Sex Talks With Emma-Louise Boynton - How to rewire your brain in sex and dating with Nicole Vignola, neuroscientist and author of Rewire

Episode Date: October 17, 2024

On this week’s episode of the podcast Emma-Louise is joined by Nicole Vignola - a neuroscientist and brain performance coach who specialises in making neuroscience tangible for the masses. She is also an author, having recently published her debut book, Rewire, designed to give you the mental toolkit you need to break negative cycles and achieve peak mental wellbeing. Nicole joined Emma-Louise on the podcast to talk all things sex, dating and relationships through the prism of brain science which really was as fascinating as it sounds.  From explaining why we go for the same people again and again even when we know they’re bad for us (it’s because of confirmation bias, says Nicole); to the power of the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves; to what exactly happens in the brain when we orgasm, this episode was rich in the sort of nerdy, neuroscientific insights we all need in our lives. We recorded this live at Soho House House. You can purchase tickets to the next live event here. And subscribe to the Sex Talks Substack here.

Hello and welcome to the live version of the Sex Talks podcast with me, your host, Emma Louise Boynton. Sex Talks exists to engender more open, honest and vulnerable discussions around typically taboo topics, like sex and relationships, gender inequality, and the role technology is playing in changing the way we date, love and fuck. Our relationship for sex tells us so much about who we are. and how we show up in the world, which is why I think it's a topic we ought to be talking about with a little more nuance and a lot more curiosity. So each week, I'm joined by new guest whose expertise on the topic I'd really like to mine and do well just that. From writers, authors and therapists to actors, musicians and founders,

we'll hear from a glorious array of humans about the stuff that gets the heart of what it means to be human. If you want to attend a live recording of the podcast, click on the Eventbrite link in the show notes. On this week's episode of the podcast, I'm joined by Nicole Vignola, a neuroscientist and brain performance coach who specialises in making neuroscience tangible for the masses. Check out her Instagram. It is so brilliant. She is also an author, having recently published her debut book, Rewire. designed to give you the mental toolkit you need to break negative cycles and achieve peak mental well-being. Nicole joined me on the podcast to talk all things sex, dating and relationships through the prism of brain science, which really was as fascinating as it sounds.

From explaining why we go for the same people again and again, even when we know they're bad for us, guilty as charged, it's because of confirmation bias, says Nicole. the power of the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves to what exactly happens in the brain when we orgasm. This episode was rich in the sort of nerdy, neuroscientific insights I needed in my life. Also, as you'll be able to tell from the podcast, Nicole is a life force.

Seriously, her energy alone makes you feel like you'll walk away from a conversation able to do anything and everything. That's certainly how I felt when we finished recording. We recorded this live at Soho House, and I started by asking Nicole about her journey into neuroscience. I had to redo everything. A-levels, GCSEs at the age of 25. I went back to university at the age of 27, did my undergraduate, and then I did my master's in psychology.

I wanted to essentially take neuroscience out of the lab and into organizations. So I noticed that there was a lot of talk of neuroscience and it was great, but not enough of it being communicated to the wider audiences. This was before Huberman kind of kicked off and he made it popular for all of us, which is fantastic. And so I wanted to really help people understand the mechanisms of what is going on in our brains. And I go into these corporations and you can see grown men

kind of go, ah, penny drop. I think I'll start meditating now because I'm explaining what's going on. It's not just a placard on the back of a toilet saying that you should do it for well-being, you know. I loved hearing that you, not in a... a, I don't want to like a rude way, but that you failed high school and then achieved this all your 20s, not because I was relishing in your, but because I was like, that's such a great example of how, you know, our life, we're always able to reshape the direction of our

lives. Some would say you could rewire. Some would say you can rewire the brain, exactly. Oh, book seller at the back, so you can vibe, rewrite the end, fantastic. So I really love, I felt so galvanized hearing that story and also seeing kind of your absolute Acceleration to success now. It's such a cheering thing. And what specifically did you find so compelling

about the neuroscience specifically? Why did you want to delve into the brain? Well, mostly my own patterns, my family's patterns, and just a deep need to understand what is going on, the crux of it. I don't have an issue with theories in psychology, but I wanted to really understand at a mechanistic level what is going on? Why do we make these choices?

And so I studied plasticity, and then I went into research and decision making. So how do we make decisions? What are the cognitive processes that allow us to make sound decisions, bad decisions, and where do we spend this kind of cognitive energy? So we have a finite amount of resources in our brain on a daily basis, and we can spend it on particular things, and there's no real right or wrong. You know, we've got morals, of course. But the question is, where are you spending it? and are you being conscious of where you're spending it? So what tends to happen is a lot of people will make bad choices,

doomscroll, etc, then get home from a long day and then they for their own decisions to cook for themselves, go to the gym. So the doom scrolling is not an issue, but is it impacting the rest of your day because you only have a finite amount of resources. So my research was looking at energy allocation. How do we spend this?

