welcome back uh i am psyched that you are here and today we are going to talk about
masturbation and you know what green day says if masturbation's lost it's fun you're
effing lazy well i disagree and we're gonna break that down in this here uh episode so
what we're gonna talk about is masturbation first of all we're gonna talk about can it be addictive
and how it's related to corn consumption two we're going to talk about the neuroscience behind
masturbation then we're going to talk about how masturbation impacts your memory your thinking
your anxiety your mental health then we're going to transition into your physical health and talk
about erectile dysfunction then we're going to move on we're going to talk about the relationship
to testosterone we're going to talk about how that how masturbation impacts your sex life
and then finally we are going to talk about how you can stop masturbating if i have inspired you
to contemplate it by the end of this episode so let's dig in masturbation can it be addictive and
how is it related to pornography and you know what we're going to transition right into neuroscience
when we talk about this so absolutely compulsive masturbation is a thing and if you've seen my
youtube channel i take some heat when i talk about masturbation but it's heat i'm willing to take
because i have created a channel on youtube where i tell the world what it needs to hear not what
it wants to hear and i know that many men want to hear that masturbation is harmless that it
doesn't impact anybody it's just a harmless way to de-stress and to you know fill the boredom
of the holes in your schedule and it's a way for you to have a sex life without a partner
you know i've heard it all but the reality is in fact it's coupled and associated with pornography
consumption or the fantasy that results from there of thereof and it is not good for your brain thus
it will impact your mental and emotional health it will impact your physical health and it's going to
show up in your world so in fact masturbation can be addictive and we know that there is compulsive
masturbation so when other professionals are talking about masturbation being fine for you
or even good for you they are not talking about people who struggle with compulsive masturbation
which is the majority of people who masturbate and honestly i just reached out to a professional
and no it's not one that i've talked to on my podcast yet and no it's not a professional should
who should even be talking about masturbation but i'm sure this person is looking for clicks
and if you're listening uh you can search your heart because i'm sure you're looking for clicks
by telling the world that you know masturbation's harmless everybody masturbates there's no shame
surrounding masturbation even though the professional whispered the word masturbation which
assumes there is shame associated with it so you know i won't tell you what you want to hear
which other people are telling you that it's fine and it doesn't impact you or
your relationship because that's bs so yes in fact it could be addictive you can
get in a loop where you need it to feel okay about your life it becomes your number one self-soothing
tool that's the why behind masturbation it has nothing to do with sex for most people and you
might not be aware of that but if you peel the layers back you might find out that that in fact
is true and i'm spitting straight facts there but the neuroscience behind masturbation especially
if you have been consuming pornography the neuroscience behind it is this when you were young
you found pornography in masturbation and you likely found it in a world that's difficult
to exist in right the human existence it is a challenging one in fact so you found porn and
masturbation and it made your brain feel good you felt that rush in your brain it took you
away from the worries of the day or your life it made you feel good for a time you were watching
pornography which was highly exhilarating you were masturbating and it gave you physical stimulation
that you had never felt before because most people experience this when they're 10
11 even younger so this is this new mental and physical stimulation that is awesome and it is
literally rescuing you rescuing you from your life now this is the way that your brain works
your brain will keep going in the direction of the reward and we know when dopamine floods into your
system it's a dopamine deluge and it's a highly rewarding neurotransmitter it's the pleasure
seeking neurotransmitter so it gives you pleasure and when it's coupled to porn and masturbation
basically what you're training your brain to realize is that the way that i can deal with
difficulties in my life is by masturbating to porn or to fantasy to take me away from that and give
me this amazing feeling not only in my brain but also in my body and it is a neurochemical cascade
that makes you feel that way and it's primarily dopamine when you get the dopamine deluge what
it teaches you is that there's a your brain is that there's a dopamine deficit in your world
so ultimately you keep going back to porn and masturbation to feel good but you don't
even realize it's making your life worse your brain thinks there's no dopamine in the world
that there's only stress because of cortisol and your work doesn't do it for you your friendships
don't do it for you your hobbies don't do it for you and you find yourself back into the screen
masturbation so over time what happens is you develop a masturbation habit and you convince
yourself it's harmless it's no big deal it's your way to de-stress but in fact it is keeping
you coming back for more because of the dopamine deluge you've linked your brain neurologically to
your self physically so if you're linked to your brain and we know when you have sex with a partner
