Transcription
If you struggle with erectile dysfunction and you suspect that it's due to your porn use, maybe you gave up porn a while ago and you've been able to overcome that, but you're not able to bring your body back online. I know what's going on with you and I know how to help. I'm Dr. Trish Leigh, brain health and sex addiction recovery coach. Let's talk about the three easy, simple steps to recover from porn-induced erectile dysfunction.
At the core of PIED, porn-induced erectile dysfunction, is arousal dysfunction in your brain. Many people seek the answer in their body without really realizing that pleasure is primarily processed in the reward center and the reward pathways of your brain. Now, what happens is the reward center becomes desensitized from high levels of dopamine from a continual, repeated porn habit. So it works like this. You go back to the screen to feel good. That feeling good is related to dopamine, the molecule and neurotransmitter of pleasure. It floods through your system, which gives you that euphoric, numbed out feeling. But if you continue to do that over and over, and especially if you escalate to higher levels, what happens is that flood of dopamine makes it very difficult for you to become aroused at lower levels from real life, real world pleasure sources like your partner. So this desensitization in the reward center is what's at the core of porn-induced erectile dysfunction, which is the number one type of erectile dysfunction in today's day and age.
So what do you do about it? I'm going to give you three steps right now. Now that you know that desensitization in the brain is the cause of porn-induced erectile dysfunction, it will be very clear how these three steps can move you through a simple process to healing and recovery.
Number one, stop desensitizing the reward center. Stop desensitizing the reward pathways. Now, I know from working with millions of people worldwide that you may not even know how you're desensitizing these centers and pathways. So I'm going to tell you desensitization primarily happens from explicit matter, sexual content of all kinds. And that's for people who have a porn habit. And this is why, because when you were young and you found porn, it lit up your brain with that dopamine flood. In those moments, it made it that your brain needs more dopamine to feel good than if you never found porn. So if you didn't find porn, you wouldn't have these issues in your brain. But now that you have found porn and you've been using those neural pathways back to hypersexuality, that is the source of the most amount of pleasure for you in your brain. So you have to be very careful and stay away from those sources.
So what does explicit matter, what does it include? Explicit matter includes a continuum of sexual media. Up at the top is porn proper on porn sites. And of course that also exists at a continuum because people ask me all the time, what is the difference between hardcore and vanilla porn? Yes, it depends what you're consuming because the more intense, the more dopamine. And of course, this is very personalized to what you found and what might become a fetish for you. That is the top thing in your arousal template, which can be different from other people. So you have to watch out not to give your brain lots and lots of dopamine from the source that you're used to giving it from. You in particular, individualized, figure out how you're desensitizing your brain, the thing you like most and don't do it anymore. So that might be porn proper. It might be social media, looking at sexualized images. It might be dating apps. Yes, they're highly dopamine producing because basically you have seeking and searching behavior that's happening within them. It may be movies. It may be long form video. It may be short form video. Figure it out for you. Very personalized. Write it down in your journal. These are the things I'm doing to desensitize my brain and make sure you don't do it. That's number one.
Number two is it's imperative to rewire your brain back to the healthy optimal levels that honestly you may have never experienced because I've already told you, you found porn when you were young. Porn hijacked your brain to need more dopamine. It means that your brain never got the chance to fully develop. This is your chance. So what we have to do is rewire your brain back to the optimal energy pattern. So what that means is your brain is either in strained brain. It's going too fast and too slow. And what that feels like is anxious, stressed, overwhelmed, and exhausted. Yeah, relatable, right? So that's strained brain. If you consume porn for a long time, and especially at intense levels, you will tip over into what I call drained brain. What drained brain involves is low motivation, erectile dysfunction that is worsening where you're not able to perform or enjoy sexuality at all. You may feel general malaise. You may feel depressed. That's drained brain. Both of these patterns can contribute to ED and the worse they become, the more porn induced ED you will struggle with. So these brain patterns are at the core of porn induced erectile dysfunction. It's imperative to rewire your brain so it no longer uses strained brain or drained brain.
The easiest way to do that is using advanced technology and neuroscience, which is exactly what I do at Dr. Trish Lee and Company. I have my own app, Dr. Trish Leigh. And in that app, I provide very high level neuromodulation services called neurofeedback. The way that it works is we perform what's called a qEEG brain map. We see how your brain is performing. We see if you're using strained brain or drained brain, then we know how far away from the optimal brain pattern you are. And using that same technology, we're able to work your brain out. It's just like a workout for your brain. We're able to give it workouts every single day so that it moves itself back to the healthy optimal levels. In doing so, you don't need porn anymore and you can feel and perform better in terms of real world healthy sexuality. So what does that mean? It means you can get back to business with your honey, enjoy it, stay present, and have it be a wonderful experience because you're no longer desensitizing your brain and now it's healthy. So number two is you rewire your brain using qEEG brain mapping to see what's going on and neurofeedback neuromodulation techniques. Now, if you're not up for that, if you're not in a position to do it, then you can use meditation techniques at home. Meditation is a neuromodulation technique with no technology, but I will tell you that it can take a lot longer and my mission is to help people heal their own brains as fast as possible. Technology is the way to do it.
Okay, moving on to number three. You stop desensitizing. You've seen what your brain is doing. You've stopped desensitizing. You see what your brain is doing in terms of performance patterns. You've identified if there's strain brain or drain brain. Then you've used neurofeedback as a workout for your brain to get back to the optimal brain performance pattern. Now, the third strategy is to resensitize your brain. It's imperative to reset those pleasure pathways back to healthy levels of dopamine, which will be lower than what you've gotten in the screen and from healthy sources. So this pleasure pathway reset, it's imperative that you teach your brain to get back into your life, doing the things that you love, your hobbies, the work that you used to enjoy, hanging out with people that you like being with, and especially healthy sexuality with your partner. And if you don't have a partner, building intimacy to move towards that partnership that you're looking for.
So the three strategies are stop desensitizing, no porn, no explicit matter, rewire your brain by having a QEG brain map and neurofeedback, advanced technology therapy, and number three, resensitize your brain by resetting your pleasure pathways back into real world pleasure. Those are the three simple steps, but this is what I know is that they're not always easy. They're very simple, but if you find yourself struggling and you're not able to do this alone, please reach out to me, Dr. Trish Lee and company, me, my team at drtrishleigh.com We're here to help you. This is literally what we do all day, every day. And I would love to be part of your journey. All right, until next time, control your brain or it'll control you.