High Libido or Hypersexuality? The Neuroscience Behind Porn Addiction

All right, Dr. Trish Leigh, welcome to the ManTalks Show. How are you doing today?

Hey, I am doing great. I'm so excited to be here. I can't wait to go deep and wide.

Awesome. Well, we'll dive in. For everybody that's tuning in, Dr. Leigh is a cognitive neuroscientist and neurofeedback clinician who spent 25 years doing this work and analyzed over 50,000 brain maps helping people, especially men caught in porn and screen compulsions. And so, that's kind of what we're going to dive into today. Where I'd like to begin is kind of right in the thick of the weeds. So, talk to us a little bit about what's actually happening inside the brain seconds before a guy is about to open that tab. What's actually happening?

I love it. That's a great place to start because I make a lot of content trying to teach people about the process, the habit loop, but also the dopamine dependency that is at play when pornography and hypersexualized content is in their life. And, something that I've been focusing on a lot is the anticipation of it. So, I love this question because we know scientifically there's research studies, fMRI studies that show the anticipation of being able to view porn, and I'll tell you why in a second, but that anticipation in those moments before you click open a tab, That's where that dopamine really starts dripping and flooding into the brain, causing that habit loop. And, I can tell you a lot more about it.

Yeah, yeah. No, it's an interesting piece of it because I think for a lot of guys, part of the challenge in either reducing porn usage or letting go of it altogether is that anticipatory nature, right? It's like the guys that I've worked with over the years and even myself when I was trying to let go of it, It was like the internal debate. You know, it's like, right now, should I?

Do I want to? I call that the hijacker. I like to give them a name. And in our time together, I try to be very pragmatic. I always call it pragmatic hope when people ask me, can I really do the thing that I want to do? Like, whether that be get over pornography use, whether it's erectile dysfunction, which we should likely talk about, repairing relationships with their spouse, entering a new relationship, whatever it might be. Pragmatic hope. And the pragmatic piece means you need something to do, right? So the idea is, I call that the hijacker, and I love people to give their hijacker a persona because that is the dopamine dependency tricking you back into the screen. That's your brain, the dopamine flood going, um, let's just test our fortitude, or this will be the last time. So when you can envision it as not you but a hijacker, it's a lot more powerful.

For the average listener that's out there and they're like, okay, I've heard dopamine used so much, but I'm not really too sure what it specifically does and why we're even talking about this. Can you just give a high level, like, what function does dopamine play and why do you talk about it within reference to screen compulsions and porn usage?

Yeah, absolutely. And thank you for that, because dopamine is a buzzword, right? It's a term that's being thrown around on the internet and many times in a way that's not accurate. So dopamine is a Neurotransmitter. It's a molecule that is produced in the nervous system, in the brain, in the reward center, and then is moved through the reward circuitry. Many people think of it as the pleasure chemical, but it's actually the seek and search, the pursuit of pleasure chemical in the brain. And that's really important from an evolutionary standpoint. It's designed so that we humans go after the things that keep us alive. like food, like mating. But, algorithm amping, as I call it, amplification effect from the algorithm distorts these natural drives and it heightens the amount of dopamine that's produced in the brain by this distortion in the screen. So, pornography is a perfect example, right? Sex is supposed to be one of the highest level rewarding activities in your real life with a real-life partner. Now, Now, with pornography, there's no real-life partner. It's self-referential, basically, and fantasy. But there's even higher levels of dopamine that are produced, which keeps that habit loop through the pursuit of higher-level dopamine. And that's really a very important distinction.

So dopamine is the sort of like molecule of— I think maybe it was Huberman— it was like the molecule of more, like the thing that drives you forward to seek and pursue those things. How does How does dopamine and testosterone, how do they work together?

Yeah. So, most men don't realize that testosterone production begins in the brain. There's an axis in the brain that produces testosterone and then basically it flows through the body. It's generated, cascaded using electrical signals from the brain, which is where my work intersects. But essentially, the The cascading of the neurotransmitters and hormones have a very tight relationship. So, if the brain is performing in a different— I was going to say less than optimal, but I know it's less than optimal for most people in a different way. I've seen so many brain maps to know it is a level of dysfunction. Scientific studies call it a dysfunction. It changes the way that the testosterone then cascades. And, it's no wonder we have so many men on TRT. Most of the men I work with, they're on testosterone replacement and it makes them feel really good. But, what they don't understand is the depletion is happening from this change in the brain performance pattern, which is changing the way that testosterone is produced and then ultimately cascades.

Yeah. I mean, it's interesting because it also creates a dependency when you're on TRT, which is challenging because your body is disincentivized from producing it itself, which is always a wild thing.

And, yeah, it's a feedback loop. All of this lands in what's called a feedback loop. So, essentially, it's kind of like the snowball effect too where one thing leads to the next, leads to the next, and then people find themselves in situations and most people don't even trace it all the way back to pornography use. I think that's the most insidious aspect of it. Someone's getting testosterone replacement thinking that it's just their testosterone's lower because they're getting older or something to that effect. Or, when it comes to erectile dysfunction, thinking that they have a health issue. Most of the people that I've worked with that have erectile dysfunction have gone to their doctors, they had everything checked out, they're told that they're normal and healthy except for they still have sexual arousal dysfunction, Which I completed a study with over 200 brain maps showing that porn-induced ED is a real thing, which there's many other studies that corroborate that.

Just to double-click on that one, pun intended, to go deeper into that piece, what actually causes that? What's the neurological reason that watching pornography for too long or too much or whatever it is, how does that then induce sexual dysfunction and erectile dysfunction?

Yeah, it's very logical if you just think about it logically, is that I already told you how pornography is a prime example, a top-tier example of algorithm amping, and it amps what are called supernormal stimuli. So, hypersexualized content is highly dopamine-producing pornography. Then, if you keep going back with repetition, basically, it leads to dopamine desensitization in the reward center and the reward circuitry. That's what I In that study that added to the scientific literature. From my standpoint, I look at the electrical signatures in people's brains. That's what brain mapping looks at. Our bodies and our brains, our nervous systems, they run on electrical energy. So essentially, when you flood your system with dopamine too much, then it leaves you in a dopamine deficit state. So you actually need, through tolerance building and escalation, these changes in the brain make you need much higher level stimulation to become aroused from going back to highly arousing content. So basically, it's conditioning, but it truly leads to actual changes in the brain that can be identified on a brain map.