I didn't call it currency my research. I probably would have been failed by my supervisor if I did, but I'm calling it mental currency now. I like that. Colloquially, that works. Yeah, I really love about your writing and also your social media is just great. Thank you. Just translating complex ideas around neuroscience

into really accessible practical tips. And what I really love reading the book and listening to every podcast I could find about you was just, it's quite simple. A lot of the ways in which we can actually make quite fundamental change in our lives and rewire brains, it's not super hard stuff. it's actually changing those kind of small daily habits,

those small, the dooms growing, just being more intentional with the way that we behave. Can I just ask on that? You know, you said that it was decision-making and your fascination with decision-making that was a kind of initial point of interest. As someone who is incredibly indecisive, that is me,

I mean to the point where I overthink every single decision, what is indecision in the context of decision-making and the kind of cognitive process we go through there? There's probably too many options and your inability to commit to one because you're afraid of the outcome maybe on anyone that you choose.

And there's no real of course they are right and wrong answers and decisions but the crux of it is that you need to make the decision and then stick by it and live by it and you know I had a recent thing where I had to just kind of make a decision on something and I thought even if I'm wrong I just need

to go down this route. I was scammed, basically. You were scammed? Yeah, I was. Oh, so it wasn't a good decision. Well, I made the decision to not listen to the excuses and go straight to small claims court. And this person, long story, this person was a contractor who then came out with loads of excuses. And I thought, even if he is giving me the excuses, I can't continue to listen. I just need to make the decision. And in hindsight, he might actually just be super innocent, but I'm just, I know. I've got to make the decision. I know, sometimes you just do. It's a doggy dog world, Nicole. It's a doggy dog world.

Something we talk about a lot at sex talks is the power of the stories, is the power of the stories we tell ourselves and how powerful these stories are. So Joan Didion writes, is in the White album, about just the potency of these stories that we're constantly weaving, and how they essentially shape

how we navigate the world and how we experience. the world and people and the things that happen to us. From a neuroscientific perspective, why do the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves hold so much power in the way that we live our lives? I'll just rewind a little bit. So the stories that we tell ourselves are normally derived from this programming

that was given to us in our formative years. Our parents, our peers, our surroundings, culture, etc. And the question that I poses is the programming yours? Because we, through observational knowledge, knowledge gain a lot of understanding of the world by watching other people interact through it. So maybe you watch

your parents interact through it and then you've by osmosis have learned how you should interact through it and it can lead you down a path that may not necessarily be yours or they will program specific things like the typical example is when parents label

their children. She's the creative one or this you know and then you end up going down on this trajectory there's not necessarily the route that you wanted to go down. And so there's that part of it, which forms a lot of your beliefs about the world. And then there's the part that you're talking about, which is the narratives that we tell ourselves then later on in life perpetuate everything we do, because your brain has a confirmation bias. So if you say to yourself, you're not worthy, you're not good enough, you suck, you're

not good at your job, your brain's going to look for evidence as to why that statement is correct unconsciously. And so it then reinforces the belief that you have about yourself. So we essentially unconsciously go out into the world looking to find evidence for the ideas

that we have about ourselves. So the ideas then become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Yes. Because in very perfectly you go out looking for something, you're going to find it somewhere at some point. And you only see that because we also have a filtering system in the brain that only brings things to your attention that are worth

of your attention. So at the moment, there are a lot of things in our periphery. I can see the outside, but I'm still looking at you, but that information is still coming in. My brain's just blocking it out to say that you, Emma, are important right now, not my background. And you can do that. You can look at me, but you can still see that there are things around you. And the brain does that all the time. It filters out the sound of the fridge that I can now hear because I paid attention to all these extra things to say what's important. So if you attach importance to particular things like you're not good enough or going out and self-sabotaging,

that's what your brain is going to see. And why do those beliefs often feel quite negative? Why do the loudest voices in our head when it comes to how we see ourselves? Why are those often the negative thoughts that seem to come to the surface? Even though there's lots of evidence to, you know, often with everyone suggests,

there's lots of good things too, but we tend to fixate, it seems, on the negative aspects. Why is that? So we do tend to have a negativity bias, which means that we tend to dwell and focus on the negative aspects of our life, likely due to evolution, survival, et cetera. And so if you were to get three really nice comments

on your social media, but one negative one, you'll most likely go to bed worrying about that one negative one. Even if it wasn't as bad, or if you had to compare them, the positive ones are 10 times more positive. And that's because we have this negativity bias. we also have more negative emotions than positive ones. So we have fear, anger, disgust.

I can't remember the last one. Shame. Exactly. Two positives, so trust and joy. And then we've got surprise and anticipation, which are either positive or negative, depending on the situation. Generally speaking, anticipation comes from a negative point of view

where you're worrying about something that may or may not happen in the future, maybe waiting for a tax return. Bill to come through. Never joyful. I don't know what that feels like. Sorry, I was going to say. And not only do we have more negative emotions, our brain processed negative emotions more greatly.

So we have a higher ERP, meaning that the action potential, which is just how quickly the cell polarizes with neurochemicals, it actually, that voltage is higher when we experience negative stimuli, images, words and experiences. God. So this is sex talks. So obviously I want to apply this

to sex and dating. I'm running sextober at the moment, by the way. My channel's all about sex as well. This is so perfect. The timing is just ideal. This wasn't actually planned. Or maybe it was. Maybe that's why it was.

