HOW TO QUIT MASTURBATION.
BY
KASHIF MAG
BY
KASHIF MAG
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00Welcome back. I am psyched that you are here and today we are going to talk about masturbation.
00:09And you know what Green Day says, if masturbation's lost its fun, you're effing lazy.
00:16Well, I disagree. And we're going to break that down in this here episode.
00:21So what we're going to talk about is masturbation.
00:24First of all, we're going to talk about can it be addictive and how it's related to porn consumption.
00:30Two, we're going to talk about the neuroscience behind masturbation.
00:34Then we're going to talk about how masturbation impacts your memory, your thinking, your anxiety, your mental health.
00:45Then we're going to transition into your physical health and talk about erectile dysfunction.
00:52Then we're going to move on. We're going to talk about the relationship to testosterone.
00:55We're going to talk about how masturbation impacts your sex life.
01:04And then finally, we are going to talk about how you can stop masturbating if I have inspired you to contemplate it by the end of this episode.
01:13So let's dig in. Masturbation, can it be addictive and how is it related to pornography?
01:19And you know what? We're going to transition right into neuroscience when we talk about this.
01:23So absolutely, compulsive masturbation is a thing.
01:27And if you've seen my YouTube channel, I take some heat when I talk about masturbation, but it's heat I'm willing to take because I have created a channel on YouTube where I tell the world what it needs to hear, not what it wants to hear.
01:42And I know that many men want to hear that masturbation is harmless, that it doesn't impact anybody.
01:49It's just a harmless way to de-stress and to, you know, fill the boredom of the holes in your schedule.
01:58And it's a way for you to have a sex life without a partner.
02:02You know, I've heard it all.
02:03But the reality is, in fact, it's coupled and associated with pornography consumption or the fantasy that results from thereof, thereof.
02:14And it is not good for your brain.
02:17Thus, it will impact your mental and emotional health.
02:20It will impact your physical health and it's going to show up in your world.
02:24So, in fact, masturbation can be addictive.
02:26And we know that there is compulsive masturbation.
02:29So, when other professionals are talking about masturbation being fine for you or even good for you, they are not talking about people who struggle with compulsive masturbation, which is the majority of people who masturbate.
02:44And, honestly, I just reached out to a professional.
02:47And, no, it's not one that I've talked to on my podcast yet.
02:51And, no, it's not a professional who should even be talking about masturbation.
02:55But I'm sure this person is looking for clicks.
02:58And if you're listening, you can search your heart because I'm sure you're looking for clicks by telling the world that, you know, masturbation is harmless.
03:07Everybody masturbates.
03:09There's no shame surrounding masturbation, even though the professional whispered the word masturbation, which assumes there is shame associated with it.
03:19So, you know, I won't tell you what you want to hear, which other people are telling you, that it's fine and it doesn't impact you or your relationship because that's BS.
03:29So, yes, in fact, it could be addictive.
03:31You can get in a loop where you need it to feel okay about your life.
03:36It becomes your number one self-soothing tool.
03:39That's the why behind masturbation.
03:41It has nothing to do with sex for most people.
03:45And you might not be aware of that, but if you peel the layers back, you might find out that that, in fact, is true.
03:51And I'm spitting straight facts there.
03:53But the neuroscience behind masturbation, especially if you have been consuming pornography, the neuroscience behind it is this.
04:02When you were young, you found pornography and masturbation, and you likely found it in a world that's difficult to exist in, right?
04:12The human existence.
04:14It is a challenging one, in fact.
04:16So you found porn and masturbation, and it made your brain feel good.
04:20You felt that rush in your brain.
04:22It took you away from the worries of the day or your life.
04:26It made you feel good for a time.
04:28You were watching pornography, which was highly exhilarating.
04:33You were masturbating, and it gave you physical stimulation that you had never felt before because most people experience this when they're 10, 11, even younger.
04:43So this is this new mental and physical stimulation that is awesome, and it is literally rescuing you from your life.
04:54Now, this is the way that your brain works.