So, it's kind of like the alcoholic that just needs to drink more and drink more and drink more in order to become intoxicated. A man that's watching a lot of porn just needs more porn and more stimulus and more arousal In order to actually have some type of physiological arousal. Is that accurate?

Yeah, it's novelty, intensity, right? Like, if you think about being with a partner, one partner, not novel. One partner you've been with for 25 years, less novel, right? So, like, the idea is that when you go into pornography, the genres, the avatars, they're endless. And with AI these days, you can basically choose, choose what you think is the most highly arousing for you in particular, which is an even higher level supernormal stimulus. But then, you know, I always joke, I think of arousal, and I half joke, is that there's baseline arousal. So, baseline arousal is right now we're sitting here, we're calm and we're alert. So, I call that a 5 on the arousal scale. So, if you go skydiving or mountain climbing, you know, rock climbing, that's going to be like a 9 on the arousal scale. You're going to be in a stressed, very aroused state. If you're laying on your couch, you know, now you're at a 2. So what happens is sex is supposed to be a 9 or a 9.5 on a 1 to 10 scale. That's normal stimuli, healthy stimuli. Pornography is a level 15. So if you keep going back to a level 15 over and over and over and over, and now you have a level 9 experience, it just doesn't hit. There's a 6-point gap. And if your wife is mad at you because she's discovered pornography use, She's way over on the 2, right, and now that arousal is a 3. And so now you have just this massive gap in what you've been going to to get you aroused versus what reality is. That's the distortion that happens, and that's what I think is the most difficult part for people because your brain then becomes conditioned for that. And most men don't know that and they did not mean to do it. You know, they didn't— if they would have known, it caught them up in that loop. That's why I always say to people, like, this is not your fault. The algorithm knows, the industry knows, they all know what they're doing. It's designed to get you and keep you hooked. But then once you figure this out, it becomes your responsibility.

Yeah. I mean, I think, like, when I started watching porn, it was interesting because it was just, you know, I've talked about it before on the show, but it was like, you know, it was dial-up internet. And so it was like, you know, things, photos loading line by line, you know, or eventually having to like torrent videos that were, you know, take 30 minutes for the video to torrent, stuff like that.

Yeah.

And it was, you know, it was like this intense delayed gratification and exciting and yada, yada, yada. But, you know, there was nobody back then to say like, hey, this might not actually be good for you in the long term. And now, you know, now I think for the average Man, they know that it could be detrimental if they, you know, don't have a great— don't have a good relationship with it. What do you see a lot of men struggling with in terms of letting go of pornography? Because one of the main things that I see in so many men is just this deep frustration, like, I've tried all these things, nothing's worked, I'm still watching it. You know, maybe they're single, maybe they're married and their sex life isn't great.

Yeah.

And it's like, you know, this, this kind of— it's frustrating, but it like fills a means to an end. And I don't really know how to find pleasure without it. And so, what do you see most men struggling with when it really comes to reducing usage or letting go?

Yeah, there's a lot to unpack there. So, number one is that I wanted to say this earlier, is that most men, and this is proven through scientific studies, but men don't realize it, they're actually using pornography for mood regulation. So, what the Yeah. So, what all the studies show is number one, it's stress reduction. Number two, it's filling boredom. Those are the two primary drivers behind porn use. So, it's not actually sexuality at all. Another thing is that most men find pornography when they're young. They're 12 years old. Now, the average age beginning consumption is down to 8 because of porn in our pockets, unfortunately. But so, this is a maladaptive developmental pattern. It developed in a child's brain, right? So, this isn't about sexuality at all because an 8-year-old is not supposed to be sexual. It is driven by that need for dopamine that has changed the way that the brain developed and how the brain needs dopamine for relief, relief from those feelings, those uncomfortable feelings. So I think when men realize that, then it becomes a little bit less frustrating and not thinking it— and I do think it's very important to have a healthy sex life and we can talk about that in a second, but not thinking of it as I'm using porn to fill the gap in my, you know, struggling sex life. Because that chicken and egg is backwards, is the number one thing that I'm trying to say there. But, it's being used for mood regulation. So, you're triggered by an uncomfortable feeling and your brain's been trained through hundreds or thousands or hundreds of thousands of repetitions back to the source of relief. And, you already said it's not delayed gratification anymore at all. There's no dial-up sound anymore. It's absolute instant gratification, right? Click of a button. flood of dopamine into the brain. And going back to Huberman, he talks about it. He has a clip out there that says anything that floods your brain with dopamine with no work is incredibly dangerous. It will derail you, he says in the clip. It'll absolutely destroy your life, I think he actually says in that clip. Because dopamine is meant to be delayed gratification where you're getting a little bit more and a little bit more and it gets you up every day to do your work. And then, when you finish that project, even though it took you 30 days, you have this sense of satisfaction. The miswired desire, as I call it, miswired desire is you click a button, no work at all, you have more dopamine than any of our ancestors could have gotten except for the one guy with the harem. He's the only one who—

right?

He's the only one who could have gotten it back in the day.

Right.

Now, everybody's able to get it and it's become the way that So, their frustration lies in the habit loops that are founded on the dopamine dependency that have been there for a decade or more. You know, this is frustrating. But, just one more thing before I throw it back to you. I honestly believe that's where my work intersects because I use technology to break that feedback loop. So, the people I work with, we use technology to rewire the brain. And then, it's less frustrating because basically, I think of it— my work, I think of as a luxury gym for your brain. If you want to run a marathon, if you went to try to run a marathon right now, you would not be able to. You need to train, right?

Yeah.

You need to strengthen the muscles that allow you. You need to strengthen the muscles and figure out how to live the life of the behaviors. And, that's what I help people do. We strengthen the brain and then we build the foundation of the lifestyle that sustains Mood regulation in healthy ways, building a healthy sex life with a real-life partner, and having a brain that doesn't need that high level of arousal.