Kind of, yeah. It all came together. I got asked to collaborate with you and in another company as well all in October relating to sex. And I was like, it's sex tover. The sex gods were working, thinking what we need people to better understand

is the neuroscience behind sex. So let's apply what we're talking here about these various schemes of negativity bias of neuroplasticity to dating. How do the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves affect the way we date and the type of people we go for? So we might repeat specific behaviours and patterns and actively put ourselves in situations

without realizing because that, what we know best. So you'll always choose a familiar hell versus a place of comfort. A familiar hell, oh my gosh, that's where I dwell. Often. That actually rhymes. I know. I'm going to write poem about that for sex toga. Yeah. And so even though you know we have a moral compass, the brain operates on what has been repeated. It has patterns and it knows whether this is familiar or not, even if it's not serving you. And so to change those patterns, it requires

a lot of energy. It's quite literally you have to shift the choices you make to create new pathways in the brain to make a different decision, a different belief, a different pattern, a different behavioural pattern as well where you enact something different. Maybe you don't go out to the party

looking for love, use, I don't know, whatever the kids do these days. Who knows? Anyone here like to share with us what the kids do? Because it ain't me. Nicole, can I just ask them that? I mean, how many people have experienced before? I have a couple of friends who, at the moment, are going through this,

and I hold my hands up as I do this often. But I see them going through the same path. They have an idea about themselves, that they are unlovable, that they are fundamentally unlovable. They then go out in search of people to date who very clearly reinforce that by being quite disconnected, by being quite aloof, by not really. showing up, being quite emotionally unavailable, my

favorite type of person to date, let me just let you know. And so they go through this cycle, they get really hurt, then it reconfirms and they think, God, I am unlovable, I'm undatable, and the people and they'll say, you know, men don't, you know, men are all

shit, men are all, you know, horrible out to get me, and I just fundamentally am not going to find someone I can love. And from an objective perspective, I can look at that person and say, You're fantastic, but you are continuing to repeat the same negative pattern again and again and again. So of course you're going to get the same results. And of course you're going to continue to maintain this idea of yourself that's a very negative one.

And then in turn, project and say, all men are shit, which obviously they are absolutely not. But I do feel a lot of empathy because there is something that feels quite good in that. I have had many a situation ship, dated many in emotionally unavoidable, emotionally unavailable, partner. And even though I know the kind of fall out from that, the high that I get in the early days of chasing someone emotionally unavailable is unrivaled. I love that you said hi. I love that you said hi. It's high. It's like taking a drug and I know. Oh my God, you're just ticking all the boxes. That's literally it. It's that dopamine that gets released in a pursuit of reward. So dopamine is not the pleasure neurochemical. It's the chemical that is released in

pursuit of attaining the reward. Once you get the reward, dopamine actually drops. And so the thrill is in knowing, will I, won't I? Will I get a text back? Am I not going to get a text back? And the less you know about someone, the more novelty there is, the more you want to know about them, the more dopamine there is. And so there's more chasing. And it's literally a high. And if they are not emotionally available, you never get them. So you continue chasing. It's like a roller coaster. Yeah, but with no end. Can you become addicted to the dopamine high? Yes, you can.

Just asking for a friend. Entirely asking for a friend here. Can you begin? Yes. Right. So what do you do when you've become addicted to the high? So one of the things about dopamine is that sitting through that discomfort where it restabilizes, that boredom, you know, that feeling where you want another cookie, you want another cigarette, you want another drink. It's accompanied by this feeling of pain and discomfort,

and you have to sit through that to get through it. Anna Lemka talks about it in a book, Dopamine Nation. There's this opponent processing theory where when you feel a particular way, this isn't going to be a counteractive balance to try and reach equilibrium because the body is all about homeostasis. And unfortunately, the more you sit through that discomfort, the better it will become, but you have to go through it to get to the other side. Otherwise, you're tilting this pleasure pain scale in a way that's reaching for addiction.

And so if you are someone who is, you know, chasing those dopamine highs, and I think who here is dating? Okay. So what was that? Dating, yes. Yes. Okay. So, oh, I don't know what that means, but undefined. Is it a situation ship?

Are you chasing a dopamine high? Okay, fine. So you're kind of sussing them out, seeing whether they were. Yeah, right. Are you a commitment phob? Oh, yeah, me too. Okay. I just, I felt there was an understanding there. Right. I got you. Two commitment phobes, like us, and two people that can be drawn to chasing that dopamine high of an uncertain, unstable relationship dynamic. when we then meet someone who is not emotionally unavailable who is emotionally available who is emotionally available

apparently they do exist not in my world but they do so when we are so used to a specific dynamic but we meet someone who we like they're great they're nice but they don't activate our nervous system they don't make us feel anxious and hence it's very easy to feel

like that relationship we begin seeing someone is really boring What is happening at a neurochemical level in that instance? And should we actually embrace the feeling of boredom? Yes and no, because you can still find excitement in a new relationship if they're emotionally available. Ding, ding, ding. Caviard, you can get both. But when you are quote-unquote addicted to being anxious and being stressed,

it can again feel like that familiar hell. And when things feel normal, it can be a bit of a turbulent, situation where you have to get used to the fact that you may need to start seeing things from a different perspective. Now, I don't know if I'm lucky, but I did find excitement in someone that was emotionally available. Wow. It can happen. It can happen. It's good to be reminded. So thanks. You're welcome. Self-sabotage is a theme that you explore in the book and is something we also talk about often at sex talks. How might self-sabotaging, tendencies manifest within the context of a relationship dynamic.

