How watching porn impacts what you eat.
I'm Dr Trish Leigh.
Stay with me in this video because I promise you, I'm not being dramatic.
It goes back to the way that you use your brain
and how you train it to behave in the world.
And when you watch pornography, you're training your brain in an unhealthy way.
So in this video, here's what we're going to do.
Number one, we're going to talk about what you're eating
and how it has to do with your brain performance.
Then number two, I'm going to share with you
how eating and porn are related in terms
of that dopamine release that your brain is looking for.
Then number three, your brain tips strategy for the day is
what's one easy step that you can take
to start training your brain in the right direction,
not only to eat healthier , but to leave porn behind for good to.
OK, so let's dig in.
Number one, what are you eating?
So I work with so many people that tell me, you know, what's happened
is I have been resigned to eating out all the time.
Hitting drive throughs on my way home.
Hitting DoorDash to have food delivered.
Uber Eats.
I buy frozen food and nuking it.
I eat a lot of things out of a crinkly bag.
So what's happening there?
What's happening there is to cook a meal and prepare it ahead of time.
Takes a lot of time and effort, which actually can be fun.
But time and effort to use executive
function skills that come from your frontal lobe
and what you have to do is take small steps to be able
to move towards the larger goal, which is dopamine producing.
And when your brain is healthy, you can get little drips
of dopamine as you're moving towards the larger goal of your meal.
Very healthy.
But when you consume pornography, this is number two.
When you go into the screen and you've trained your brain
to hit the easy button for a rush of dopamine in a sexual way.
You've just trained your brain.
It doesn't have to work for anything.
All it has to do is hit a button and it gets the major
massive reward quickly, which I also feel the need to remind you
is damaging your frontal lobe and the reward center in your brain.
And we'll revisit that in a second.
But when you hit the easy button now your brain's like, Oh,
all I'm going to do is hit an easy button and I get this massive rush from sex.
But I also want to remind you that watching porn is not having sex.
Those are two different things,
and having sex in the real world requires a partner.
Which one might say involves a little bit more work
or a little bit more of those objectives or smaller goals
that are achieved along the way to be able to have an actual sexual experience.
For example, you have to work to find a partner.
Unfortunately, the way life works is you also have to work
at keeping a partner, which it too can be fun.
Executive function once you're doing it and having a sexual experience
with another person involves give and take, not just take or consuming.
It involves thinking about your partner connecting.
It is just more than hitting an easy button.
But we know when you hit the easy button and you get the deluge of dopamine,
you're actually frying out your brain.
When you do the work or you take the small steps towards the larger reward,
you are firing up your brain and you're teaching it
to be able to move in a healthy way towards a reward.
OK, so let's double back for a minute to what this has to do with food.
So when you hit the easy button for sex, which is a very dopamine
high dopamine producing activity from a super normal stimulus,
what you've trained your brain is I'm just going to hit the easy button
for everything.
I don't want to or have to work for anything anymore.
So what happens to many people is they just start hitting fast food
or if you can remain staying in that healthy zone.
Protein shakes.
I know when I devolve a bit in terms of,
you know, wanting to hit the easy button, I start
drinking way too many protein shakes because I don't want to.
I don't make the time to make healthy meals.
So that's a sign for me.
When I start eating protein bars and protein shakes,
I change something because that's like a threshold sign for me.
You're going down, Trish,
because this is your second protein based thing of the day.
So what we can do
is fire up your brain so that it learns
that it can take those steps smaller steps towards a larger goal.
So this is number three, your brain tips strategy for the day.
And of course, it involves leaving the screen behind
because you have to unwired the brain pattern that just hits an easy
button to get a big reward simultaneously,
cook a meal plan, email and cook a meal.
It will be so good for your brain.
Food's very dopamine producing, so another reason
your brain wants to go towards junk food
is because there'll be a higher level of dopamine.
So you've trained your brain to get a high level of dopamine
with just the click of a button.
And so when it comes to food, junk food and fast food and takeout food,
you hit an easy button and a pizza comes to your doorstep.
Higher dopamine producing food than, say, you know, a balanced meal.
Of salmon and Brussels sprouts and teen, why
so when you look up a recipe,
say for shrimp tacos like I did the other day, I had to look it up.
I had to buy a bunch of spices.
I had to get some shrimp.
I had to get some corn tortillas that are
gluten free so it can keep the inflammation down.
I found myself a recipe.
I went to the store specifically to buy those ingredients.
I came home.
It was lime cilantro. I got fresh cilantro.
I got fresh limes.
I came home and I followed the recipe.
And actually, I did the recipe the next day.
So on day one, I looked up the recipe.
Day two, I went and bought what I needed.
Day three, I made the meal.
I called the fam squad and everybody had some shrimp tacos.
And it was delicious. It was healthy.
And I also got the dopamine hit from my family eating together food
that was dopamine producing connection with the people that I love.
And so when you do that, you're teaching your brain no more easy button.
I can work for things and it can be fun to do it.
The same thing applies to your relationship.
If you're hitting the easy button,
you're going into the screen for a sexual release.
What you're doing is you're teaching your brain.
It's not worth the time and energy to try to continue
to build this relationship with my partner.
And you know,
my partner is a lot of work and they don't even do
the things that I want in the bedroom.
So I'm just to go back into that easy button.
But it's because you're frying out the frontal lobe.
The frontal lobe is the part of your brain that can do executive function skills.
We know science shows you deactivating it.
You're less likely to be able to take those steps because of the easy button.
Simultaneously, the reward centers being desensitized,
meaning you need more dopamine to feel good about that thing.
So you need porn instead of sex with your partner.
You need fried chicken instead of grilled chicken
because there's dopamine
more dopamine in the junk food than there is in the healthy food.
So what we're talking about here is dialing it back to a healthy diet
that in fact, requires more time in the real world.
But what I think you'll find is you might enjoy cooking
and part of my program, my 90 day program, is learning to cook
some meals for each time of the day so that you can spend time.
And we know from a science cooking and doing executive function skills
can be really, really important in keeping a healthy brain over time.
OK, so I hope that helps you out.
Go cook a meal. Prepare it. Look it up.
Find a delicious artichoke chicken recipe
that I probably told you this before that was on the bar of my Google.
You know, my Google Home page, and anytime
I'd be on a zoom with people, they'd be like, What's that recipe?
Because the artichoke chicken recipe would keep popping up.
That's a good one. Go find it.
OK. That's your brain to for today, and I encourage you
to leave the easy button behind.
It's damaging your brain is creating a world of hurt that you might
not even realize it down to the junk food in the fast food that you're consuming.
If you are looking for help on this journey, please reach out to me,
DrTrishLeigh.com I'd love to help you out.
And in the meantime, control your brain or it'll control you.