Yeah, I think you're pointing to something that's important, which is like, I think that one of the main challenges that most men face is that there's nothing to fill the gap of the porn and the role that pornography has been playing. And, that was my big challenge in my late 20s when I was trying to quit pornography. I didn't realize— I was like, well, I should just quit it. You know, I just stop. I'll just, I'll just stop watching it. But there was nothing to replace it. And I was using it for emotional regulation and filling the gaps in boredom. And so when I didn't have anything that was supplementing that, it made it so much harder to quit because it's like, well, there's nothing in place of this. You know, there was no emotional regulation tools. I didn't have those at the time. And so There, you know, that made it all the more challenging. What about the guys that have— like, this is another thing that I hear a lot of men say is like, I just have like an insatiable sex drive. Like, I just, you know, I love sex. I really enjoy it. You know, maybe they aren't in their relationship having enough to, from their perspective, enough sex. What about those guys? Is there something specific happening in their brains or in their bodies that are producing this? Like, I can never, you know. Yes.

Hypersexuality, and there's a lot of scientific studies that support what I'm about to tell you. I have a book out. It's called Mind Over Explicit Matter. In my book, the publisher— it's published through HarperCollins— they actually made me take out many of the scientific references. They're like, you don't have to cite absolutely everything. And, I'm like, I feel the need to because I want people to know this is not my opinion. So, that's my scientific study disclaimer is that there's lots of the studies in that book if you are interested in knowing the science behind all of the claims that I'm about to make. But, we know that from this, everything I've already talked to you about, the dopamine, the way that dopamine is released and processed in the brain changes upon 2 exposures to pornography. The first time a kiddo, because it's usually kiddos, a young man is exposed to pornography, it basically makes it so that the baseline of dopamine that's needed to feel pleasure increases. So, my point about this without getting at all into the technicalities is the brain changed that those first 2 times to need more dopamine. That is setting off hypersexuality. I think of them as the seeds of compulsion, right? This is sexual compulsion that we're talking about. When we talk about sexual compulsion, those seeds are planted in those early days. If they're watered, the hypersexuality grows. So, what many men feel is a very high libido is actually hypersexuality, but they don't know any different. Of course, that's their felt experience. But I know from the thousands of people that I've worked with, that felt experience of hypersexuality, when the brain is rewired back to that optimal state for likely the first time ever, because it's been this way since adolescence, now those feelings change. And the idea is if you're always looking, seeking, and searching, pursuing sex at very high levels, It makes sense that that's not necessarily libido, right? Like, if you feel very sexual in the middle of your workday, that's not how high libido works. Libido works in preparation for a sexual experience with another person if the brain is in a healthy spot. But, like, if your work— if you're working and work feels a little stressful, stressful, and all of a sudden you feel super sexual, that's hypersexuality.

Yeah.

So, I love for men to understand that. And, once that gets into their mind a little, then they can look for that and they understand, oh, okay, maybe this isn't high libido, maybe this is hypersexuality.

I appreciate that distinction because, again, a lot of the men that I've worked with over the years and even for myself when I was letting go, one of the challenges was that I was so conditioned to think about sex so often because of pornography and the amount of porn that I was watching that it was like, it was intrusive, you know, a lot of the times.

And it can change a person's entire view of the world. I work with many people who, you know, I've heard thousands and thousands of studies or of people's stories, you know, people would tell me all the time, I thought I was taking this one to the grave. And so many men tell me like their experiences in the grocery store where there's women, but they don't see them as women, they see them all all as sexual objects, right? It creates this objectification because that dopamine change in the brain is informing perception. And, that's why many things in the world that aren't inherently sexual become sexual because they become— the brain's just looking for sex. That's hypersexuality, not libido. And, it is conditioned through pornography use and it becomes It's systematic, but it becomes very individualized for any given person depending upon what they're consuming in the pornography they're consuming. That's where fetishes come in, or, you know, high arousal template types of avatars or people, or it could be pieces of clothing. It can be a whole, you know, vast variety of things.

Well, yeah, I mean, it's interesting because I think for a lot of men that I've spoken to over the years, there's like a confusion that can set in because they've They've needed more intensity, more sort of like, I don't know, the words escaping me, but intensity and strange things to kind of get them aroused. And then, they find themselves—

I like to call it the 3-ring circus. I call it the 3-ring circus in my book just to explain all the bells and whistles, trying to get everything going. That is the That's chasing down the most dopamine out of a sexual experience. People will even do it with their partners. They're trying to squeeze every drop of dopamine out of sexuality.

Yeah. And, I think it leads them into some places where they can— like some men can get confused. I think that's the thing where they're like, I don't really know what I want anymore because I've just found myself down these rabbit holes and not really sure. And then, they have I don't know if I'm gonna say this, but this is a very like, it's a Reddit term. It's a Reddit term. It's like they call it post-nut shame or post-nut regret, where they, you know, they like, they finish and then they look and it's like, what the hell was I watching? You know, how did I get there? You know, in the rabbit hole of pornography.

Absolutely.

And then there's shame around what they're doing. And it's like, well, people can't know about, you know. And so I think for guys, it's like really, I think for a lot of men, it can be very complex in terms of how do we talk about this? Where do we start?

So, it's incredibly complex. That's one thing that I want people to know. Like, when I pivoted— the reason I'm here, I pivoted all my work into porn addiction. Like, my work was mostly anxiety, ADHD, neurodevelopmental, neurocognitive, neurodegenerative disorders. I found out about porn addiction, and I write about it in my book. Someone that I care about was also a client of mine, you know, came in and said, I watch porn. And, I'm like, yeah, and? But then I dove into the research and I was perfectly poised to pivot everything into porn. I never looked back. I changed my entire practice because it's fascinating but terrifying because of the level of complexity to it. And that's why I'm on a mission to help people understand all the layers to this thing. Like, we would have to be here for hours for me to get to everything and put all the pieces together. I've put all the pieces, many of them together in my book and in my program, but It's complex. It has lots of layers for sure.

I think we'll probably get to the shame piece here in a moment. But let's dive into some of the neuroscience and the neurofeedback. Like when you're looking at the brain maps, because I mean, you've done a ton of brain mapping. Just create the distinction for the listener around like, what does a hijacked brain actually look like? What's going on there? And what does a non-hijacked or regulated brain look like?

