a stress spike. So I'll say, oh, you had a stress spike. On last Tuesday, and I see a dopamine spike last Wednesday. What happened there? And then the client will go, yeah, awesome. And that's so cool. Wow. And then the client will go, I had an argument with my wife and it really stressed me out, so I watched porn. And so then I'll go, okay, tell me what happened with your wife. I'm like, you don't even have to tell me the topic. Just tell me how the interaction goes down. And then I'll give some strategies on how to improve communication and interactional style.. And then I'll also, um, give some strategies. Actually, I just talked to a client today and he was telling me something that happened in his life. And he, he said, I went to go watch porn because of this domino effect. And he's like, but because of you, I put the blockers. And he's like, I couldn't get in. And he's like, the next morning, he goes, you should have seen me that night. I was, I was like so mad at myself for putting the blockers on, but the next morning I was so glad. Isn't that wild?

That is wild. What's your favorite— what's your favorite blocking software?

Covenant Eyes. Covenant Eyes uses some advanced AI technology and it's very difficult to disable. I actually have a nice working relationship with a few others, but they're pretty easy to disable. And in those moments where somebody just, you know, needs it not to be able to be disabled, Covenant Eyes actually takes screenshots, it blurs it out, and it will send the screenshots to the person's accountability partner. And what neuroscience shows— back to some science on that— is that the greater the loss, the more a person will be able to regulate themselves. So if they know that their brother is going to get these images, if their brother's their accountability partner, that really helps them to exercise more self-control and self-regulation.

Does it work with apps? Because obviously browsers are pretty straightforward, but a lot of people are kind of like going down the slippery slope on like whatever, Instagram or TikTok or something like that.

It does work on app-based. It's on their phone, so it does work on app-based. But, you know, when I work with people, usually they choose a social media fast. And what we have them do is clean up their feeds before they, they take a step back from social media. Most people who have a very hypersexualized brain, they really can't be on social media until it's real clean and their brain has changed.

Related to that, how do you address that almost like the slippery slope thing, right? Because I'm not a porn user, but I do use social media. And, anytime I log into Instagram and you press that little magnifying glass button, It seems like it just knows I'm a 43-year-old testosterone-infused male. And, there's a lot of things that aren't porn on there but that could easily lead you down the slope, arouse you, cause you to want to look at more stuff. Yeah. How do you address that in an era in which this stuff is so prevalent in everybody's back pocket?

Yeah. Well, that goes back to my comment about children and young people is that I think it's the first time in history where you really have to be a top 1% person. I know it's always been advantageous to be a top 10%, top 1%, but what I mean by that is you have to choose differently. You have to choose to live your life differently, not be on social media all the time. And to really, you know, what happens for me on my social media is none of that is there because, uh, actually my son put it this way. I thought it was a really cool— he's 18 years old, and I said, dude, I have this really really cool trailer that I put out for my book, you know, watch it. And he's like, no way, man. He goes, I have my feed so well curated, there's no way I'm having that stuff show up in my feed. Because if he watches my trailer on porn addiction recovery, he likely will be served, you know, more porn-related stuff. I thought it was really cute because he's, he's like an old-school kid too. He's into old-school stuff. So he's like, not a chance.

That's probably where I've kind of dug myself into a hole though, like being in the health and fitness scene, you know, there's a lot of like scantily clad human beings in that environment. And, there's so much health and fitness content on my feeds that I think that stuff just slides in all over the place.

Probably. And, they use eye gaze technology. So, for you, let's just say you're a body person. And so, people who really are into physiques, so somebody shows up and you're looking at muscle definition, we'll just go with that at least, Ben, okay, that you're looking at muscle definition, but it'll scan your eye gaze and be like, oh, let's present more body parts like that to Ben because his eye gaze just lingered there. That is how they're getting people too. So when people, you know, their eyes land on different body parts, they serve up more of exactly what you looked at. This is shown to be true, which is terrifying for children because a non-hypersexualized kiddo becomes hypersexualized because it's served up to them over and over and over if their eyes linger.

Yeah. You talked about how you had the client who had an argument with his wife and then that caused him to go and watch porn. I think in the book, you described these scenarios as triggers. You have external triggers and internal triggers. Talk to me about that.

