Change Your Brain Every Day - The Brain in Love & Lust Series - More Sex On Your Brain

Episode Date: February 15, 2017

Today's episode we're going to talk about love and sex and how the brain is affected by these two charged emotional events in our lives. We've talked a lot about sex in this podcast and if you haven't heard our previous episodes, check out episodes 16 and 61.

Hi, I'm Donnie Osmond, and welcome to The Brain Warrior's Way, hosted by my friends Daniel and Tana Amon. Now, in this podcast, you're going to learn that the war for your health is one between your ears. That's right. If you're ready to be sharper and have better memory, mood, energy, and focus, well then stay with us. Here are Daniel and Tana Amen.

On tonight's topic regarding love, sex, and the brain, we've all heard the phrase or the saying, men give love to get sex and women give sex to get love. And I think we've all seen people who partake in these behaviors, many to high risk and self-destructive. What are some of the reasons maybe psychologically and physiologically for this? And for those who have some of these high risk behaviors, how they might be able to identify and stop this and maybe get on a path to better health and better behavior? So many couples have this issue where they use sex as a weapon. They use it as a hurtful behavior in their relationships. For people who get addicted to it, and it's going to happen more than ever because online pornography is so easy to happen. We'll see ADD people have a much higher incidence of it. People who've been on

their video games for a long time, they just need that next excitement, that next thrill. They're going to have more of it and it's going to ruin their level of intimacy. And it's a very good question. We have to be so thoughtful about it. Now, naturally, we're wired. Guys are wired to have as many offspring as they can. So, you know, we're always sort of checking out that month, really 20 year consequence where, you know, guys can sort of, they don't have the same level of commitment often to the children. So there is this sort of natural wiring that makes it different. But at the same time, I'm very concerned about our society and always needing that next thrill in order to be able to pay attention to anything at all. For individuals who partake in that behavior, it's really self-destructive for them and then they're sacrificing relationships as a result. What can they do to try to get on a

path to better health? For example? Maybe a woman who gives sex out regularly just so she can try to get that love. Oh, you know, that happens so frequently. And you know, what's often the matter is her picker, you know, her ability to choose someone that is healthy for her. Because, you know, if you're in a loving relationship, you know, only give it out to someone who's going to be a good partner for you. And so they often have no idea in large part because of their modeling. And these are people often if they get into really great psychotherapy, they can sort of figure out, you know, this is not a good pattern for me.

So if they don't have the role models, and often they don't, then learning new ways. But it takes a while to make different decisions. But I've seen through medicine sometimes, I mean, a lot of the people you're describing are people who have ADD that are girls that have it, and they really never knew that, but they're excitement seeking. So they get excited by finding someone new. They get excited with the early great sex. They then get excited with fighting with the person. And then they get excited by

all the drama around the breakup. And then afterwards, they get excited when they met somebody else new. And I see that pattern a whole lot in girls and women who have untreated ADD. So work to optimize your brain, treat any problems that you have as early as possible. And if you notice the pattern in your life is not all that helpful for you, you know, a great psychotherapist can really help you figure that out and go, is my behavior getting me what I want? My question is the concern for younger people, as you mentioned, that they're kind of needing higher and higher levels of stimulation. How is that affecting then the intimacy that they're experiencing in their relationships? It's huge. And we don't know, but what's coming to our country is a very high level

of addictions. Because from the time they're little now, parents thinking they're doing the loving thing by getting them cell phones and getting them Xbox games and getting them computer games. All of those things drive our attention stands to need more and more and more excitement in order to be able to focus at all. And so what you see are text messaging relationships, but they're cheating on the person with four other people also having text messaging relationships. It's not good. I mean, haven't you ever wondered why there's saw one, saw two, saw three, four, and five. What the hell is that about? I mean, what brain is craving that kind of barbaric response? And it's those people who are dopamine deficient. And we are in trouble.

And I remember walking into my office, my daughter was on the computer, and she was talking to 10 people at once. And I'm wondering, how do you talk to anybody computer, and she was talking to 10 people at once. And I'm wondering, how do you talk to anybody at all if you're talking to 10 people at the same time? And I think we need to be more cautious. And rather than just, you know, you go to the electronic fair in Las Vegas, and there's Steve Jobs, and it's the latest toy. What we need as a society to be more thoughtful on what we unleash on our children or even on ourselves. Thank you. Does that also mean that with the brain needing more stimulation, that in physiologically, or I guess brain related to physiological, that they'd need more stimulation in terms of intimacy too? Absolutely. We are creating much more ADD in our society. The incidence of learning and behavior

problems in children has doubled since 1972. And it's going to double again, I predict, because we never teach our kids to just sit down. I mean, one of the beautiful things about growing up Catholic is we would go to church and we just have to sit there and we'd learn to pray and meditate and think as opposed to let me give you this toy so that I don't have to talk to you because I'm busy on my computer. So we have to be more thoughtful. Thank you for your question.

Thanks for listening to today's show, The Brain Warrior's Way. Why don't you head over to brainwarriorswaypodcast.com. That's brainwarriorswaypodcast.com, where Daniel and Tana have a gift for you just for subscribing to the show. And when you post your review on iTunes, you'll be entered into a drawing where you can win a VIP visit to one of the Amen clinics. I'm Donnie Osmond, and I invite you to step up your brain game by joining us in the next episode.