Yeah, absolutely. And, when we talk about shame, I definitely want to talk about Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. And, I'll use the novella analogy right now to talk about that. So, first of all, people do have so much shame because they want to project to the world the Dr. Jekyll projection of the person who has it all together, but then they have a habit that is shameful and they don't have control of. That's the Mr. Hyde aspect. But, neither of those are a regulated brain. They're two sides of the coin. So, in brain mapping, what a well-wired or regulated brain looks like, first of all, it's all green on a brain map. And, what it means is that your brain for the most part is calm and alert. That's that healthy level 5 baseline arousal. What it also means is that your brain can act like an automatic transmission shifting gears through the different electrical energy bandwidths. So, if you're stressed out, that's a very fast bandwidth, right? To be able to have fight-or-flight happen, if a bear came in right now, if I was going to fight it or flee, I have to use very fast energy in the brain. But then, it's supposed to come down again. Fight-or-flight's only supposed to happen for instance, but many people are in micro fight-or-flight all the time, which will lead to what I'm going to talk about in a second. If you are tired, your brain should be able to completely downshift when you get into bed, and then your brain should be able to catch the cycle and you get a beautiful night's sleep and you wake up feeling calm and alert again. So, that's the automatic transmission. Your brain should be able to do this shifting without you thinking about it. That is the circadian rhythms of a well-wired brain. What happens to many people from porn use specifically is their brain gets caught in something that I call strained brain. Their brain is cycling back and forth through high levels of dopamine. That flood that we talked about, and then the deficit when they haven't gotten their hit of dopamine, back and forth, back and forth. It strains the system. It creates a stressed-out, wired, and tired brain pattern. So stress and fatigue become the dominating aspects of the pattern. It brings the brain very far away from that level 5 healthy baseline. If you stay in that cycle of porn use too long, if you keep going back through repetition and The brain's kind of all over the map there. It tips over into what I call drained brain. Drained brain is the system has so much stress and taxing, it shifts into neutral and it gets stuck there. That's when a person will have sexual arousal dysfunction, ED, low motivation, depression. So those 2 patterns are the most prevalent when it comes to pornography use or social media, even sexualized social media use. OnlyFans, anything like that. High levels of dopamine keep the brain in strained brain, then tips over into drained brain, which are the polar opposite of that healthy green brain map. So, I want people to know this is a real neurological shift that's happening that is informing the way that they feel and perform. People don't understand that. They think it's of their mind and their body, but our brains are the supercomputer that then control our mind and our body.

Does it have an impact on— I think I was reading somewhere that it has an impact on gray matter and the amygdala and the sort of different parts of our brain that are going to be responsible for our nervous system regulation. I'd love for you to maybe just touch on some of those pieces.

Yeah, sure. So, we know that primarily, and you're totally right, amygdala and prefrontal cortex. So, kind of that mammalian brain, that lizard brain that people have heard about. And, there's gating between kind of those primal old brain types of behaviors. And then, there's gating between that and the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex up in the front of the brain is the newest part of the brain that differentiates us from animals. So, the prefrontal cortex is for executive function, which is planning, organization. That's that delayed gratification piece. Prefrontal cortex is all socialization. The right side is impulse control and judgment. The left side is for focus and working memory. This is a very important part of the brain for humans, right? It differentiates us. So, the analogy that I use is that your prefrontal cortex is like the captain of your ship. So, if you're going to go on a ship, you need the captain to set the GPS and make all the little moves that make the whole trip happen. Then, in the midbrain, we have a gorilla and all that gorilla wants is bananas. So, what happens through porn use, and this is substantiated in many studies, basically, the captain in the prefrontal cortex is tranquilized. That's decreased in structure and function in the prefrontal cortex. And, we have overactivity in the reward center. Those receptors, those dopamine receptors, they want more and more and more. So, essentially, you have a gorilla who only wants bananas, Controlling your brain instead of that captain.

Drunk captain, drunk captain, banana-hungry gorilla with zero impulse control.

That's exactly right. And, that is substantiated through a whole host of studies that are fMRI and brain scan studies and the study that I completed with over 200 brain maps, which adds to that literature. This is what I want men to know. So, if you're frustrated, it's because that gorilla has taken over the ship of your life, and it's just not that easy to get him to stand down and to bring the captain back online, right? My work is what wakes the captain back up. What I try to have people do in the content that I make on YouTube is I give people brain hacks or instant rewires. Going back to— I wanted to go back to this because, you know, you were saying, like, in these moments of frustration and, like, the mood regulation piece, What do you do? And, what happens is because of this high dopamine and the gorilla that loves bananas, people stop doing the hobbies that they used to love. They stop being with their partner because there's not enough dopamine there anymore. Their work stops doing it for them because there's just not enough dopamine. They want to go back to that high-level thing. Part of getting the brain to reset those pathways is to make yourself do that.

Hmm.

And, there's a whole body of dopamine detoxing out there on the internet. I actually promote dopamine stacking for people at that phase. Like, if you're going to give up porn, I want you to recognize that's a 15 on the 1 to 10 scale. You're going to give it up, you need to find, you need to make up for that in your real life. That's where the dopamine stacking comes from. What hobby do you love to do? Do it 3 times a week, fill the gaps where porn used to be. Go play hockey. I have one client who started playing hockey on Wednesdays.

Speaking of my language.

Then he started playing hockey. Yeah, started playing hockey on Saturdays. He's like, I cannot even tell you how transformative hockey has been. I'm like, that becomes the instant rewire. You know, call friends in the moment, figure out all the things you love to do. I call it a dopamine determination activity, you know, because what I love to do, you might not love to do. You have to figure out what you love to do and have it planned ahead of time because recognizing the moment you have an urge, it's not the captain. The captain's not talking to you in the urge. It's the hijacker, that gorilla. And, he's saying, I want bananas and I want them now. So, you have to say, no way, gorilla. I'm not giving you the bananas. Instead, this is what we're going to do. We're going to go play hockey. We're going to go for a run. We're going to make bolognese, our favorite carb-loaded pasta dish. Knowing what you're going to do ahead of time is really important to bring the brain back online. And then if you can't do that, there's technology to do it for you. That's what I want people to know, too.