Yeah. So, a trigger, and most people in the business don't love the word trigger too once you get into it, but it's a It's a good way to think about it. So external triggers are something happens to you, you know, you get in an argument with someone, work is stressful, something happens, usually it's stress-related. Or for other people, it can be lack of overstimulation they perceive as boredom. We can come back to that one. But in the hyper, you know, overstimulated world, you sit on your couch for 5 minutes, you're like, I'm totally bored. So it's usually stress or boredom. Science shows that. So what happens there is then, you know, the brain is, is craving it. The internal triggers, like a stressor, is you and I could have the same thing happen to us and you're super stressed out and I'm not, or vice versa. So anxiety on the inside is an internal response. And many people— first of all, porn is ramping up the anxiety from the inside, which we already talked about. Horn's ramping up the lack of focus from the inside. Those are internal triggers. Now you go to work and you can't produce. I had one client where he knew he was gonna get fired because he had to meet a quota and he just couldn't even think enough to meet the quota, which then of course his anxiety's ramping up. So basically it's things from the outside, things from the inside that then trigger you to go back to the screen for dopamine. It's always like something's happening to me. I've conditioned my brain to get a lot of dopamine from sexuality to feel better. And, you know, going back to the person you were talking about having sex with a lot of people, that is like actually conditioned in the reverse. But it's always about external regulation instead of internal regulation. So something stressful happens to me and I do take some deep breaths. I go for a run, I use neurofeedback, I'm regulating from within. When you have to go to something outside yourself, food included, you're regulating from without externally.

Ben Greenfield: Do you ever counsel people to do that? If they have an urge to consume porn, to literally go do push-ups or take an ice bath or, I don't know, even go you know, as much as I don't like to say this, like eat some ice cream or something?

Yeah, I do. And it's— I have a digital program that I have outlined. Actually, the, the book is based on the digital program. And I tell people to do push-ups because you can do them anywhere. You can— you're at your desk and you're supposed to be working. This happens to a lot of people, just so you know. You're supposed to be working, but your brain can't work well and it's conditioned to go to porn. You feel like you want to click on a porn site, drop and do push-ups to exhaustion, which doesn't mean you die. It means you push yourself past the limits of what you think you can do. And that changes your mental and physical space immediately. It creates embodiment. You get into your body instead of up in your head. And then it allows a person to— that I call that a pivot plan. It allows them to pivot in the moment. And in terms of like ice cream, I tell people to dopamine stack in the real world. So I tell people, identify all the healthy things you could do in the world and then do them as much as humanly possible. And I always talk about dark chocolate because, you know, it has healthy fat. If you get the— it tastes like dirt if you get real dark chocolate, but it's delicious once you've learned to eat it and it's healthy for you and it has dopamine. It's proven to be higher in dopamine Right.

It's got anandamide and dopamine. I even have a supplement called Dopadrops. Somebody's going to take this and turn into a million-dollar idea of like, here, you addicted to porn, getting that dopamine low, just pop some pills and go back again, which I would not endorse. But, the idea of using like a dopamine— what's it called? Mucuna Dopa, right? It's a supplement you can buy on Amazon.

Definitely. I tell people about L-tyrosine. Again, don't do it without your doctor helping you to do so, but these are precursors to dopamine. So, there's ways that you can teach your system to enhance its dopamine production from the inside. Actually, that's what neurofeedback does, because if a person has drained brain— and actually, my protocol for drained brain includes an increase in faster alpha. So when I set the protocol, I'm actually teaching the person's brain every single time they do a brain workout in neurofeedback to enhance its own dopamine production while they're walking away from external sources of dopamine.

You mentioned dopamine obviously a lot, but what about the endogenous opioid system? I even think there's a section in the book where you describe porn as a painkiller. We know that painkilling drugs can be problematically addictive like porn, but what's the link between porn and the opioid system?

Yeah, exactly. So, it hijacks the opioid system and it's basically painkiller from the inside. And I, I just talk about dopamine most of the time because that's the primary mechanism that's hijacked. And that's the one that people can resonate with too. But it really becomes an internalized pain reducer. But again, if you think about it logically, if you're hitting, you know, an opioid from the inside to reduce your pain, you're teaching your brain inadvertently to not be able to handle pain. And the pain that most people are dealing with is just life. It's not even like, you know, pain of excess pain. It's just the pain of getting up and having to live in today's society.

You know what I mean? Interesting. Now, how about somebody's partner? Like, do you ever talk to partners about how to talk to their partners who are using porn, whether it's a man or a woman?