you link your brain to that partner neurologically that's the beauty of it so if you have a partner
and you have healthy sexuality there's dopamine for pleasure serotonin for happiness and oxytocin
for connection or linking and so when you find a partner and you get those brain juices flowing
when you're with that partner you've linked yourself to that partner which makes you want
to go back to that partner for more and more not only physical intimacy but intimacy so that you
have love and happiness connection and pleasure but if you keep masturbating you're literally
neurologically linking your brain sexually to your self and that is a self-defeating loop
because it keeps you caught in it so you might know that this is true if you prefer masturbation
over having sex and you might want to have sex but it feels better to masturbate or it feels better
to masturbate to porn you're stuck in that loop so that's the neuroscience behind it is you're
getting this flood of dopamine and your brain's feeling good and oh sorry i'm dropping things here
uh your brain is feeling good and you continue to want to come back for more and more and more okay
so let's talk about how that impacts your memory so let's move on to porn masturbation and memory
loss so when you masturbate you are flooding your brain with dopamine so what that does is it floods
your frontal lobe which is in charge of working memory concentration focus socialization judgment
impulse control it's in charge of all of that and you're flooding the reward center so what happens
is when you're flooded out with dopamine your brain can't think and it can't remember as well
so the more consistently and frequently you masturbate you're knocking out the frontal lobe
and it becomes this vicious cycle that is impacted by neurochemical release so depending upon where
you are in the cycle you'll have the worst brain fog and then when you move through the cycle it
might get a little better and then it'll get worse again and so it becomes this vicious cycle but i
want you to know every time you flood your brain out you're making it so that your memory memory
will actually be negatively impacted from that dopamine flood now obviously it's more involved
than that one other aspect is that we know this again from the science is that the more
you consume porn and masturbate you're increasing slowing in the frontal lobe so you're slowing your
brain down it's like you're putting the brakes on your frontal lobe and that's another reason
why memory and thinking becomes impaired and you might experience brain fog and you know thinking
and is not going to be as good or work out as well for you okay let's move on because we're trying to
move through lots of things here in this here uh in this here episode let's move to erectile
dysfunction so hopefully you kind of get the gist of you know you've got all this going on you think
it's about physical stimulation but where do you think the physical stimulation comes from
your brain you're feeling it in your brain and it's delivering the signals to your body
so now when the signals are delivered it's delivering the signals to your mind and your
body so that's why this slowing can impact your thinking in your mind your cognitive behaviors
but then it also can impact erectile dysfunction and delayed ejaculation so it works like this
if you're desensitizing the reward center in the middle of your brain you're knocking out the
receptors the reward sectors that basically can perceive arousal and perceive levels of arousal so
porn's a super normal stimulus when you're watching sexual acts and behaviors that
don't actually exist in the real world especially in the way that it's portrayed
with partners that don't exist in the real world it is a super normal stimulus it gives your brain
tons of mental arousal which means you get large amounts of dopamine at the same time masturbation
is extreme amounts of physical stimulation i work with some people who their grip is so tight they
have hand prints on their penis the amount of physical stimulation that some people apply
is extreme and so it's anywhere from extreme to still more than what would happen if you
were having sex with a partner so that physical stimulation makes it so that your brain needs
that level of mental and physical stimulation to be aroused so now it's time to have sex with your
honey and when you're with a partner you don't have that physical stimulation you don't have that
tight grip and at the same time you don't have the mental stimulation so now you can't get where you
need to get being with your partner and we also know from the science that if you're consuming
porn that your attraction level to your partner literally goes down so you're just less aroused by
your partner even if she was amazing because she's not doing the funky things that you're watching on
the screen she can never live up to this super normal stimulus thus even if you have the best
partner in the world it's still not to the same level as the screen and if you're not masturbating
and you're having uh your your healthy levels of sex you're not getting the physical stimulation
leads to erectile dysfunction you can't get an erection which means that you can't have a sexual
experience which means now you have performance anxiety we know performance anxiety is going
through the roof for young people and they are not associating it with porn and masturbation but
the performance anxiety is coming from the fact that they may not be able to get an erection plus
they're worried about sex as a performance because they watch it as a performance not experience
it as an experience the same time they might not be as aroused by their partner and they don't have
the same mental and physical stimulation so let's jump to how it impacts your sex life and then
we'll go back to testosterone so we know that the way that it impacts your sex life is now you might