I think one of the places that I just want to stop before we continue on this path is, can the brain actually rewire? I know you're talking about unwiring, hardwiring, but can the brain actually rewire back to maybe not back to its original state, but can it rewire back to a healthier state? Better state?

Better than their original state.

Yeah, because a lot of guys, I think, are like, oh, I broke myself, because they feel so messed up in that moment for whatever the reasons are. But, what does that look like? I know you kind of touched on that. How do we begin to rewire?

Absolutely, absolutely. And, all my recent videos, I say your brain is not broken, it's been conditioned. And, you taught it in a direction, right? on accident. You didn't even mean to do it. You taught your brain, when I feel stressed, when I feel bored, late at night, on the weekends, whatever it might be— some people it's early in the morning— I need a hit to either get through the day or to chill at the end of the night. You taught your brain that through repetition. So it takes repetition of teaching it something different. And that flexion point becomes a really difficult place for a person sometimes to do it with their mind and their body. But this is the pragmatic hope part. I want people to know, No, 100%, your brain can be rewired. It's just a matter of can you do it by yourself using your mind and your body because they have become so distorted because of the brain performance pattern. My work, I go directly to the brain. I show you how far away your brain is from optimal, and I use technology to shrink the gap between where you are and where you want to be. And, that's why I want people to know you've probably never experienced your full potential. Because your brain developed in this way. And, I talk about that maladaptive development in my book, meaning there's developmental pathways that would have led you— like if you never found porn and you liked soccer, you would have spent all that time watching porn playing soccer.

Hmm.

And, that would have equaled a different life to you. That's maladaptive versus adaptive. Adaptive leads you in a healthy direction towards the life that you want. And so, that's why I want people to know most people I work with, they were set on a maladaptive path. We'll just say around the age of 10. Brains develop until the age of 28. So, that is 18 years of maladaptation, miswiring. That's why I call it miswired desire. It was miswired very early on. But, neuroplasticity proves that your brain can rewire. But, what I found in my study that contributed to the science is that many people who have been in this porn loop for a long time, they have neuro-rigid brains, brains that are locked up. So, that's the opposite of neuroplasticity. And, that's why this loop is so ingrained because the brain is really rigidly locked in. And, just to share one more thing about that is On QEG brain mapping, the brain scan that I perform, the neuro-rigidity looks like red and blue in the brain map. So, I told you the optimal brain map's all green. Neuro-rigidity, it's measured in standard deviations, which actually shows most of the people I work with, their brain is 99.73% away from optimal in the reward center and the reward pathways. We see it in the brain map. 99.73% away, really locked up in the wrong direction.

When you say that you're looking at a brain map and it's all green versus red and blue, is the green just like the neurotransmitters are firing and connecting together? What does that actually mean in terms of the neurological standpoint?

Yeah, it means that's the optimal brain performance pattern. So, the way that brain mapping works is there's a very large database of people of all ages. And, for a very long time, we've been cataloging what optimal brain patterns look like and how they link to basically minds that are calm and alert and bodies that are controlled. So, that's the idea behind the green brain map.

So, different parts of the brain speaking together in a coherent way?

Yeah, there's a lot. There's a lot to it. So basically, we're looking at every single area of the brain, how it's using electrical energy. Is it able to shift in and out of these patterns, circadian rhythms, as it needs to? Asymmetry or symmetry across the hemispheres, coherence like you're talking about, the connectivity between the brain areas. Essentially, the more green the brain map is, all of that is happening well. That's why I always call it a well-wired brain.

Cool.

There's many, many parameters, but basically, the more green it is, the better off all those parameters are syncing up. And then, from there, that leads to basically the cascading of neurotransmitters, hormones. It leads to the signals from your brain through the spinal cord to the peripheral nerves to the rest of the body when it comes to erectile dysfunction, to sex organs. Most people don't realize that many of the challenges that they have that they perceive as psychological and even sometimes physical, many times physical, are actually neurological issues that stem from a not green brain map. Yeah.

It's really interesting. So, if you were looking at a brain map and there's centers or parts of the brain that are more red or it's quite a bit more red all over the brain, that's indicative of less electrical charge, less cohesion, and speaking from different parts of the brain to one another. That's really interesting.

Yeah, I can see if a person's had a head injury, I can see that that area has essentially kind of been knocked offline. Not using electrical energy, not communicating with the other areas. Just to kind of give you, I guess, a different frame, thinking about it a little differently, is that ADHD is a proven neurodevelopmental disorder, meaning it develops in childhood. And, that happens because the brain is running too slow. And, it's running too slow because it's using too much of the slow electrical energy. When a person has anxiety or anxiety disorders or even stress, that brain is stuck in the too-fast mode. That goes back to my analogy of the automatic So, ADHD is your brain's using braking when it's in the active state. It's not supposed to have the brakes on. If you have too much stress or anxiety, your brain's accelerating too fast all the time. And then, if you have erectile dysfunction or even depression, that's because the brain has shifted into neutral and it can't get out of it, all with the electrical energy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's interesting because as you're talking about that, I'm thinking about myself. and childhood. And, you know, like, I was diagnosed with ADHD very young. I was like, you know, grade 2, and they put me on Ritalin. And in hindsight, you know, as I look back, I'm like, well, you— you know, my parents were giving me like a double chocolate chip Costco muffin every morning and sending me off to school and jacking my system up with so much sugar.

Yeah.

And then as I got older, you know, it was like sugar plus porn. And I'm like, well, yeah, that's probably— that's a recipe for never being able to focus and concentrate. And like, as I've shifted out of, you know, have a very different diet and very different eating habits and way healthier and, you know, not watching porn and like all those types of things, most of those symptoms aren't there. Like, I can focus, I'm very— I can concentrate. It's not really a problem. I'm still high, super high energy and sometimes squirrely. But, you know, I think that's— I think that's just a part of my nature. Like, I have a lot of energy. But, it's funny how a lot of those symptoms of not being able to stay on track or on task, being distracted, having interruptive thoughts all the time, a lot of that just disappeared. And, it was a really weird thing to then look back and be like, oh, right, those things were contributing, diet, habits.

100%.

All of those things were contributing to creating what looked like symptoms for this diagnosis that really wasn't there. Yeah.

