HealthyGamerGG - How to Kick Your P**n Habit in 35 Minutes

Episode Date: March 7, 2026

In this episode, Dr. K explains why pornography addiction is one of the hardest habits to break and why it acts like a "nuclear bomb" on the brain's circuitry. He provides a biological roadmap for recovery, moving beyond simple willpower to address the deeper issues of loneliness, emotional regulation, and brain chemistry. What to expect in this episode: The "Nuclear Bomb" Effect: Why pornography is more addictive than many drugs because it hijacks the survival circuits of the brain that are designed for procreation. The Dopamine Tank: How using pornography early in the day "empties your tank," making it physically harder to find motivation or joy in other activities like working or studying. A "Digital" Band-Aid: An analysis of how we use pornography to suppress negative emotions like anxiety or boredom, which actually stores that stress in the brain for later. The Loneliness Connection: Why the current "loneliness epidemic" fuels addiction, as the brain tries to satisfy a need for human bonding with a digital substitute that cannot provide real connection. Roadmap to Recovery: Practical steps for quitting, including creating "barriers to entry," restricting use to specific time windows, and using anti-inflammatory diets to improve mood. Urge Surfing: A simple, 60-second technique to help you "ride out" a craving until it naturally fades away, rather than trying to fight it with willpower alone.HG Coaching : https://bit.ly/46bIkdo Dr. K's Guide to Mental Health: https://bit.ly/44z3SztHG Memberships : https://bit.ly/3TNoMVf Products & Services : https://bit.ly/44kz7x0 HealthyGamer.GG: https://bit.ly/3ZOopgQ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Hey, chat. Welcome to the Healthy Gamer Gigi podcast. I'm Dr. Al-O Kanoja, but you can call me Dr. K. I'm a psychiatrist, gamer, and co-founder of Healthy Gamer. On this podcast, we explore mental health and life in the digital age, breaking down big ideas to help you better understand yourself and the world around you. So let's dive right in. My name is Dr. Aolo Kanoja.

I'm a psychiatrist who's been focusing on technology addiction since 2015, and I'm convinced that pornography addiction is one of the worst addictions in the world today. Now, this may sound a little bit strange because when we think about bad addictions, right, we think about things like opiates and overdose deaths, or we can think about highly addictive substances like methamphetamine. And in my experience as a psychiatrist, pornography addiction is one of the hardest addictions to kick. And this is confusing for a lot of people because they think they understand why we get addicted to pornography. People think that, oh, I'm lonely, I'm horny. That's why I'm addicted to pornography. And it's really confusing for them when they enter into a healthy sexual relationship, even get

married and have kids, and for some reason, they can't kick the pornography addiction. Having worked with this population for about 10 years now, I think I've finally understood how pornography addiction works in the brain and how that understanding leads us to a roadmap to quit pornography. And that's what I'd like to share with you today. So let's dive into the literature to see how bad this is. So this is a study from 2019 that basically found that roughly 11% of men and 3% of women reported some agreement with the statement, I am addicted to pornography. Not that bad, right?

Let's look at how the numbers have changed. So this is a study from 2024 that was done on 8,800 people that basically found that the rate of addiction has jumped to 63%. This is a staggering increase in five years. There may be some skepticism to these numbers, but this is not the only paper that's showing this. So this is a narrative review of pornography addiction that was published in 2023, and they found that today's 46 to 74% of men and 16 to 40% of women watch porn, and that this is a striking increase. And it's not just that they're watching porn, the rates of addiction are higher, but that this

is starting to have very real consequences. In a study conducted in 1999, erectile dysfunction and low sexual desire rate was about 5%. By 2011, ED rates have increased to 14 to 28% in European men between the ages of 18 and 40. So in order to understand why pornography addiction is so addictive, we have to understand the nature of addiction. So if we look at something like opioids, opioids are addictive because they target something called the mu receptor. So if I use something like, you know, if I inject heroin, heroin molecules are going to travel to the mu receptor and they're going to activate wherever I have mu receptors. And they create a particular slice of changes in my brain. But the way that I want you all to understand substances is kind

of like homing missiles. So they're a very discrete molecule that artificially activates a particular receptor in our brain. So now the question becomes, what part of the brain does pornography actually activate. So this is a review article from 2019 that talks about the neuroanatomy and function of human sexual behavior. It's basically a paper that's looking at, okay, where in the brain does sex happen? And what we discover is that most regions of the brain get affected by sex. So now let's look at a different perspective, right? Let's look at neurotransmitters, right? Because everyone's talking about like dopamine and serotonin and stuff nowadays. So summary of the main neurotransmitters, this is not a complete set, and modulators involved in regulating human sex.

