Connor Beaton explains how porn and sexualized content hijack your brain's reward system and become a way to escape anxiety, boredom, and stress. He outlines three steps to break the cycle: identify what emotions trigger the cravings, find real dopamine through hobbies and adventure, and remove digital triggers from your feeds and apps. He reports clearer thinking and better real relationships after applying these changes.
Today we're gonna be talking about desexualizing your brain for a better life, healing your brain from maybe the damage that overconsumption of porn has caused, or healing your brain from just the ridiculous amounts, copious, copious amounts of sexualized content that is easily accessible on the internet. First and foremost, number one, The number one thing that I want you to know about desexualizing your brain is that you are probably not only overstimulated and oversexualized because of all the content that you've been consuming that's easy to access, but you're probably going to those sexual thoughts because number one, you are feeling shit you don't like and you're moving to sexual thoughts or thirst traps as a quick way out. So you're feeling something you don't like, feeling anxious, you're feeling bored, you're feeling lonely, you know, you're feeling kind of alone and down. And it's one of those nights where like you've texted a couple buddies and nobody's available and you kind of feel like crap and you don't know what to do. And you've gone on Tinder or you've gone on Bumble or Hinge and you're not having any luck. And so all of a sudden you find yourself with the thoughts. Right, the sexual thoughts of go on to Instagram or TikTok or YouTube or Pornhub or whatever it is where you consume your sexual content, your sexual meals, if we will. And that helps you move away from whatever it is that you're feeling, right? Even if it's at work, right? You're writing emails to your boss, your colleagues, you're stressed out, you don't want to feel that stress, Boom, there's the sexual thought immediately. There it is, thinking about some sexual conquest or some porn that you watched or whatever it is. So that's number 1. It's very likely that you're feeling something that you don't like. So you have to start to pay attention to what are you actually experiencing underneath the sexual thoughts, all right? That's number 1. Number 2 is if you want to desexualize your brain, you have to get some freaking excitement into your life. The reality is, is that it is so much easier, so much easier for you as a man to continue to watch sexual content, to continue to consume hypersexual content on social media platforms if you dislike your life, if you are unhappy with your job, if you are miserable in your relationship, if you dislike your body, if you don't like the way you treat yourself, if you just don't like who you are in general, it is so much easier to turn to that type of content because there's no excitement in your life. There's no real joy to grasp onto. And so where do you get it from? You get that dopamine hit, you get that little bit of joy, that little bit of excitement from sexual content. It feels exciting. You get a little bit of a thrill. You know, maybe you work in something a little taboo, whether it's the porn that you watch or where you're masturbating or where you're looking at the content, right? Maybe you're sitting on the toilet, taking a dump, your girlfriend or your wife is in the other room and you're looking at things that you shouldn't be looking at, right? Or that you don't want to be looking at, not even shouldn't be looking at, but that you don't want to be looking at. So number 2, get some excitement in your life. Get a damn hobby. Get some better friends that you can go on adventures with and start focusing on building a life that you actually like. That will divert a lot of this attention that goes towards sexualized content away from it and onto something, not even productive, it's not even about productive, but onto thriving, onto actually living your life. Number 3, cut out the thirsty triggers, right? The thirsty triggers. So the IG Explore page that you go to, the YouTube videos that you go and look up, the TikTok, the whatever it is, whatever the triggers are for you. This is one of the best things that I have done for myself in my life. And maybe I should have put this at the beginning, You know, food for thought for later. But this is one of the best things that I have ever done in my life because I was so run by my sexual impulses, the impulse to think about sex, the impulse to go and look at sexual content, whether it was just on some social media platform that seemed kind of harmless and not like watching porn or actually watching pornography. It was, it was bad. It was all throughout my day. And when I started to move away from this, I freed up time, I freed up energy, my mind became more clear, my thinking became more clear, my decision-making became much more clear and much more effective. I trusted myself to make better decisions. My sense of discipline started to elevate and skyrocket. And so all of these things that you probably are wanting to work on, or develop within yourself, this can be a pathway if this is something that you are struggling with. And this isn't to shame you sexually, because I think for a lot of us men, the reality is that we enjoy sex, we like sex. And for many of us, that desire, that joy, that natural joy, and that natural connection to the joy of sex is hijacked by the internet, by online content, by porn websites, by OnlyFans models and whatever. And it distracts a lot of, it takes away and sucks a lot of our sexual energy out. And so you end up not engaging in the type of sexual interactions that you really desire with your partners, or that are even possible, because you've given so much of your sexual energy out into whatever it is that you are watching and consuming.
How to Raise Strong, Unshakable Boys in Today's Culture, with Dr. Shefali Tsabary