ADHD diagnosis is confused a lot. One soapbox that I will try to promise not to get too high on the soapbox about is that most— many, many men, I won't say most, I'll just add 3 manys to it, are now diagnosed with adult onset ADHD. And, to me, that is outrageous because Adult ADHD is not a thing. It's not a thing because ADHD is a neurodevelopmental disorder. And, I've seen the brains of thousands and thousands of men. And, if I had a brain map for every year of their life, I would be able to see how that developed or changed over time. So, for you, if you were diagnosed in 2nd grade, you may have had the organic ADHD type of pattern and developed out of it. And, you're absolutely right, diet contributes, exercise contributes, Environment contributes, how you use your brain. Like, there's so many things, and I can talk more about that in a minute. But, so many men are being diagnosed with adult onset ADHD because of porn use because it slows the brain down like I already told you in strained brain. So, they actually qualify for ADHD in adulthood, but anybody giving that diagnosis should know it's behaviorally induced. But, many practitioners don't even know that screens and especially pornography are now basically inducing ADHD. That's what The Anxious Generation, the book, talks about also. So, when I work with people, I ask them, did you have the same symptoms? Because that's the diagnostic qualifier, the same symptoms before the age of 12, and then of course, from my perspective, or before you found porn? Many of the people say no, they did not. They did not have those symptoms in childhood. Sometimes, and every once in a while, you know, a man will say, yeah, I did, and that's the organic ADHD person. Versus all the behaviorally induced ADHD. So, long story short, you absolutely can have ADHD symptoms, and I see you have the actual ADHD brain pattern, but it's induced behaviorally.

Hmm.

And then, going back real quick, even the family system you live in can change the way that your brain operates. I grew up in a really big family. I have 5 brothers and sisters. There's 6 of us. I just went to visit my parents. My parents live in a small ranch, We were trying to figure out where we all slept when we were little. So, that's basically an environment that creates vigilance. And, before I started training my brain with technology, man, did I run hot. I ran hot because my system's trained, you've got to be on red alert because there are a lot of people around all the time.

Hmm.

So, even your environment, nature, nurture, navigation changes the way that your brain operates. Nature is Brains don't fall too far from the tree unless you train them differently. Nurture is the environment you live in, and navigation is the way you learn to navigate that environment. And, we have control over all of those things actually.

Yeah. I mean, and I don't think that the education system is largely set up or conducive for young boys oftentimes. And, the amount of Of energy that they have and the expectations to sit still. Like, I think about what I was like at 7 or 8 or 10, and I mean, it was a rough kind of like madness to sit there.

Yeah, it's rough.

And I look at my son who's 5 and a half, and he's the same way, you know. He's like, he's got this beautiful energy, uh, that I think is gonna be spectacular. And, you know, I have very different tools. Like last night, We have friends over, and I was about to take him upstairs to bed, and my wife was going to take our daughter up. She's two, and my son—I got him to get—we have like a meditation cushion. He went and got a meditation cushion, and he like you know throws it on the ground sometimes to get some energy out. And he says, "Oh, I wanna—I wanna sit, and I wanna breathe with you because I do breathwork all the time." And so he was like, "I wanna sit and breathe with you." And it was so funny because the friends that we have staying with us were like. Only your son at 5 years old is going to be asking to do breathwork and meditation before bed, right? What the hell? But, I think about my parents just didn't have those tools to teach me, well, here's how you get the energy out, here's how you regulate the energy, here's how you expel some of the energy. And, I feel like it's such a disservice that we don't teach those things to kids.

Yeah.

We expect them and then all of a sudden, they don't have the tutelage of here's how you deal deal with the energy that's in your body. And then all of a sudden, there's this external object or behavior that fills the gap, that produces some pseudo form of regulation. I think about when I used porn, it was like, if I was stressed, if I was bored, if I was whatever, and I didn't like that emotional state, What a great way to hit the reset button, you know, and it like tricks your system.

Yeah, in the moment you're— yeah, the moment you're in it, but then it makes everything worse.

Totally. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Um, well, speaking of everything worse, uh, for, for, for a man—

If I could just, if I could just, if I could just add one comment, please, please, please, because I do have 5 children myself, right? Uh, my kids are 23, 22, 21, 20, and 15. So, I have been parenting kids Teaching them how to regulate themselves, teaching them how to feel what their nervous system's doing. And, it's exactly what you're talking about. Parents who don't have that tools, I mean, I have the tools and it's difficult, right? You know what I mean? It is difficult, but being able to set the example and to be able to help, this is one thing I want the parents to know out there. This is, I guess, a pragmatic tool for them is that I have always told my kids, I am your frontal lobe until you're 28.

Yeah.

None of them are 28 yet. You know, I'm your frontal lobe. And then, of course, now I'm like, I don't make my kids do things because they're young adults, but I show up in all the conversations and help them do things. So it's co-regulation. That's what I want parents to know. This is your primary job, is to help your kids co-regulate. If they can learn how to regulate themselves in healthy ways, like, sky's the limit on their potential. You know, going back to when your brain is regulated, you can tap into your full potential. That is the greatest gift that you can give yourself. is getting regulated and then teaching your kids too. That alone has changed my life for myself. My son said it the other day, he's 22, and he's like, yo, Ma. That's what he says, yo, Ma, you're so different than you were 10 years ago. He was telling stories. And, that's me increasing my emotional intelligence skills through keeping my brain in a really good well-wired So, that's the gift you can give yourself and your kids through the work. I know it's work and it feels challenging, but when you show up in it, it changes intergenerationally, and that's a big gift for everybody.

Totally. Yeah. I mean, that part is so rewarding as a parent. I want to shift gears into a common problem and question that I hear from men with regards to their relationship. And then I'd love to maybe spend some time to close out our conversation around like what, what are some of the other tools and specifics that men can do? I know you've got a book and a program and those things are phenomenal.

Sure.

And I highly encourage men to go check them out. But I want to dive into that piece. But where I want to stop first is when a man is in a relationship and he feels like the relationship maybe isn't fully satiating or satisfying or it's not doing it for him or There just seems to be something missing. How do you help him tell the difference? How can he begin to distinguish between this is a relational challenge or this is a brain trained to expect something different, trained to expect something artificial?