So say if you're kind of maybe dating someone that you really like, how might we begin to self-sabotage something good? And why would that be? I can resonate with this a lot because I come from a very turbulent background. And so when things were normal, I was like, maybe things are a bit too normal. Let's shake things up. Because it's that disconnect between what you have and what you want.

and it's in that gap where we start making the decisions to self-sabotage because we don't really quite know where we are yet. And one of the things that can help with that is assessing what it is that you truly want. You know, we'll probably always have some level of self-sabotage. There's a hedonistic aspect to self-sabotage. Let's be honest, it's fun getting into trouble.

And one of the ways that you can mitigate that is through the power of visualization, which sounds super woo-woo. know, but it isn't. So we look at it mostly in the context of athletic performance. So we see the functional connectivity change between the motor cortex, the part of the brain that initiates movement, tells you to lift your hand and swing a racket, and the cerebellum, which is responsible for coordination, pro preception. So what we've seen is in individuals who visualize pushing or kicking a ball between the post, they look at rugby players, they've looked at basketball players,

They've looked at all kinds of sportsmen and women. And what we see is that when you visualize something, but then you follow with action, so the actual physical movement of enacting it, you close the gap between thoughts and action. Now, our thoughts are extremely powerful. We've spoken about this, and I talk about this at every single talk. If you've been to one of my talks,

you'll be like, oh, there she goes again talking about that piano experiment. But there's a really famous piano experiment where they took two groups, of people, three, one group didn't do anything. One group had to learn to play a five-finger piece on the piano. Neither had ever played the piano before. And the second group had to only imagine that they were playing that five-finger piece. And what they saw is that there were similar levels of plasticity in the brain, meaning that parts of the brain were being activated to start creating new neurons in the individuals that had to imagine it and in the individuals that actually did it. And that's wild.

people were able to have a similar level of cognitive engagement with playing the piano, whether they actually played the piano or not. So if you just visualize yourself playing the piano, the same cognitive processes happened in your head. What? Yeah. Yeah. Why? Because similar neural circuitries that light up when we actually think about him versus doing it. Because if you think about it, when you are walking or doing something, there's still a visual perception where you're having to, you're not thinking about step, step, step, these are our surroundings, but your brain is doing that all the time. So there's a real connect between visual stimuli and physical stimuli as well.

So how can we apply visualization techniques to the way that we approach romance and dating? Get more specific with me. So if I'm thinking about I want to overcome, so if I have self-sabotaging habits in the context of the way I date, so I typically go for the same type of person. and the same outcome happens every time. And it reconfirms a belief I have that, you know, I'm just, I'm not lovable. I can't find somebody. But I'm really drawn to that, like, kind of the feeling of turbulence, the uncertainty.

How can I utilize visualization techniques to help myself move through these self-sabotaging tendencies and essentially rewire the way my brain works so that when I'm next decide that I'm ready to go out to the battlefield of modern dating, I am in a much better, healthier headspace and feel better able to resist my old patterns and cycles, however alluring they may be. Okay, so we can look at it from a broad perspective where you're maybe visualising how you would be in a relationship that's stable, how you would feel, how you would appreciate that you're probably going to feel the level of anxiety that it's not the way that you wanted it to go because you want it to be more stressful,

all of these little things. But then also the everyday bits. So let's close in on that, the daily habits. So as I said, visualization works better when you then follow with action. So maybe you are somebody that wants to start running in the morning. So you can visualize yourself the night before, putting on your shoes, putting on your clothes,

stepping out the door, going for that run. And then what that does is it creates a blueprint for what you want to do and who you want to be. And then you can also do it for, you know, You know, visualization in the future, you know, someone would say that's manifestation. It does work, but it needs to be followed with action. That's from a neuroscientific perspective, it works better in that context. So it's all the daily habits that might help you gain more self-confidence,

which means that you'll stop sabotaging yourself because you'll have better standards for yourself. And the other thing is I always say to my clients is we're always weighing up what other people can bring to us. Have you ever made a list or what you can bring to others? Someone asked me the other day on the way back from an event on Monday, Tuesday.

I don't even have another day or did we. We were talking about dating and she asked me would you date yourself? And I was like really taken aback by the question. Much to your point, you often focus on other people and what other people bring to you and what other people represent to you.

And I was really taken aback by it. my immediate answer was no and I was like no because you know I want to date someone opposite to me I'm really overactive like I kind of I never switch off and I started labelling all the bad all the all qualities I think make me amazing but would make me probably quite apprehensive to date me because I'd be like whoa you're so full on but I realized in that answer how my predisposition I guess what we're talking about the negativity bias was to jump to all the reasons why I would I wasn't not datable yeah exactly which I think fundamentally don't believe I think I'm such

a catch. Let me just say that. I fundamentally think absolutely can't. But so I think it's just it's so easy though to get again to fixate on the other people and not to spend that time reflecting on what we bring to the table our own attributes, our own kind of positive yeah our positive characteristics which from our discussion I guess is actually really important in order to counterbalance the negativity bias in our brain. Is that right? So if we actually, we can help to retrain, or rewrite our brains to think more positively in dating