behavioral behavior, serotonin. That's what we use to treat depression, anxiety, dopamine, everyone knows about dopamine and addiction, nor epinephrine, acetylcholine, histamine, opioids, and sex hormones. The reason pornography addiction is so addictive is because what it artificially activates are the circuits in our brain that involve sex. And so if we're talking about substance use as a homing missile that targets a particular receptor, pornography addiction is like a nuclear bomb that covers a whole city. Because if we sort of take a step back and think about why is every region of our brain actually involved in sex? Because sex is the purpose of the human organism. Right. So we tend to think that human organisms produce eggs and sperm. And the reason that

we produce eggs and sperm is to procreate. But there's an equally valid flipped view of that. We don't produce eggs and sperm. Eggs and sperm produce human bodies. The purpose of the human body is to procreate, right? So a sperm is sitting there and thinking to myself, how can I propagate, how can I live forever? I'm going to make this human biological organism. And when I make the human biological organism, the only point of the human biological organism is to propagate sperm. Because we know from theories of natural selection and evolution that organisms who do not procreate literally die out and are no longer in the world today. So our whole biological organism is focused on sex, and as a result, anything that artificially activates those circuits, which is what pornography

does, will activate every dimension of our being. So overcoming a pornography addiction is not about solving one thing, it is about solving all of the things. So let's start with the thalamus. What does this thalamus do? The thalamus is responsible for sensory input. The thalomalibus, Thalimus is the sensory gateway to other parts of the brain. So anytime I see something, I smell something, I taste something, I hear something. It all gets fed through the thalamus. So the first thing that we've got to understand about pornography addiction is that our sensory input matters a lot. So if we look at the science of craving, what is it that triggers cravings?

So there can be all kinds of things that trigger cravings, but one of the most important things that trigger cravings is what we see here. taste, smell, etc. So if you look at like only fans or fansly like creators, right, what do they do? They also have very robust Instagram profiles. They troll around on dating apps and they'll swipe right on you. And the first thing that they say is they say, hey, don't talk to me on this dating app. Talk to me on Instagram. Why do they do that? Because they know that if you talk to them on Instagram and you follow them on Instagram, you will get sensory input about people who are usually skisks. gantily clad, and oh, there's some kind of link or something to an only fans page.

So we understand this principle really well in the field of advertising, in the field of marketing. This is why people have billboards. They understand that sensory input induces craving. Now, why is this important to us? This is important because a lot of people think that pornography addiction is about willpower. They white-knuckle it. They'll do things like take cold showers. They try to boost their willpower, thinking it will allow them to overcome pornography.

because sometimes it works, right? Sometimes you have enough willpower and you resist. But what I want you all to understand is that if we have, let's say this is our, this is the level of craving, right? And so if we have like more cravings and let's say this is the rate of our willpower, so this is how many points of willpower we have, any amount of craving underneath this line, we can manage. But any amount of craving over this line, we lack the appropriate willpower to resist. So what we try to do is we try to boost our willpower. And we try to think, okay, this will work. But there are two things that we can do here. We can boost our willpower, which sort of works. But the other problem is that willpower is a diminishing resource. So the more you use it, the less you have to resist. But what I found works really,

really well is if this is the rate of your willpower, fine. You still want to increase it this much. Go for it. But what we can also do is reduce cravings. Right. So if we can alter the slope of this curve and we can reduce cravings, we will need less willpower and we'll still need some, but it doesn't become wholly dependent on willpower. So thalamus becomes really important. So next up, we're going to talk about the nucleus accumbens, which is where we have dopamine. And everyone knows that porn is very, very dopaminergic. But we still have to have a more sophisticated understanding of this if we want to really quit porn. So there are two things we have to understand. When you watch porn, there are two levels of dopamine released. The first thing is

when you watch a small quantity of porn, you get a small dopamine release, right? And this is also like evolutionary. So like once we're getting close to procreating, when we're on the path of procreation, our brain wants to reward that behavior and encourage us to do it. So even just watching porn is enough to get dopamine. Now, the second thing that happens is when we orgasm, we get a huge amount, right? And this makes sense too from an evolutionary standpoint, because unless we orgasm, chances are we're not procreating, especially if you're a dude. But there are a couple of other huge problems with this. So the first thing that people don't realize is that dopamine does three things. One is that it gives us pleasure, but then it also gives us cravings and gives us behavioral reinforcement.