Yeah, it's really difficult if you are not the— let's just put it this way. The less regulated your brain is or the more miswired your brain is, self-awareness decreases exponentially.

So, can you say it again? It's just— just for the guys in the back.

Yeah, yeah. So, like, basically, the more miswired— I call it miswired by the algorithm— the more miswired your brain is, self-awareness decreases significantly. So, I think— well, I'll give you some strategies, but, like, basically, as you're improving your brain function and you're improving your skills, it becomes easier and easier and easier. So, for people who are really distorted, but those people don't know they're distorted is what I'm trying to say. You know, and I work with all different kinds of people, so I fundamentally know that. But setting some red flags for yourself, and I've heard, you know, lots from lots of people. And then I— this is an easy way to think about it. The life that you have in front of you that you're creating, you are creating it. Is it the life that you want? You know, is it the authentic life that you want? If not, then it's time to do something different, right? And especially when it comes to your relationship, like, If your relationship isn't what you want, then it's time to do things differently. But, the number one thing I know that most men who are caught up in hypersexuality, if you're watching porn use, I want you to know it's absolutely impacting you whether you know it or not. And, the hijacker's in there informing the way you think about your sexual relationship. And, you can only see that in hindsight. You can only see that in the rearview mirror. But improving communication with your partner is absolutely instrumental to see where the gap is. But the really tricky thing is you might not be able to see it. So, you know, being able to look at your life and what you want, and if you don't have what you want, being able to then begin to do things differently. And communication is a number one way to do that. Transparency. If you aren't sharing your struggle with your partner, I'm like the one person that on the end, people think I'm slightly nuts because I will do the difficult thing because I always do the deathbed analysis. On my deathbed, will I be okay with the way I'm doing something? And, if a relationship's struggling, I will keep showing up and persevering until that changes because I don't want to live my life in inauthentic relationships or relationships that are filled with struggle.

Yeah.

So, I will stay on top of a thing. That's what I'm encouraging people to do through communication. So, in a really practical way, share your struggles with your partner. Most partners stay and they want to work on it with you. And then, now it's you and your partner against the hijacker, not you and the hijacker hiding things from your partner.

Hmm.

And then, set up communication. I have people in my program set up a check-in once a week, if not more. Some people need it once a day. But, what that allows is you know when you're talking about this and thinking about it and all the other times you're setting the foundation for the lifestyle. You're not just thinking about it and discussing it all the time, you're actually implementing these brain hack strategies, these instant rewires all over the place. It's tricky though because the people who need it the most can't see it. That's my main thing right there.

Yeah, it's a tough one. I think one of the things that I like about what you're saying is having these specific strategies. I called them self-agreements of like, what have I agreed to do? What have I agreed to with myself to do when the desire to watch porn comes up? Or, you know, what have I agreed to do when, you know, relapses happen? Like, whatever it is, you know, it's like we have these self-agreements that we can then follow through with. What about the shame piece? Because I think one of the big parts, one of the big obstacles that a lot of men have is There's shame around that they're watching it, there's shame around that they can't stop, there's shame around what they're watching, there's shame around having to have those conversations with a friend or, you know, with their significant other. How can a man start to address that piece?

Yeah, so shame goes back to that Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Again, like, this is not the plug for my work. I don't mean to do it, but the technology can change the way a person's brain works. avoiding the shame piece because I know that people feel shame because of trying and struggling and failing. So in my work, I try to tell people there is no win or lose, there's win or learn. And if you're not able to learn in those earlier days of recovery or when you've made this commitment or agreement to yourself, you need more tools and you need more help. And that's what I want people to know. It doesn't have to be with me, but the technology is a really great way of getting the brain stronger. And again, these are pathways, these are neural pathways we're talking about. So, I always talk about if you're trying to go down a new pathway, the one you've been going down long-term, it's all beaten down. It's easy to go down that pathway. The minute you make the commitment to the new pathway, the weeds are all overgrown and there's rocks. So, you're going to stumble at first. And, that's where accountability and having a group or having friends supporting you, very important. But, if you've been doing that for 3 months, 6 months, 5 years, 19 years, where's the learning curve, right? That's what we need people to do. If you're not able to do with your mind and your body, there's tech to do it for you, but you can't keep stumbling over the same rocks in the pathway or not trampling down those weeds. That's where consistency in recovery can go such a long way, getting all the right tools at the outset, getting the support you need at the outset, Shame comes from trying and failing and not being able to do it more and more and more.

I love to maybe just— because I can imagine, listen, if I was listening to this when I was trying to quit pornography, there'd probably be a part of me that's like, do I have to go get a brain scan in order to stop watching porn? And so what I'd love from you, Dr. Lee, to just— Wrap up is like, what can you give men just like a little bit of like a step-by-step and where should they begin and what will that look like?

Yep. Okay. So, for yourself, so of course, I think everybody should get a brain scan, but this is what I want. If somebody's listening and they're like, what do I do right now? So, you know how I told you about strain brain and your brain being wired and tired? Do your own self-analysis, right? That's why I want people to look at their life and go, oh, if I'm stressed out all the time, if you can see it, if I feel fatigued, Yeah. Then, your brain is in strained brain. And, on my YouTube channel, there are 1,600 videos, all have a brain hack strategy. So, in the book, there's 54 brain hacks in the book. There are strategies that you can use to get the ball rolling. And, I'll give you a really important one in one second. But, if you can feel that strain in your strained brain, recognize that your brain does have some level of miswiring and it's really important for you to create a plan that's going to work and to follow through with it and to build the foundation of the lifestyle. And, especially, like you said, make sure you're getting real-world dopamine. That's the dopamine stacking piece. If you feel drained brain, if you feel lack of motivation, if you have sexual arousal dysfunction, you've tipped over into an even deeper level of miswiring. So, recognizing that that needs a boost in activation. Strained brain needs to bring the activation down. It's mostly driven by stress in the cycle, Drain brain is your brain's become depleted. And then, take the action steps necessary. One of the most important action steps, which I already kind of told you about with dopamine determination and dopamine stacking, is to have a 3-second instant rewire plan that you use every single time you get an urge. And, I get emails every day, people thanking me for this strategy because it's the consistency. So, going back to You can rewire your brain by yourself through repetition of giving your brain a new reward when your brain calls for dopamine. Any sexual urge that isn't moving you towards a sexual experience with a partner, that's likely an urge for dopamine. So, in those moments, you have to do the instant rewire. And, like Malcolm Gladwell says, more than 10,000 times. So, it's not a one-off, it's a 10,000-time thing. is that in that very moment, you have predetermined what you're going to go do to get dopamine. And, some of the coolest stories I've heard from people come out of the Instant Rewire. So, one client of mine, he had a piano in his house that he never played.