just through affirming our positive attributes. Exactly. So, you know, maybe write them down as well. Visualization doesn't necessarily need to be a mental imagery exercise. It can also be a written exercise. There are people with affintasia that struggle to imagine, you know, in their minds eye, a red apple, for example. So, you know, visualization can also be color-blocking your,

calendar. So writing down your best qualities is a way of starting to embody, for lack of a better term, who it is that you actually are. Because otherwise we live with this negativity bias and we live through the lens of that person. I can ask a call, on a really, let's get so specific and practical. On a day-to-day basis, when is the best time to do this? Because I've heard you speak before about the moment we wake up, that being a very, that being a very kind of specifically creative and quite

wonderful segment slow brainways. Exactly, to our day. Is that, can you explain that for us that first moment? And then tell me, is that when it would be the most ideal moment in which to do these sort of visualization practices? Yeah, so we're in this kind of like dreamlike state when we first wake up. I think a lot of

people will probably resonate with that unless you grab your phone and it snaps you out of it. And a lot of people say, oh, but I need my phone to wake up and then you know that's a whole other conversation because I'm wondering are you getting quality sleep but those slow brain waves in the morning so you're going from probably you know delta and theta brainwaves which are slow brainwaves into more like an alpha state and that's where there's a very kind of openness to plasticity you can create plasticity at any brainwaves so it's not just theta I think there was a big misconception for a long time that you

can only do that then but we can create plasticity at all at all frequencies but but it doesn't steer away from the fact that we are more calm, more internalized thoughts that are creative and wonderful. So we have this area of the brain called the default mode network. Your default mode network is essentially your default mode of thinking. So what are you thinking about when you're not thinking about anything else? When you're driving, when you're folding clothes, washing the dishes, it's that internal dialogue. Now, the default mode network is responsible for internal mind wandering and creativity, but also rumination. And so I always explain the DMN or the default mode network as a kind of garden. If you've got this garden and you

don't tend to it, the weeds are going to overgrow, right? But if you spend time in their place, if you spend time in the garden, you can plant the plants and flower the garden and water it, etc. How long is that period first thing in the morning? How long do you have to water that garden? So it takes about 40, 45 minutes to an hour before you sort of reach peak biological, you know, prime times where you have high levels of cortisol and you're awake. Now, you can access the default mode network not just in the morning. You can access it at any point. You could start drifting off now and thinking about your life internally if you wanted to. But what I'm trying to explain is that in the morning, it's that prime time to be slow and be kind of calm with yourself.

Because default mode activation or default mode type thinking at the end of the day versus. of the morning, it appears to be more influenced by our stress hormones, which means that we start to ruminate late at night. 9 o'clock, you're in bed, or 10 o'clock, maybe you're in bed, and those thoughts start perpetuating where you start. Social comparison, what haven't I done? Yes, all of those things. Exercise is, you know, I exercise every morning.

I go straight to CrossFit in the first morning, I know. It's just because everybody is so. Nobody likes to show up. That's great. Sorry. It's because everyone there is so hot. And I, that's why you go. Well, listen, I'm like a big to exercise.

I need to find a cross-bed gym. But honestly, I do like an incentive. I love exercise. I'm a morning person as well. No, no, no, no. But, I mean, it's, I am actually being serious. I love exercise and I love straight going in the morning. But I also, everyone is incredibly attractive there.

And it does just give me that little, like, you know, pep in my step for the rest of the day. So I'm like, sure. Yeah, I got to do it. I mean, it's good. We have to recognize how we operate. And I found my incentive structure. And there it is. I love it.

But by virtue of a lot of people do exercise. you know, first thing in the morning, do we then, you know, if your alarm goes off, I try not to look at my phone. Someone told me to, you should be looking at light, so I try and stare into my light bulb for like a few seconds to wake up, not madlights. I did you want to get sunlight, yeah. There I am, like. Those lights do work, but the light bulbs are probably not giving up enough photons. Yeah, it kind of hurts as well. Yeah. But if we're going straight into exercise first thing, are we missing out on that? Not necessarily, because, Because you're still, as long as you're not going on your phone and sort of, the way that I explain is like infiltrating your life with external problems stimuli comparison.

You know, because you can still do exercise and still be in an internal mind wondering that feels quite nice. So yeah. So it's not switching on the radio, for example, and listening to the news. So it's trying to not get essentially a download of information first thing. Yeah. You want to be able to, you know, be in your body, meditate exercise, but still try and stay within your own. mind first thing. That is so useful. I'm about to rewire my

mornings. Yay! Maybe stop staring into the bulb. I think that's a bit maybe. You can still guess sunlight from cloudy days. Yeah, it's actually, yeah, it's quite dark. Okay, yeah, that's England. London. You live in where? Madera? Yeah, yeah, you don't understand.

We live in perpetual dark, rain and cloud. So light bulbs are what we turn to as forms of sunshine. Let's talk about sex. This is sextober for you, after all. and it is actually it's sex me all year round so I run a company called sex talk so we never have an off day

but let's what happens I only have sex in October once a month to be honest I'm basically celebrated at this point but despite running a platform called sex talks it's weird so let's talk about sex and the first that from a neurochemical perspective

what is happening to us neurochemically when we have sex with someone new so for the first time what is happening So again, that dopamine, so we have an area called the ventral tegmental area, responsible for craving, motivation to attain reward. The nucleus accumbens as well, responsible for that kind of deep visceral craving and feeling for wanting something that's quite the best way to, if you will, satisfy the pleasure centres of the brain. Now, the whole brain lights up, bar one area. Well, it doesn't switch off completely.