So why is this important? See, anytime your brain experiences pleasure, it craves that pleasure in the future. So almost from like a karmic perspective when I work with people who struggle with I want them to understand that every time you watch porn and every time you orgasm with porn, the signals in your brain that cause you to crave porn again and reinforce the behavior, right? So if I do something fun, if I eat like one French fry, I get a spurt of dopamine and what do I feel like doing? I feel like eating a second French fry. And there was a brand of potato chips that, you know, had this marketing campaign where they're like, I bet you can't just eat one.

And so like, that makes sense because once you eat one, like, resisting the first potato chip is way harder than resisting the second. And that's because of the way that our brain works. So when we watch pornography, when we orgasm, we get more craving and more behavioral reinforcement. And this is the problem is that the more we watch, the more we crave it, the more we behaviorally reinforce it. Every time we watch and every time we orgasm, we are increasing the slope of that curve and requiring more willpower from ourselves.

There is another aspect of dopamine that is even more problematic, which is that once your brain gets dopamine from one source, it makes it harder to extract it from a different source. Right? So we actually have a limited quantity of dopamine every morning when we wake up. Our dopamine stores are full. And there's studies that show that if you do a highly dopaminergic activity first thing in the morning, like if you play a video game, watch pornography or on your phone, literally your capacity for behavioral reinforcement in other activities goes down. I want y'all to really understand what that means. So if I study and I feel good about studying, then what will happen is I will want to study again tomorrow. So if we think about what is going on in our brain, when we

have those thoughts, when we have those feelings, we are behaviorally reinforcing whatever we just did. We want to do it again. Super cool, right? Here's the reason that pornography addiction really screws with that, because you can only have so much dopamine to reinforce behaviors throughout the day. So if you spend it all, if you empty your tank, no pun intended, on pornography, you will have very little dopamine left to reinforce other behaviors. Now let's talk about the third region, which is really, really important, which is our amygdala and limbic system. So these are the emotional circuits of our brain. Technically, the primitive emotions. So things like anxiety, fear, to a certain degree, things like sadness. So the amygdala and the limbic system are the parts of

our brain that feel this kind of stuff. Now, this is where things get interesting. Because when you're anxious and your body has the chance to procreate, what do you think happens to the anxiety? So sometimes like sex can induce anxiety, sometimes we get super in our head. But sex, orgasm, and procreation and watching pornography are really, really good at suppressing negative emotions. Right. So if you're dealing with some stress throughout the day and let's say you're in a loving, healthy relationship, you know, having sexual relations is a really great way to feel better about yourself. Some people that I've worked with who have things like a history of trauma or borderline personality disorder or bipolar disorder will even use like sex basically as a coping mechanism. This is what I see in sex addiction.

And the reason for that is because it's kind of funny. Like I was working with a patient once who had cancer and was getting chemotherapy in the hospital. And this is a guy with stage three cancer who is getting chemo. And, you know, like we one day, you know, we walk in and it turns out that he's engaging in. a sexual act with his long-term partner. And it's kind of like, wow, bro, like, you're in the hospital getting chemotherapy and you, like, have the energy and drive for this. If you really think about it, kind of makes sense, right? So if we can look at people, like, especially older men, like, older men are capable of procreating at the age of 90. And so if we really look at the,

especially the biological system of the male, sex overrides everything. Men just want one thing, right? And there's some kernel of truth to that common wisdom. And one of the key things, men or women, is that the amygdala in the limbic system get suppressed by sexual activity in pornography. So what we tend to see in people with pornography addiction is a lack of emotional regulation skills. So generally speaking, when we're talking about emotions, there are two classes of emotions. There's emotional regulation, which we talked about. So these are emotions in the present moment. So when I'm feeling anxious, when I'm feeling tired, when I'm feeling afraid, when I'm feeling angry,

pornography will make those feelings go away in the moment. But there's a second area of emotions, which I wish it was only so simple as number one. And when I worked with people, we tried to focus on this. And I found that that was not enough. And we discovered that there are dormant emotions. Because when you shut off the amygdala in our negative emotional circuitry, where do those emotions go? They don't disappear. They actually get stored.