Mm-hmm.

So, anytime he had an urge, he would play the piano. And, through the repetition of giving his brain the dopamine from the piano instead of pornography, he was able to rewire Those pathways back into his real life. Another guy, he's like, I cannot think of anything creative. And, if you can't think of anything creative, my go-to is number 1, push-ups, number 2, lift heavy things because basically it pumps the cortisol, the stress hormone out of your system. It brings in many of the healthy neurotransmitters that make you feel calm and alert, bringing your brain back to a green brain map. So, this guy, he had a porn habit every Friday night. And Fridays, he spent lifting heavy things, but he only had to do it for like 6 weeks before he was able to— every Friday, he'd lift heavy things. And then, over time, his brain was changing through repetition of all the other strategies. It's imperative to make sure there's balance in your life. A lot of people don't have balance. They're on the grind. Making sure you have real-world connection, like you said, making sure you're eating as healthy as possible. That's part of the program that I offer. It's in the book too. Don't eat out of crinkly bags, eat the rainbow, right? Balance protein, carbs, and healthy fat. A lot of people don't even know how to do that. It sustains the stability in the system. So, all these things add up.

Love that. Love that. Yeah. I mean, I think that all of that is so damn good. I mean, I instituted meditation and breathwork and burpees and, you know, all those types of things in the face of it. And I think it's tough for some guys because they have like the, you know, porn's become the like morning wake-up or the bedtime fall asleep routine. And it's funny because I've seen for a lot of men, it's like a replacement for this desire to have a routine. And it's funny that for a lot of men, when they create the routine, the porn habit really starts to subside. It like really starts to go away because, you know, they've, they've bookended it, whether it's waking up in the morning or going to bed at night or, you know, lunch break or whatever it is, right? Get home from work and you're bored and you don't know what to do. And so then all of a sudden you create this system where you, you have a ritual that's giving you the dopamine and it's replacing— I love that idea of dopamine stacking.

Yeah. So yeah, and that's re— that's rewired desire. That's why I call it miswired desire and rewired desire. like all the things in your life, envision the life that you want, right? That's the captain in the prefrontal cortex. Spend time envisioning what is your perfect life or the life that would fill you with joy and pleasure. What does that look like? Many people don't do that. They just complain about the life that they have, right?

Yes.

That's what I'm always doing. The deathbed experiences, like my daughter's an equestrian and she rides horses. So now, I have this vision. She's my last one at home. I'm like, maybe I should move and get a 6-stable burn. But then, the hijacker in me goes, you can't do that. And, I'm like, yeah, I can. Maybe I can. Maybe I can, right? So, creating the life that I want and then setting the GPS for that, and then it'll give me more joy and pleasure because that's the important thing at this season of my life, right?

Totally.

So, when we spend time intentionally setting that GPS, you're firing up that captain in the frontal lobe. So, it's like, don't give the gorilla bananas and give that captain Lots to chew on about setting the GPS for your life, and then give him the little pieces. Another thing I have people in my programs do, I call it an executive function project. Pick something that you care about and do it for the next 30 days.

Hmm.

You're retraining delayed gratification. I have one guy who, he had a motorcycle in his garage, like, all dusty for a long time. I always tell people, make it multisensory too. Like, you know, Google things about your motorcycle, order motorcycle magazines so that you can have it in your hand. Set the map for where you're going to take your motorcycle once you rebuild it. Get the things you need. Set the time aside during one of those vulnerable moments on your weekend that's an anchoring event and work on it for 30 days. It rebuilds the prefrontal cortex and that captain, it fires them up again. And then, I tell people when you get done with that executive function project, plan another one. And then, that keeps you moving forward on the life that you want. That's the foundation that we're talking about. You'll never be bored if you have a cool project that you love going at all times.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Mine right now is— it's always been a dream of mine to take my family traveling around the world for a year. And so, I'm taking the next 3 years to vision that and where we can go and how the hell we would even make that work and prepping my family for it. I'm like, okay, what has to— because you can't just pull the ripcord one day and peace out.

That's so awesome, right? Yeah. Me, I'm thinking about building a family compound.

Nice.

I'm not going to trap my family there, but I have 5 kids. I have 5 kids and I'm trying to think, it's very difficult for us to travel and it's very expensive. And, most times somebody's not happy is the reality. So, I'm like, I want to build a house and then have 5 little houses or cabins And I can Airbnb them out, but then my family can always come. And then we plan family, right? Like, I'm like, I think that might be cool for the next season. But again, that's going to take me 5 years to actualize, if that, you know? Totally. But like, I'm looking for properties and I'm, you know, I've got a lot of things going and it's exciting. Gives me something to do.

Love it. Where can people go and learn more about you, watch your content, dig into your work?

Yeah. Yeah. So everything can be found at At drtrishleigh.com. That's my website. My last name is Leigh. I have a YouTube channel where I've been supporting people for years. You can go there. There are many, many videos, and I have an awesome plan for even more on miswired desire that's coming up. I mean, those are basically, you know, I'm on all the social media channels. My book is available anywhere they sell books. It's called Mind Over Explicit Matter. It launched as number 1 in its category in front of Your Brain on Porn, which is really exciting. You know, that kind of laid the foundation for the neurological dysfunction that happens. And then, mine gives you the tools to back it out. So, those are all the great places you can go if you're interested.

Beauty. Well, we'll have links to all that in the show notes for you to make it easy. So, just click on it whether you're watching on YouTube or check it out on Spotify and you can find your way over to Dr. Li's website. Dr. Li, thank you so much for joining me. I appreciate you and your wisdom and the really great conversation. And, for all the guys that are out there, don't forget to man Pay it forward. Share this with somebody in your life that you know could use it and could use the tools and the resources that we talked about. As always, until next week, Connor Beaton signing off.