04:56Your brain will keep going in the direction of the reward, and we know when dopamine floods into your system, it's a dopamine deluge, and it's a highly rewarding neurotransmitter.
05:10It's the pleasure-seeking neurotransmitter, so it gives you pleasure.
05:14And when it's coupled to porn and masturbation, basically what you're training your brain to realize is that the way that I can deal with difficulties in my life is by masturbating to porn or to fantasy to take me away from that and give me this amazing feeling not only in my brain but also in my body.
05:35And it is a neurochemical cascade that makes you feel that way, and it's primarily dopamine.
05:43When you get the dopamine deluge, what it teaches you is that there's a, your brain, is that there's a dopamine deficit in your world.
05:51So ultimately, you keep going back to porn and masturbation to feel good, but you don't even realize it's making your life worse.
06:00Your brain thinks there's no dopamine in the world, that there's only stress because of cortisol, and your work doesn't do it for you, your friendships don't do it for you, your hobbies don't do it for you, and you find yourself back into the screen in masturbation.
06:14So over time, what happens is you develop a masturbation habit, and you convince yourself it's harmless, it's no big deal, it's your way to de-stress.
06:23But in fact, it is keeping you coming back for more because of the dopamine deluge.
06:30You've linked your brain neurologically to yourself, physically.
06:36So if you're linked to your brain, and we know when you have sex with a partner, you link your brain to that partner neurologically.
06:44That's the beauty of it.
06:45So if you have a partner and you have healthy sexuality, there's dopamine for pleasure, serotonin for happiness, and oxytocin for connection or linking.
06:55And so when you find a partner and you get those brain juices flowing when you're with that partner, you've linked yourself to that partner,
07:02which makes you want to go back to that partner for more and more, not only physical intimacy, but intimacy so that you have love and happiness, connection and pleasure.
07:12But if you keep masturbating, you're literally neurologically linking your brain sexually to yourself.
07:22And that is a self-defeating loop because it keeps you caught in it.
07:27So you might know that this is true if you prefer masturbation over having sex.
07:34And you might want to have sex, but it feels better to masturbate or it feels better to masturbate to porn.
07:41You're stuck in that loop.
07:43So that's the neuroscience behind it is you're getting this flood of dopamine and your brain's feeling good.
07:49And oh, sorry, I'm dropping things here.
07:51Your brain is feeling good and you continue to want to come back for more and more and more.
07:57OK, so let's talk about how that impacts your memory.
08:01So let's move on to porn, masturbation and memory loss.
08:05So when you masturbate, you are flooding your brain with dopamine.
08:10So what that does is it floods your frontal lobe, which is in charge of working memory, concentration, focus, socialization, judgment, impulse control.
08:22It's in charge of all of that.
08:24And you're flooding the reward center.
08:27So what happens is when you're flooded out with dopamine, your brain can't think and it can't remember as well.
08:33So the more consistently and frequently you masturbate, you're knocking out the frontal lobe.
08:40And it becomes this vicious cycle that is impacted by neurochemical release.
08:45So depending upon where you are in the cycle, you'll have the worst brain fog.
08:50And then when you move through the cycle, it might get a little better and then it'll get worse again.
08:54And so it becomes this vicious cycle.
08:56But I want you to know every time you flood your brain out, you're making it so that your memory memory will actually be negatively impacted from that dopamine flood.
09:08Now, obviously, it's more involved than that.
09:11One other aspect is that we know this again from the science is that the more you consume porn and masturbate, you're increasing slowing in the frontal lobe.
09:21So you're slowing your brain down.
09:23It's like you're putting the brakes on your frontal lobe.
09:25And that's another reason why memory and thinking becomes impaired and you might experience brain fog and, you know, thinking is not going to be as good or work out as well for you.
09:36OK, let's move on because we're trying to move through lots of things here in this here in this here episode.
09:43Let's move to erectile dysfunction.
09:45So hopefully you kind of get the gist of, you know, you've got all this going on.