So every time I watch pornography, what I'm actually doing is building up emotions, building up emotions, building up emotions, building up emotions. And this is something I struggled a lot with with video game addiction or any kind of addiction. Basically, every patient I've worked with has this problem where when you use alcohol or marijuana or pornography to run away from your problems, now you have a bunch of negative emotion, which has to be continuously suppressed, right? Because now I have all this crap in here. And if my mind goes quiet for a little while, then all of this stuff comes out. So what I'll find kind of clinically in my experience with people who struggle with pornography is that the quiet, moments lead to usage of pornography. And what we basically have to do, it's not just about regulating

in the moment. It's about actually cleaning all this crap out. So we got to empty it out one step at a time. So let's talk next about the oxytocin slash loneliness system. So oxytocin is the neurotransmitter that involves bonding with other human beings. So one of the things that we're seeing is a loneliness epidemic and no surprise that the loneliness epidemic is accompanied by a surge. increase in pornography addiction. Okay, so let's like understand this. Like porn addiction used to be 11%. And now porn addiction is somewhere around like 65%.

So what happened? We also have a loneliness epidemic going on at the same time. So let's go back to the neurocircuitry. Remember that sexual activity requires bonding with other people. And the other way to kind of think about it is, why do human beings bond anyway? What's the purpose of bonding? bonding. Bonding is a vehicle to sexual activity, right? So you have some animals like cats,

let's say, like the great cats. The great cats don't hang out. They're solo creatures. A female cat is in heat and a male cat from like 40 miles away shows up once. They do the deed and then they part ways. We're not like that. Emotional bonding is critical to the formation of a sexual relationship and the propagation of our sperm and our eggs. So any kind of loneliness that we have, What does loneliness drive us towards? Loneliness drives us towards connection. If people didn't feel lonely, imagine two camps of people, one set of human beings who didn't feel lonely at all.

And if they never felt lonely, they'd never hang out with other people. If they never hung out with other people, they'd never procreate. And if they never procreated, they would die out. So loneliness is a signal from your body and your brain. It is an oxytocin, almost like a deficiency. We strive for touch. There's touch starvation. Now, the problem is that the same circuits that make us feel.

lonely are responsive to sex. So we know that cuddling and bonding with your sexual partner, catching feelings for your friends with benefits happens if you cuddle. We also know, for example, that, you know, cuddling with your children releases oxytocin in them and oxytocin in you. Having your cat kind of come and like lick your face or whatever, your dog like come and like sit in your lap or whatever animals do, right? That actually releases oxytocin as well. And even when you see videos of this kind of stuff on the internet, like you feel really good. Like, think about that for a second. Some guy is cuddling mudang, some tiny little hippopotamus, and we're like, oh, like, oh, so warm and cuddly. I feel so, like, what's going on in the brain? That's the oxytocin

system. Our brain thinks that, okay, if we satisfy sex, we will get oxytocin with it. The problem with pornography is that you can't give oxytocin to yourself. I can't hug myself. I can't feel bonded to myself. I require another human being, but these circuits are aligned. Now, the last system that we're going to talk about is the social status or social emotional system. So if you look at sex on the internet today, it has a lot to do with status, right? You have all these like alphas. And I'm an alpha, and that means my body count is real high. And I'm not going to work. I'm not going to date a girl whose body count is high. Right? So we can also look at a lot of communities where people are like, I am a loser because I am a virgin. So this is really important.