have delayed ejaculation because it takes you forever to get anywhere near the arousal and this
is how you know you might have a problem you're with your partner but you have to go to fantasy
to get the mental stimulation going you have to recall some porn scenes that you've seen you have
to run a highlight reel you have to think about your favorite porn performer many people have
said to me before so i should be thinking about my wife when we have sex yes obviously if you're not
that's a problem at the same time if you're having sexual intercourse with your partner and you're
feeling a really strong urge to masturbate or do some other activity that gives you more physical
stimulation it's because your brain needs it it's no longer getting the level of stimulation
from your partner that it would so let's just say if masturbation and porn were out of the equation
and now you're with your partner it would feel amazing and that's why when you give up porn
and masturbation your sex life goes from zero to hero it goes through the roof once your brain has
unwired the porn and masturbation pattern rewired into healthy sexuality and mood regulation
sex becomes better than ever as it should be because that's what's healthy so it impacts your
sex life in that way now let me tell you something else your partner knows things are getting funky
in the bedroom so even if she doesn't know that you watch pornography if she doesn't know that
you masturbate daily she knows something's up she knows that you're not enjoying it that much
it's getting weird and she's not enjoying it that much things are going wrong so i encourage you to
know that don't blame your partner i have so many people that i work with and they're like
yeah if my wife wanted to have more sex with me i wouldn't have to watch porn that's not true
because you started watching porn and masturbating long before you met your partner and then you've
continued it and then your relationship's gotten funky so it's dynamical the dynamics need to shift
and porn needs to come out of the equation because when porn's in the equation we know that divorce
and breakups are more than doubled and the desire to cheat or infidelity is 300 increase which is a
terrifying statistic um okay so let us move on to testosterone because i've read a few
studies in terms of testosterone what we know is that abstinence from masturbation in
from orgasm but some of these studies looked at at masturbation from
abstinence from orgasm can increase testosterone one of the studies shows
that it increased 104 percent which is awesome obviously on day seven and so on the seventh
day there was a spike in serum testosterone we also know that there's another study that was a
three-week abstinence period and testosterone levels increased over that amount of time so
another thing we know is that orgasm creates more testosterone so
there's enough science supporting abstinence as a way to improve the way that your body
makes and utilizes testosterone and i know many men are worried about their testosterone levels
and i know a lot of the dudes that i interact with are on testosterone supplements and i'm
like dudes if you just stop watching porn and masturbating your testosterone levels would even
out you wouldn't need those supplements you're doing it to yourself you're draining yourself
you're making your brain's electrical energy go back and forth pendulum effect
you're making those neurotransmitter cascades go wonky when the system stabilizes your sleep
improves your workouts improves improve your muscle growth improves things get better when
the system is stable when you keep watching porn and masturbating you're destabilizing the system
and then the nervous system then the body the mind and the brain are not able to handle things well
okay so we also know that when you are stuck in this loop of masturbation especially when it's
associated with porn that it can be so difficult to get out how do you stop masturbating let me
tell you how number one you have to stop watching porn i know it's challenging but you are frying
your brain you're damaging your brain and it is the thing that's keeping the masturbation alive
because i challenge people to masturbate without fantasy on a schedule so you're not using it to
de-stress or to fill the boredom and then stay with the sensations in your body and so many guys
will like burst out laughing and be like what's the point and i'll be like exactly that's exactly
it there is no point if you're just doing it on a schedule with no fantasy especially no porn and if
you're just staying in your body but that is you know a quote unquote healthy masturbation habit
if you are in a culture or a religion where you're not able to have healthy sexuality with a partner
at this point in your life so how to quit it is to stay out of the screen and make a pivot plan
what you're going to do instead of masturbating to decrease your stress levels and to not be bored
especially if you're using masturbation as a sleep tool find a way to wind down at the night if you
find that you're masturbating in the morning you're likely trying to get a dopamine hit to
help you get through the day so build in more breaks in the day build in more mood regulation
activities favorite hobbies that you love to do and you won't need to masturbate anymore
okay i hope that helps you out if you're looking for help on your journey please go over to dr
trishlee.com on my 90 day program has everything that you need to leave masturbation behind for
good um when i work with people what i do is i can individualize you know kind of how you can
break this loop of masturbation it's different for all different people depending upon what you have
going on and i would be happy to help you okay as always control your brain or it'll control you