09:49You think it's about physical stimulation.
09:52But where do you think the physical stimulation comes from?
09:54Your brain, you're feeling it in your brain and it's delivering the signals to your body.
10:00So now when the signals are delivered, it's delivering the signals to your mind and your body.
10:04So that's why this slowing can impact your thinking in your mind, your cognitive behaviors.
10:11But then it also can impact erectile dysfunction and delayed ejaculation.
10:17So it works like this.
10:18If you're desensitizing the reward center in the middle of your brain, you're knocking out the receptors, the reward sectors that basically can perceive arousal and perceive levels of arousal.
10:33So porn is a supernormal stimulus when you're watching sexual acts and behaviors that don't actually exist in the real world, especially in the way that it's portrayed with partners that don't exist in the real world.
10:48It is a supernormal stimulus.
10:50It gives your brain tons of mental arousal, which means you get large amounts of dopamine.
10:56At the same time, masturbation is extreme amounts of physical stimulation.
11:01I work with some people who their grip is so tight, they have handprints on their penis.
11:08The amount of physical stimulation that some people apply is extreme.
11:14And so it's anywhere from extreme to still more than what would happen if you were having sex with a partner.
11:22So that physical stimulation makes it so that your brain needs that level of mental and physical stimulation to be aroused.
11:32So now it's time to have sex with your honey.
11:35And when you're with a partner, you don't have that physical stimulation.
11:41You don't have that tight grip.
11:42And at the same time, you don't have the mental stimulation.
11:45So now you can't get where you need to get being with your partner.
11:50And we also know from the science that if you're consuming porn, that your attraction level to your partner literally goes down.
11:57So you're just less aroused by your partner, even if she was amazing because she's not doing the funky things that you're watching on the screen.
12:05She can never live up to the supernormal stimulus.
12:10Thus, even if you have the best partner in the world, it's still not to the same level as the screen.
12:17And if you're not masturbating and you're having your healthy levels of sex, you're not getting the physical stimulation.
12:25Leads to erectile dysfunction.
12:27You can't get an erection, which means that you can't have a sexual experience, which means now you have performance anxiety.
12:33We know performance anxiety is going through the roof for young people, and they are not associating it with porn and masturbation.
12:41But the performance anxiety is coming from the fact that they may not be able to get an erection.
12:46Plus, they're worried about sex as a performance because they watch it as a performance, not experience it as an experience.
12:53The same time, they might not be as aroused by their partner and they don't have the same mental and physical stimulation.
13:00So, let's jump to how it impacts your sex life, and then we'll go back to testosterone.
13:05So, we know that the way that it impacts your sex life is now you might have delayed ejaculation because it takes you forever to get anywhere near the arousal.
13:15And this is how you know you might have a problem.
13:18You're with your partner, but you have to go to fantasy to get the mental stimulation going.
13:24You have to recall some porn scenes that you've seen.
13:27You have to run a highlight reel.
13:30You have to think about your favorite porn performer.
13:33Many people have said to me before, so, I should be thinking about my wife when we have sex?
13:38Yes, obviously.
13:41If you're not, that's a problem.
13:43At the same time, if you're having sexual intercourse with your partner and you're feeling a really strong urge to masturbate or do some other activity that gives you more physical stimulation, it's because your brain needs it.
13:58It's no longer getting the level of stimulation from your partner that it would.
14:03So, let's just say if masturbation and porn were out of the equation and now you're with your partner, it would feel amazing.
14:09And that's why when you give up porn and masturbation, your sex life goes from zero to hero.
14:17It goes through the roof.
14:19Once your brain has unwired the porn and masturbation pattern, rewired into healthy sexuality and mood regulation, sex becomes better than ever, as it should be, because that's what's healthy.
14:30So, it impacts your sex life in that way.
14:32Now, let me tell you something else.
14:34Your partner knows things are getting funky in the bedroom.
14:37So, even if she doesn't know that you watch pornography, if she doesn't know that you masturbate daily, she knows something's up.