I do. I have a program called Sanity After Betrayal that it has its own website for partners. So I work with partners individually, and I've also done couples disclosure which, that'll blow your mind once we dive into that a little. But I try to teach partners about the addiction piece because partners are mad, you know, they're mad, they're hurt, and rightfully so. It actually shifts the brain into a mode called betrayal trauma. It's proven scientifically to register as a trauma in the system. So I try to teach partners about the addictive nature of hypersexuality. And this includes infidelity too. And I know a lot of partners might be mad at me, but I try to encourage them that if they do want to work it out with their partner, which does require higher levels of emotional intelligence, that getting both partners on the same page is the way to do that. Helping, you know, it's mostly men, so helping men to reduce the need for hypersexuality, helping partners to understand the addiction. And, you know, many women— I, I talk about this Middle-aged women are trained to be hypo-sexual. Younger women are now being trained to be hyper-sexual. So, you know, I work with a lot of people in their 50s. Their wives are, are trained to be hypo-sexual. So meeting in the middle is actually what needs to happen for most people.

Now, with the partners, curious about this because it's kind of like overlaps into two categories. I'm a little bit self-conscious saying this, but I'll just lay all the cards out on the table. My wife and I sometimes make porn for each other. Does that affect what goes on in the bedroom later on when we're physically together or does that cause some of the same issues that we're talking about when it comes to brainwaves, dopamine, et cetera?

You probably already know the answer, don't you?

I actually don't. No, I'm legitimately curious about this.

Well, this is Yeah, totally. This is what I tell people, is that if you're do— if you're creating, you know, videos or images for each other as actual foreplay for, for a sexual experience that's going to happen soon, then it's triggering in your brain, it's getting the dopamine flowing towards each other so that you can have an experience. But if you're doing it too often, you are creating an object out of your partner. It's objectification. So, and then you're setting yourself up that you're enjoying viewing your partner instead of being with your partner. Now it's like, okay, let me watch. You know, like I said before, partners aren't supposed to be used. They're supposed to be enjoyed together. So like, it does create objectification if it happens too much. So I encourage people to do that as foreplay.

Not to dwell on this for too long, but it's primarily because I travel so much. Right. And sometimes we miss each other when I'm traveling. And it's the closest we can get to having sex with each other when we're 1,000 miles away.

Yeah, and I like that. I think that's— it's still conditioning you to like want to be with each other when you're together again. You know what I mean? So I think that's a healthy way to do it. It's really about the intent. Like, is it healthy towards connection with your partner? Because what will happen for a lot of people is they'll save a whole host of images of their partner. And, you know, you've been married 23 years, so if you're taking consistent images and sharing them, it's not you looking at your wife from 23 years ago who is no longer the wife that's in front of you.

No, they tend to get deleted and refreshed. I get what you're saying there. Yeah, it's like, yeah, you're looking at your like 19-year-old wife and she's, you know, whatever, she's 40. I can tell you one thing though, it does like having a folder like that on my phone basically makes my desire for porn almost non-existent because I don't feel like I need to go pull anything up besides my wife. Does that make sense?

Yeah, it does. And, you know, that's, you know, it's kind of like I tell people to cheat in the right direction. You know, so that's kind of if you're traveling a lot, you can't be with your partner, cheat in the right direction, but use it to create connection.

Right. So, it's not ideal, but it's better than porn.

Yeah, definitely. I work with a lot of military families. Your partner's gone for a year, how are you going to stay connected sexually and with intimacy? You're going to have to be creative. So, I'm a pragmatist. I'm totally a pragmatist. I just want people to be as healthy as they can.

Yeah. I have an audience who's very into buffeting their bodies, doing triathlons, doing ice baths. Really avoiding this so-called comfort button or easy button. But, one of the reasons that people do that is because you get an increase in cellular resilience and it even grows parts of the brain in terms of plasticity in response to stress like that. What's going on as far as the so-called comfort crisis as some have called it and where porn plays a part in that?

Yeah, yeah. And, just to double back for one second, Oh, one reason I am really excited to talk to you is because all the peak performers out there that use porn, they don't understand that it is the same mechanism minus the alcohol or the drugs. And that's why this is becoming epidemic for peak performers. Like, I work with a lot of executives, doctors, lawyers, professional athletes, right? Like, think about this, people who would never like put a lot of drugs into their system, but they're using sex in a similar way. And then what happens for my clients is they realize that it is changing the way that they regulate, and they're not able to handle some of the stressors, and they don't get the pleasure they used to out of their work, especially professional athletes. So like, you know, I used to just get such a high from, from my, my craft here, and now I'm like looking to be with people or or usually for them because they are close to the harem, they can, you know, be able to act some of these things out with, with people. But goes back to strained brain and drained brain to keep it easy. Those are types of autonomic nervous system dysfunction. And you said it yourself, sympathetic dominance, that's a type of autonomic nervous system dysfunction. When you're flooded with dopamine, you're creating dysfunction Peak performers, they don't want dysfunction. They want high levels, optimal function. And have you ever had a brain map done?