No part of the brain ever switches off completely. And that's what's so cool is that many areas of the brain light up simultaneously during sex and it's the reason why the feeling is quite complex. It's not just one specific brain area. But the one area that does tend to switch off

is the frontal cortex, responsible for decision making, error detection, and it's the reason why people can find themselves sort of not thinking about anything else except gaining the end reward. What happens if you are an overthinker

and that overthinking translates into sex and so you do still find yourself with these kind of ruminating, often anxious thoughts within the context of sex because presumably you haven't successfully been able to switch off that frontal part of your brain. Yeah, what's really interesting is that women tend to have more of an activation in the limbic system

where it's responsible for emotional processing and our frontal cortex doesn't switch off as much Now, please bear with me, research in, you know, non-binary, homosexual relationships, transgender. We're not quite there yet, so do forgive me if I'm speaking in binary terms here. But men appear to be able to fully switch off, again, not fully. And women tend to have more of an internal dialogue. And it's the reason why you can start worrying about the emails. And with men, it tends to be more, let's get straight to the point, you know.

And if you're someone who's prone to that sort of anxiety or overthinking in sex, what can you do to help mitigate that? What can you do to help mitigate against that so that you can try and be more present and embodied when you're having sex? We know embodied present sex is the best way of being able to fully experience pleasure. Yeah. So we are heavily stimulated by visual and physical, tactile information so that the sensory parts of our brain can be activated. and paying attention to those things like how does someone smell or how does someone feel

paying attention to all the details in the present moment because on the contrary to the default mode network you have this central executive network responsible for what we're doing right now these kind of higher order thinking cognitively demanding tasks, conversations you're not pondering your nine-year-old life

while you're having a conversation with me I don't think so anyway what was I doing at 10 years old I'd much rather hear what you have to say about sex, much, much more interesting. And so you can redirect your focus to something that is more present where you're activating the parts

that keep you quote-unquote present rather than in your own internal dialogue. So think about how it feels, pay attention to the details, maybe look someone in the eyes, I don't know. A bit of eye-gazing before you. It's a very good way of connecting someone. Right, because that visual stimulation

and tactile stimulation as well is all a contributing factor to the arrival of the endgame. Well, because I think often we have, I'm speaking very in generalising terms, but it can be easy to kind of default to rushing through sex and to feeling like,

so it can be easy to be goal-orientated in sex and be thinking, I can be almost like rushing towards the end point and actually taking things very slowly and being very intentional and sensual and kind of slowing down. I have found anecdotally, personally, to be a really helpful way

of being able to be a little bit more, more present. And in the research. So women tend to have a slower rise in all of these sex hormones that are responsible, you know, for sex. And whereas men tend to have a bigger peak and a bigger drop. And we know that, right? And that's why for women, I often say, a few friends of mine have been trying for children recently. And with that, had to have scheduled sex in order to, you know, meet the, in line with ovulation. Well, they were very specifically around their kind of ovulation days. And I remember one friend saying to at the time,

she was like, it's really hard because it's taken the romance and joy out of sex, become quite kind of perfunctory and kind of unenjoyable. And I've interviewed, and you can imagine two sex, many, many sex therapists. And what so many of them said to me is, to your point then, Nicole, it's about setting the context. So if you're, it's okay, you're having to schedule sex because you're, you know, you're trying for a baby.

you can still create a context around sex that helps you cognitively engage in the process so you kind of say it's every Wednesday night or that time of month and you light candles you maybe begin to you know like you know set the mood you lower the lighting you put on specific music you then associate with sex you then perhaps do massage first

it's all these things are there and to like help you get into the mood so you're not just suddenly being like okay cool it's sex time right which obviously isn't going to be be quite a difficult thing to help you feel turned on them. Also because, you know, we operate by association. A simple one is when you need the bathroom and you're looking for one, now, you know, you need to go even more than if you hadn't thought about it. Classic one.

I have that every night. I go to bed and I'm like, I just walked in to brush my tea. They're like, I have to pee again. And I always have to do that. But so with that is if the association is must have sex because I need to do it, you know, do it for conceiving. it's the association in the brain is going to remain throughout the entire process of the intercourse, right?

So setting up the association that you like the candles or whatever it is is going to bring a different angle and element to the party. So your cognitive association is going to be affected by the environment you create essentially. Exactly. Because, you know, when you walk in the kitchen, cookies. And I walk in my mother-in-law's kitchen, I'm like, oh, what can I eat? I don't think like that when I'm at home, but at home.

place. I'm like, let's open the fridge. Oh my God, same. As soon as I go to my parents' house, I get out little teaspoon from the cupboard and I'm like, right, what do we have? I'm like, spoon on Nutella in my hand ready to go. The forager in me begins. My mum's buys so many treats. I don't know how she stays in, but she, so I just go through the cupboards

and I'm like, I'll have a bite of that, I'm terrible. I then put things back, having had a bite of everything. So my mom says, yeah, kind of a week after I've been there, she can always find a little, like, trail of crumbs, just quite concerning. Casual sex. Paul Brunson, who is a wonderful dating expert and he's on shows like Marriott at First Sites,