understand, but sex and status are very tightly linked in our brain. So when we're feeling ashamed of ourselves, when we're feeling low self-esteem, when we feel like we're a loser because we're a virgin at the age of it doesn't matter what your age is. And there are also people like the Dalai Lama, who I think are virgins, and they're totally fine with it. So being, feeling low self-esteem isn't about being a virgin. But the key thing to understand is all of our programming moves in that direction. And so as long as you feel like you have a low self-esteem, a low social status, that's a will drive the pornography addiction as well. So this is where I got to say like, so this is like basically what I figured out as a clinician. I would strongly recommend that y'all work with clinicians

too, but addictions are also a little bit different because addictions are the one aspect of psychiatry where we know that statistically most people DIY it. So if you look at alcohol addiction, the majority of people who become sober do so without the help of a mental health professional, that could be changing, but historically that's been true. So what I'd love to do today is to share with you all the plan that I put together, but keep in mind, this is not me saying that this will overcome an addiction. This is just what I've learned. And if you guys really want to overcome an addiction, can't emphasize enough how important it is to work with a professional. Remember that thalamic input, right, our sensory input is what will trigger all of this kind of stuff. And companies are actually

getting really, really good at reducing our barriers to entry. We auto log into websites. Websites will get notifications from Pornhub. Pornhub will email you. Only fans will email you. Everyone is trying to pull your attention in. And the problem right now is that if you have an impulse to watch something, the space between that impulse and you actually watching it is very important. And everyone who's trying to addict you is trying to reduce the barrier between the impulse and you engaging in the behavior. So what do we want to do? First thing we want to do is log out of everything, right? If you want to delete your accounts and stuff like that, you can do that. I find that that doesn't work quite the same way because then people just end up signing up again. Remove as many

apps programs as you can. Block websites, right? So use, like if you have like a work browser or something like that, block as much stuff as you can. So you want to increase the barrier of entry. And what I found with my patients is that they don't have to resist pornography forever. They just need to resist for a few minutes and then usually the impulse will subside. It'll come back stronger, which is why we got to do a bunch of other stuff. But we want to increase our barriers to entry to really work on the level of the thalamus. Now, what I would also say now this is going to sound crazy is restrict access to one device. Make it hard for yourself to watch porn. So now we're going to do step two. And step two is going to blow people's minds. So what we want to do for step two, I know it sounds crazy, is going to be,

we want to restrict our pornography use to a particular window of the day. So when I'm working with severely addicted people to pornography, we usually end up doing like, We, they. It's not like I'm doing it with it. 30 to 60 minutes like sometime around noon and then 30 to 60 minutes in the evening. Ideally, you can restrict it to one window a day at the end of the day. If we watch pornography first thing in the morning or early in the day, we empty our dopamine stores and we won't be able to behaviorally reinforce or crave other things. No second screening.

And when you're watching pornography, do not do anything else. Just sit there and watch the pornography until you are sated, until you are done. No opening it up again later. So the next thing that we want to do is make a plan at the beginning of the day. So remember that any time we have an open window, the desire for pornography will increase. So remember we have all those dormant emotions, right? So if we have a quiet moment in the day, what actually causes people to relapse the most is like boredom. Like that's been my clinical experience.

When they get bored, when they have an empty hour of the day, when there's nothing really going on, This is also why you can look at studies that show that meaninglessness correlates very highly with pornography addiction. So if people have relatively empty lives, pornography will fill it up. So what we want to do is plan the day. So when you wake up in the morning or ideally the night before, map out as many hours as you can and push the pornography as late as you can. It won't help today.

But each time you make a plan and you stick to it, even for one hour, two hours, three hours, four hours, what your brain is actually doing is behaviorally reinforcing the actions that you take. Next thing that we absolutely need to do is develop an emotional regulation practice. So remember that based on our understanding of the amygdala and the limbic system, that pornography is a very powerful emotional regulation technique, as are basically all addictions. So I would recommend starting with something called Nadi Shuddi Pranayam or alternate nostril breathing.

Meditation works great. Exercise works great. but I want y'all to understand that as long as your brain and your body do not have ways of regulating emotions outside of pornography, you will always go back to pornography, right? If I have no way of paying my own bills, I will continuously hit up my friends for short-term loans. You have to satisfy what the brain needs in order to pull it away from something else. The next step that we really need to take is find your triggers. The craving for pornography is going to be triggered by all kinds of stuff. So it could be thalamic input.

I've worked with some people who it's like even like a stressful conversation with your parents, right? Working with a young dude, 30-year-old. And like every time his parents call, they're like, when are you going to get married? How is dating going? What is going on? When are we going to get grandkids? And so this person recognized that any time, like he feels the worst he ever feels throughout the day at the end or beginning of a conversation with his parents.