Yeah, I have. You mean like an ECG or a QEEG?

A QEEG brain.

Yeah. Have you had it done? Yeah, I have several times.

So on a brain map, if your brain is functioning optimally, everything is green. On most systems. On my system, everything's green, so I call it a green zone brain. So most peak performers, they want a green brain. They want to know their brain is working optimally. So if you keep going back to porn, it's not working optimally anymore. It's too stressed out, or it needs dopamine to, to feel okay. And just one more point is, a lot of lawyers say this to me. I love this line too, because, you know, I've heard, I've heard most everything these days. But I'm a really high performer. Like, how— why— how are you telling me my brain is dysfunctional if I'm performing at such high levels? And it's because the brain is so stressed out. Drained, strained brain, stress in the brain. Then they have to hit the easy button of porn to get dopamine. So their brain's not fully drained, but that dopamine's offsetting all the stress. So I say to them— and usually they have ED too— they have ED. So I say to them, stop watching porn for a week, and all this stress in your brain will become debilitating for you. You'll be so stressed out because you're not getting the dopamine to offset the stress. That's what a lot of peak performers are accidentally doing to themselves. They're really stressing themselves out. I just want to say one more thing about the workouts. My son— I have 5 kids. My one son Declan, he's totally into working out. He's really in great shape and into the culture, but he will hit it hard in the gym. And, what I tell him to do is to try to keep his nervous system in the parasympathetic state when he's working out, not to get into that sympathetic dominance. Like, work out hard but stay chill.

Ben Greenfield: Yeah, I agree. It actually kind of annoys me when I go to the gym and You see this more in men than women. Guys are doing a lot of grunting and jumping around and kind of shaking. And, I'm a bigger fan of the nasal breathing, slow and smooth. What's the saying? Slow is smooth, smooth is fast, something like that. But yeah, I totally agree. I think some people use the gym as almost a sympathetic dump when it should be a little bit more of a Zen stress mode.

Agreed, agreed.

Your son is probably also so good at working out because his mom taught him to do 100 push-ups to exhaustion anytime he thinks about porn.

He's so cool. You know what's so cool about that kid? He, he's 21 years old, he has blockers on all of his stuff, and like, he— obviously my work's impacted him, but I've actually never— we've had cool conversations because like at one point I wanted to hire one of his friends to help me with some work, and he's— he goes, 'Ma, you can't.' He's like, 'They're all caught up in what you're helping people with.' And you know, I love his friends. They're And then, you know, when he was little, little, like 11, I came home and he had all of his friends over. They're all on Tinder. And I'm like, dude, is it Tinder? Tinder, the right one? Yeah. And I'm like, dude, don't be doing that. And a lot of people don't understand. And this might be a good segue into dating apps. A lot of people don't understand that, like, dating apps are kind of like OnlyFans. You know, it's, it's checking people out. It's a lusting behavior. It's an objectification behavior. So, he and I have been talking about that for a long time. So, the push-ups aren't a pivot plan for him, thank God.

Yeah. I think dating apps almost condition you. Well, dating apps and serial dating in general condition you to have the mentality, and this is just my opinion, that once a partner doesn't work out or isn't the perfect fit, you just move on or swipe. I forget whatever it is, swipe left or swipe right. And, I think that if you do wind up getting married, it can create a scenario in which when things are no longer working out between you and your partner rather than fixing it, you kind of have that mentality that, oh, I could just move on.

Yeah, definitely. And I talk about that in the book where, you know, there's 3 stages of love. The first one is lust. The second is romantic love. The third is bonded love. And, you know, if you're married 23 years, you have bonded love, you know, like it can hit the fan and you're not moving out. You realize there's work to be done with your partner and You know, and it goes back to evolution. You know, people survive in tribes, so you learn. Plus, you, you know, it is love, but it's not— it doesn't hit the same as lust. And what, what dating apps do, and hookup culture is what they call it, you know, we have a generation of people who are being taught to just use another human being for as high level pleasure as possible and then to move on to the next. And that novelty, right, think about it. Novelty and instant gratification, those are dopamine behaviors. They call dopamine the molecule of motivation more and pleasure. You're motivated back for more pleasure where you got it.

Yeah, I think I talk about this in my book Fit Soul, how I think the way I phrase is that mutual masturbation just strips all the sacredness out of sex.