Let's Go Dating, has become kind of my just kind of godfather figure within the sex and dating landscape. He's just kind of so wise. He said to me on sex talks a while ago that there's no such thing as casual sex controversially. So that whenever we have sex with someone, emotions, feelings are always involved. And so the idea that we can just

have sex with someone and then walk away and that's it and we don't feel anything we can kind of disconnect he said isn't correct and there's always more there's always more of a kind of emotional connection and hangover from sex than we perhaps give credit to when we talk about kind of casual sex in the context of hookup culture from a neuroscientific perspective is there such thing as casual sex yeah not really I mean, I think you could maybe have sex with one person on a one night stand once and disconnect,

but there's always going to be some level of emotion. So it's not truly ever that casual. Maybe even in hindsight will continue to think about it to some degree, maybe overplay it in your head, even if you don't want anything. So the way that I actually worded, it's more like instead of it being casual sex, it's knowing that there's no end game in this sex. That has a ring to it. no but because a lot of people will still want to engage in you know platonic relationships that have

sexual benefits but it's not casual it's just that you both hopefully are aware that there's no future for you and that's going to actually help mitigate any of the unwanted emotions that then come through bad communication because isn't it like weak messages create bad situations right and so there isn't really casual sex because there's always some kind of emotion, even if there's no attachment. Does attachment build inevitably even if we don't want it to, for example, a friend with benefit situation? To some degree, even if it's not the attachment you want, there'll still be some level

of bonding, which can then create even a bigger mess, because now you're bonded to this person that you don't actually probably want to be with, but there's still going to be an intertwinement of, you know, connection through, you know, vasopressin, which is a hormone that is responsible for pair bonding and predominantly create a protective environment. So you start becoming jealous. You start to feel like you may have to protect certain aspects of yourself or that person,

even though you don't want anything to do with them, right? That's where those strings attach, that classic example of, I'm going to be casually having sex with you, but also I don't want you to be having sex with anyone else, or whatever is the manifestation of this because people still have that pair bonding that has happened.

And that's why, you know, classic example is where people don't really close the door fully because I just want to know if I've still got it there. I like keeping all the doors open at all times. Just a little breeze through all of them. Just to check. No, I actually got a bullet shutting them. You know what?

I really feel grateful to hear you say that because I think that did anyone else grow up watching Sex and City? Yes. Okay, lots of nods. Someone shake their head. Good. I mean, no, sorry, I think sex and city is great and was very at its time in some respects. But I think that I certainly grew up with a pressure, a feeling that I should be able to casually have lots of sex and it not mean anything to me. And I think there's also a kind of hangover from the sexual revolution, which was really couched as, okay, great, now women don't necessarily get pregnant from having sex because of the pill we can just go out and have sex casually and that's you know I think it was almost quite a kind of male centric model of sex that was then instituted and suggested that kind of we can therefore you know do have sex in the same way and I think that I definitely can't have sex like that and I do but I've often felt quite guilty and kind of ashamed yeah that I'm not able to emotionally disconnect fully from the people I sleep with and as much as I've tried as much

I've tried to be casual and to be disconnected and to be the cool girl, I find myself getting emotionally attached to... Naturally, so. Completely natural. So now my learning at 32 is maybe don't do it. But as I was saying, I do think there's kind of, they can feel, especially now in a kind of more kind of hookup at facilitated culture. I'm not saying that's bad, but I think it can still institute that pressure to feel like,

you know, you can be more casual about things. and that does, you know, I'm sure there are some people who are able to do that and more power to you and that's fine and, you know, in great view. But I think for a lot of people, that's just quite difficult and emotionally burdensome. So I feel galvanised understanding the neuroscience behind the connection.

So thanks. You're welcome. I hope someone else here, other people here, feel liberated by that too. Now one final question before, I want to give you all an opportunity to ask Nicole whatever question might be on your mind. So begin to think if you have any questions

and then just feel kind of from now like put your hand up and or just jump on in but just to kind of uh wrap up i mean i have like 25 more questions but we we won't go to charles go to all of them we'll do part two part three part four part five but a question but a question that i get asked a lot and i don't really have the information at my fingertips to answer often at the moment is around sex and ADHD so ADHD is a topic that feels so front and center at the moment it feels not a lot more people a lot more women particularly are getting diagnosed with ADHD. And I know there's been some research

looking at how ADHD affects the way that we experience sex. Can you, I know you focus a lot on ADHD in your research and you speak about it really brilliantly. Can you explain for us how someone with ADHD might experience sex differently and what they can kind of maybe do about that if it's posing a problem for them? Different situations.

They might be a hyper-focus. So one of the things with ADHD is that people think that ADHD is can't focus on anything, whereas actually ADHD has these hyperfixations on the things they really care about, which means that there's a disconnect with task switching, so going from one thing to another because there's a hyperfixation on that, and everything else becomes irrelevant. We call it an intentional blink. So it's not that they will forget about habits,

they'll forget about other things because they're so focused on one thing that they care about. So that could be one thing. There's a hyperfixation which can then manifest in obsessive thoughts about another person, limerence, where you become infatuated with someone, potentially even overthinking certain aspects of relationships and creating a hyperfixation around that. But then there's the other manifestation, which is disconnect in thinking during sex. So thinking about other things that, again, have more important than the current task at hand.

because of that task-switching issue, I put it in quote-unquote, that is what happens. So does that kind of answer your question? No, entirely. And so if you are someone who has ADHD, what can you do to help yourself? If you maybe struggle with the focus element of things in the context of intimacy, you find your mind firing off in all different directions, how can you help kind of bring yourself back into the moment if you are someone with ADHD? I don't think anyone's ever asked me that question.