When the phone rings, that's when he starts to feel awful because he knows that they're going to ask a bunch of questions, which he has no satisfactory answers to. And they really show him how much he is stalled in life by asking their questions because they're concerned. And so you really have to pay attention to what are your triggers. What are the things that cause you to crave pornography? And then at some point, sometimes you have to tank through triggers, but ideally we want to understand what those are, mentally prepare for them, and anticipate what you will feel. feel emotionally before you step out of them. Hey, y'all, just a reminder that in addition to these awesome videos, we have a ton of tools and resources to help you grow and overcome the challenges that you face.

We've got things like Dr. Kay's Guide to Mental Health, personalized coaching programs, and things like free community events and other sorts of tools to help you no matter where you are on your mental health journey. So check out the link in the description below and back to the video. So the next step that we're going to talk about is somewhat related to that, which is to analyze your weak point. So this is a little bit related to triggers. We want to sort of think about things like the day. But what I really want you all to do is anticipate which parts of the day will be the hardest.

And what kinds of other things can you do to sort of prevent yourself from cracking in those moments? So one example is I had, you know, I worked with someone who would have lunch and then they would go back into their car. They would leave the office building. They'd go into their car and they'd watch pornography. So instead of what we sort of focused on is just taking a walk for 15, 30 minutes. And then once that window is passed, they finish digesting and they're kind of like back in the office, they tend to do really well. Next thing that we're going to talk about is working on dormant emotions. So this is where doing something like working with a psychotherapist is ideal.

You can also work on dormant emotions through things like journaling or stuff like that. But recognize that resisting pornography or overcoming pornography is not just about emotional regulation in the moment. It's about working through all of that crap inside you that is driving the pornography addiction. Next thing that we want to do is find a community. So remember, there's that oxytocin and loneliness aspect that really drives addiction. This is why we've seen from all kinds of studies on addiction that peer support, community, connecting with other human beings is actually an antidote to addiction. Generally speaking, you don't have to have the addiction for the meeting.

You can go to an AA meeting and say, hey, my name is Alloak. I'm addicted to pornography. And people will generally speaking be pretty welcoming for you there. The next thing that we're going to talk about is do something that you can be proud of. So remember that the fifth circuit of the brain that we really need to address is this social status circuit. So this circuit that really thinks about our status in the community, why status is important. And if we have low social status, we won't be able to procreate. And so what we really want to do is recognize that as long as your sense of self is very low, the pornography addiction has fertilizer.

And so I'd strongly recommend that you'll work on your confidence, work on your self-esteem, work on things that you can be proud of. So you have to feel good about yourself. And as you start to feel better about yourself, the internal drivers, the parts of your brain that are telling you to watch pornography will calm down. The last two things that I would recommend very strongly is exercise and diet. I know those are a part of all kinds of answers. Or everyone says you should exercise more. You should eat a healthy diet. But let's understand this from a pornography perspective.

Remember that every part of the brain and basically every part of the body is associated with the sex drive. So we know that erection, for example, is triggered by the parasympathetic nervous system, which is our rest and digest system, which is why when men are relaxed, they will get erections. This is why we have morning wood, because when we're asleep, we're super relaxed. As we're relaxed, we get erections. And then our sympathetic nervous system gets us really excited when it's kind of time to go. So that a process of sexual activity and ejaculation is governed by our sympathetic nervous system. So what I would recommend is exercising for one hour, at least three times a week.

You can do 20 minutes, three times a week at a minute. but that will actually literally physiologically do something to reduce the drive and balance some of the drives of pornography. The last thing that we want to talk about is actually an anti-inflammatory diet. So this is pretty standard stuff. Lots of leafy green vegetables, lots of whole grains, lots of healthy proteins. So reasons for this are really interesting. So the first is that if we look at things like depression and anxiety, which drive pornography addiction, what we find is that those relate to our serotonin levels.