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

When you were talking about, uh, Ben Greenfield: Yeah, exactly. When you were talking about dopamine and peak performance, it reminded me of this. It's not really a rule that I have, but it's a technique that I have. I find that I get a better workout and better productivity in general during the morning hours if I force myself to pass the marshmallow test each morning and leave the phone in airplane mode. So, I'm essentially saving my dopamine for my productive creative hours in the morning and for my workout in the morning. So, I wait as long as possible to take my phone out of airplane mode. And, I swear anytime I do that, I have a better workout.

Yeah, for sure. I tell people that all the time, don't go on your phone until— it's exactly the marshmallow test. Think about how cool that marshmallow test is that people who can delay gratification, it's one of the most known longitudinal studies if people who are listening don't know what that is, that if you can delay gratification, then you will have more gratification later on. And longitudinally, basically all markers for positive humankind are associated with doing that. And yeah, that's the way, you know, do the things, get, get done. You know, in neuroscience, in terms of neuroscience, it's recommended that you do the most difficult things early. That way your brain can focus on it. Then, you know, when it comes to workouts, people have peak workout times, which usually are earlier in the day. And then, and then, you know, saving whatever dopamine behavior for later, because what you're teaching your brain to do is do the difficult stuff, then reward yourself later on. And that leads to optimal performance.

Channeling my inner Jordan Peterson saying this, but delayed gratification seems to lie at the core of many religions, including Christianity. This idea that salvation and eternal rewards are reaped from passing the marshmallow test during your physical carnal life and that by not stealing, not cheating, not lying, not committing adultery and relying upon the grace of a higher power to do so that you will reap rewards eternally in the life to come. That's part of the basis of Christianity, for example.

Absolutely. But, you know how I think about it is it's on the same lines, but I think You don't even have to wait till life eternal. And I think of it as divine purpose. So in the book, I talk about figuring out who your authentic self is. Don't escape into porn because you can't handle the life you've set yourself up with. Instead, be the 1%. Be courageous. Figure out what you want. Do it. But it has to be healthy. It shouldn't be something that's unhealthy. So, you know, if you want to be a pilot and your mom tells you not to, go be a pilot anyways. My parents were so disappointed in me for about 30 years because I kept choosing. I'm like, ma, I don't want to do that. I was a tenured and promoted college professor, university professor. I was great at it, and I left. My poor father almost died. This was like the 10th thing that I did that he didn't agree with. So by then he was conditioned. I'm like, I have to, I have to follow what my heart is telling me. And then of course, my parents are 85 now, My dad goes, you know, the cool thing about you is you just always do what you want to and it always works out for you. And that's the delayed gratification piece, you know, like when you have a dream of doing something. I just told the same client this this morning because he's like, I have these dreams of what I want to do and, you know, I've got it all down on paper. I'm like, do this, do one thing today that leads you towards it. Imperfect action, something little and check it off. Your brain will get a dopamine hit for the little checkmark, and you will be on your way to creating your dream. Dreams aren't made in a big bang moment. They're made in the tiny little moments when no one's watching.

Yeah, the momentum of motivation. And things seem to be working out okay for you, Trish.

Yeah, it— and just to go back to your point, we don't have to wait till the life eternal. I think you can have heaven on earth, and that is actually what's meant, is that when you tap into your divine purpose and your courage only comes in the face of fear. So when you, when you do it anyways and you're doing it, you blaze trails, you, you, you, you know, make a couple people disappointed or mad at you, but you stay convicted to the thing that you want, then you get heaven on earth. You don't even have to wait.

Oh gosh, thanks. Um, so we like scratched the surface, which is like I mentioned in the introduction, often my intention when I interview an author is not to to leave people knowing that they don't need to read the book but to give them a little taste and to dive into things that we can explore from pages I've folded over in the book. But, it's called "Mind Over Explicit Matter: Quit Porn and Improve Intimacy Through Neuroscience." The website is BenGreenfieldLife.com/MindOverMatter. You can check out Tricia's neurofeedback services, her app, the book, of course, Highly recommend. I have twin 17-year-old sons and this is the type of stuff that gives me tons of ammo to help them out in life. So, Trish, thank you so much for writing the book, for the work that you do, and for coming on the podcast. You're making a difference in the world for sure.

Ah, beautiful. Thank you. It's been fun being here. I appreciate it.

Alright, folks, I'm Ben Greenfield along with Dr. Trish Leigh signing out from bengreenfieldlife.com/mindovermatter. Hatter, have an incredible week. To discover even more tips, tricks, hacks, and content to become the most complete, boundless version of you, visit bengreenfieldlife.com.

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