Really? Ever. That's wild, because I get asked about sex-a-ishy a lot, sex talks, yeah. I spoke with Jamie Lang about ADHD in his sex life for a whole hour, which was wonderful. And he didn't ask me how to be more... No, I guess he's got better on the raps and he's married, so... Yeah, yeah. You know, always room for improving, particularly in marriages.

Ooh, okay, let me have a thing. I guess, you know, making sure that there are no pertinent tasks in your day that are pressuring you. You know, it takes the fun out of it having to be like, I just need to get all this stuff, it out, it's not great. The thing with ADHD is as well is that there's a lot of thrill-seeking, much like all of us, but it appears to be exacerbated. So that could be a good thing, you know. It could really work in your favor if you shift that perspective, that mindset towards what sex is. It's not a lot of us see as a task sometimes and shifting that mindset. Like mindsets have a huge influence on how we perceive the world. You know, I mean, there's an amazing research that I spoke

about and rewind, and I'll go back a little bit. But Aaliyah Crum, she's a researcher at Stanford, she took two groups of people, and she basically gave them each a milkshake. One group had to drink a super decadent chocolate Sunday, and the other group had to drink a sensible shake that was sort of zero sugar, et cetera. Both milk shakes at the same calories, they just didn't know, right? So their mindset. What they saw was that the Grelin response, so Gremlin is the hormin that tells you whether you're full, right? And so the Grelin response in the individuals that drank the sensible shake was increased 90 minutes later much more than the group that had to drink the Sunday

because they believed that what they ate wasn't caloric enough to fill them up. And so they had a physiological response to the belief that they had in their mind. So our mindsets are extremely powerful and changing that mindset, much like anything, like I have to exercise. to I get to exercise can also have a huge influence and how you then carry yourself through the world. So then if we take it just briefly back to sex, we're thinking about sex as something that we are

being more intentional about and being more kind of present in. So perhaps rather than thinking, to say if you're someone that you live with your partner and you feel like you have to have sex every night. I've never been the situation. I was going to say, I guess a lot. I have no idea. People that live with their partner is like, no experience of that.

So, like, do you guys have sex every night? Maybe, maybe not. To then maybe thinking, okay, maybe twice a week, I'm going to be really intentional and really present and really enjoy it rather than feeling like it's something that I kind of have to do very consistently. Yes. Also, interestingly enough, the research shows that there's like a plateau

in how often we have sex during the week and the correlation that it has to our mental benefits. So if you want to have more, have more. but there doesn't appear to be more of a kind of beneficial aspect to having sex every single night versus having it twice a week which I thought was quite interesting by the way if you don't want to have sex and just be like sorry from a neuroscientific perspective I only need to do it twice a week I only need it twice beyond that it becomes superfluous

so I will not be engaging thank you I plateauing no but you know if you also think about it like how long does sex take realistically oh it depends half out 20 minutes Two minutes. Cool. Efficient. Love that. Let's say 15 minutes, right? Can you all agree that around 15 minutes? Anyone else?

10? 20? 30. 30 at the most. Come on. My big part of the other day was telling me about her recent hookup, which went on for full hours. Wow. I was tired just thinking about it. Not every single time. That's inefficient. That is an inefficient use of your time.

30 minutes? Is that safe to say that it could take up to 30 minutes twice a week? that's one hour of your week how many hours do you have in a week three hours I think that's a pretty good use of three hours no I'm saying how many free hours do you have and so compared to that one hour of your week is not really that much

so I thought you were saying it was too much and I thought God Nicole I didn't get in there a hour a week that's pretty good use of time I was just saying they just commit to that 30 minutes and enjoy it because you've got the rest of the time to worry about your life I love that 8 p.m. 9 p.m. 10 p.m. all the way through to bed, like, ruminating. You can worry and catastrophize for so many other hours in your week and your day.

So allow yourself that little like sliver of pleasure. We're going to have to wrap up because we have run over. But thank you so much, Nicole, for this absolutely illuminating talk. It's so, I feel so grateful to you for translating what are pretty complex. Some of the words, I'm like, whoa, but very complex ideas around neuroscience and making it accessible so that we can all understand how we can make these small changes in our daily life to fundamentally rewire our brains and hence take control of our lives. So thank you for your incredible work. Thank you for having me. Thank you so much for listening to today's

Sex Talks podcast with me, your host, Emma Louise Boynton. If you'd like to attend a live recording of the podcast, check out the Eventbrate link in the show notes as we have lots of exciting live events coming up. In the meantime, don't forget to submit whatever ad-diant question you'd like us to tackle on a future podcast episode via the sextalks website. That's sextalks.co.uk. And finally, if you enjoyed the show, I hope you did. Please don't forget to rate, review and subscribe on whatever platform you're listening to this on, as apparently it helps others to find us. Have a wonderful day. Thank you.