our serotonin levels are in some way determined by our gut bacteria because our gut bacteria produce things like tryptophan. And triptophan is one of the serotonin precursors. So the more triptophan we have, the more serotonin we produce. So when we adopt a healthy diet, we are sort of correcting an internal serotonin deficiency all on its own. And there are studies that show that there are certain kinds of bacteria that will produce neurotransmitter precursors, which will be protective against things like depression and anxiety. And then there are some kinds of bacteria that if you have a lot of them

will induce anxiety. So remember that pornography addiction is a way to regulate negative emotions. And if our negative emotions are high, then we will crave pornography more. And one of the ways that we can reduce our negative emotions is through actually our diet. But we absolutely know that the more inflammation

we have in the brain, the more negative emotion we experience. And so we want to target that through an anti-inflammatory diet. So there are two final. things to consider when it comes to quitting porn. So the first is the concept of dual diagnosis. So as with a lot of addiction, sometimes pornography addiction, is fueled by another mental illness. So we're talking about something like depression, a mood disorder, an anxiety disorder,

maybe some amount of trauma. So trauma has a very, very, very high correlation with being vulnerable to addiction. So one of the things that I would strongly recommend is that you'll see a mental health professional. They can hopefully help you with the porn addiction itself, but also, they can evaluate you for other emotional things that are driving some of these dormant emotions, some of these emotional regulations. A lot of that can actually have to do with mental illness. Even if you have a problem like something like ADHD, that degree of impulsivity, if you'll work with a therapist who can help you kind of train your mind, help you become less impulsive, it's very, very, very helpful. One of the things that I've learned doing a lot of addictions work in

psychiatry is that an illness like a mood disorder, like major depressive disorder, in an addiction, feed each other, right? So since I feel bad about myself, I turn to the addiction. And since the addiction messes with my neurotransmitters, gives me a lot of shame, makes me feel worse about myself, I beat myself up because I should be able to resist it and I can't resist it. That just feeds the depression. So oftentimes, if we don't address both of those at the same time, the outcomes aren't ideal. The last thing that we're going to leave you with is a very simple technique. So one thing to keep in mind about addictions is that a lot of addictions and recovering from addictions is actually about patience. So we have this impulse, we have this drive, and it's not

about overcoming the drive, it's actually about wading it out. So if you look at the science of how human beings relate to their desires, cravings and impulses, essentially we will return to a state of homeostasis. If you're feeling very, very hungry, what happens to the hunger over time? It kind of goes away, and then it comes back. stronger and then it goes away and then it comes back stronger. The same is true of something like thirst. The same is true of when we're talking about things like going through withdrawal from substance dependence. So there's a big difference though between behavioral addictions and even some form of substance use and things like hunger or thirst. Hunger or thirst

are primal signals for fundamental survival. And even people who are starving will eventually stop feeling hungry. So our brain will kind of acclimatize. So the last thing that I want to teach y'all is actually a technique that will help you ride out the urges to use. And we're going to teach you this technique in a very, very simple way. The technique is called urge surfing. And basically what we want to do is when we have an urge to use a substance or look at pornography, what we basically want to do is acknowledge it and kind of ride that wave until it runs out.

And the way that we're going to teach you urge surfing is by shutting the hell up for about 60 seconds and doing nothing on this video. Maybe we'll even do longer than 60 seconds. Maybe we'll do two minutes. And what I want y'all to do is try your hardest to not give in to whatever impulses arise. The moment that I stop talking, there's going to be all kinds of tempting things on your sidebar on YouTube. There's going to be comments. There's going to be your phone. All kinds of urges arise. And if you all really want to be successful at this, at the end of the day, have to do is learn to master yourself. So ready, set, go. Is it easier if I talk? Is it getting hard? Are y'all still even here? Have you clicked off yet? Oh my god. Oh, God. I have to sit here for

that becomes easy. I'm going to shut up. Notice what is arising within you. See, even what's arising with me, I can't be quiet. All righty. Good job. If y'all made it. Good job. If you clicked off, Well, you can always try another day. So we hope this has been helpful to y'all. You know, I know porn addiction is hard to quit. We also have some additional resources, and you all can always revisit this and stare at my face for 60 seconds when you feel like watching something else.

Good luck. Thanks for joining us today. We're here to help you understand your mind and live a better life. If you enjoy the conversation, be sure to subscribe. Until next time, take care of yourselves and each other. Getting ready for a game means being ready for anything, like packing a spare stick. I like to be prepared.

That's why I remember, 988, Canada's suicide crisis helpline. It's good to know, just in case. Anyone can call or text for free confidential support from a train responder anytime. 988 suicide crisis helpline is funded by the government in Canada.