14:47She knows that you're not enjoying it that much.
14:49It's getting weird and she's not enjoying it that much.
14:53Things are going wrong.
14:55So, I encourage you to know that.
14:57Don't blame your partner.
14:58I have so many people that I work with and they're like, yeah, if my wife wanted to have more sex with me, I wouldn't have to watch porn.
15:03That's not true because you started watching porn and masturbating long before you met your partner and then you've continued it and then your relationship's gotten funky.
15:12So, it's dynamical.
15:13The dynamics need to shift and porn needs to come out of the equation because when porn's in the equation, we know that divorce and breakups are more than doubled.
15:20And the desire to cheat or infidelity is 300% increase, which is a terrifying statistic.
15:28Okay.
15:28So, let us move on to testosterone because I've read a few studies in terms of testosterone.
15:35What we know is that abstinence from masturbation, from orgasm, but some of these studies looked at masturbation, from abstinence from orgasm can increase testosterone.
15:50One of the studies shows that it increased 146%, which is awesome, obviously, on day seven.
15:58And so, on the seventh day, there was a spike in serum testosterone.
16:03We also know that there's another study that was a three-week abstinence period and testosterone levels increased over that amount of time.
16:12So, another thing we know is that orgasm creates more testosterone.
16:17So, there's enough science supporting abstinence as a way to improve the way that your body makes and utilizes testosterone.
16:28And I know many men are worried about their testosterone levels.
16:31And I know a lot of the dudes that I interact with are on testosterone supplements.
16:36And I'm like, dudes, if you just stop watching porn and masturbating, your testosterone levels would even out.
16:42You wouldn't need those supplements.
16:44You're doing it to yourself.
16:45You're draining yourself.
16:47You're making your brain's electrical energy go back and forth, pendulum effect.
16:52You're making those neurotransmitter cascades go wonky.
16:58When the system stabilizes, your sleep improves, your workouts improve, your muscle growth improves.
17:06Things get better when the system is stable.
17:09When you keep watching porn and masturbating, you're destabilizing the system.
17:14And then the nervous system.
17:17Then the body, the mind, and the brain are not able to handle things well.
17:22Okay.
17:22So, we also know that when you are stuck in this loop of masturbation, especially when it's associated with porn, that it can be so difficult to get out.
17:33How do you stop masturbating?
17:35Let me tell you how.
17:36Number one, you have to stop watching porn.
17:38I know it's challenging, but you are frying your brain.
17:42You're damaging your brain.
17:43And it is the thing that's keeping the masturbation alive.
17:46Because I challenge people to masturbate without fantasy on a schedule so you're not using it to de-stress or to fill the boredom.
17:56And then stay with the sensations in your body.
17:59And so many guys will, like, burst out laughing and be like, what's the point?
18:03And I'll be like, exactly.
18:05That's exactly it.
18:06There is no point.
18:07If you're just doing it on a schedule, no fantasy especially, no porn, and if you're just staying in your body.
18:15But that is, you know, a quote-unquote healthy masturbation habit if you are in a culture or a religion where you're not able to have healthy sexuality with a partner at this point in your life.
18:27So how to quit it is to stay out of the screen and make a pivot plan what you're going to do instead of masturbating to decrease your stress levels and to not be bored.
18:39Especially if you're using masturbation as a sleep tool, find a way to wind down at the night.
18:45If you find that you're masturbating in the morning, you're likely trying to get a dopamine hit to help you get through the day.
18:52So build in more breaks in the day, build in more mood regulation activities, favorite hobbies that you love to do, and you won't need to masturbate anymore.
19:01Okay, I hope that helps you out.
19:03If you're looking for help on your journey, please go over to drtrishlead.com.
19:06My 90-day program has everything that you need to leave masturbation behind for good.
19:12When I work with people, what I do is I can individualize, you know, kind of how you can break this loop of masturbation.
19:20It's different for all different people depending upon what you have going on, and I would be happy to help you.
19:25Okay, as always, control your brain, or it'll control you.