Here’s what we’re going to do.

1. What you’re eating and how it has to do with your brain performance.
2. I’m going to share with you how eating and porn are related in terms of the dopamine release that your brain is looking for
3. I will give you a powerful brain tip strategy that is easy and will allow you to start training your brain in the right direction, not only to eat healthier but to leave porn behind for good too.

What are you eating?

I work with so many people that tell me, “What’s happened is I have been resigned to eating out all the time, hitting drive-thrus on my way home or hitting DoorDash to have food delivered. Sometimes I use Uber eats or I buy frozen food and I’m nuking it. I eat a lot of things out of a crinkly bag.”

So, what’s happening there?

To cook a meal and prepare it ahead of time takes a lot of time and effort. It takes time and effort which use executive function skills that come from your frontal lobe. What you must do is take small steps to move towards the larger goal which is dopamine-producing and when your brain is healthy, you can get little drips of dopamine as you’re moving towards the larger goal of your meal.

Now let’s consider number two. When you consume pornography and you go into the screen, you’ve trained your brain to hit the easy button for a rush of dopamine in a sexual way. You’ve just trained your brain it doesn’t have to work for anything. All it needs to do is hit a button and it gets the major, massive, reward quickly.  I also feel the need to remind you this is damaging your frontal lobe and the reward center in your brain. I’m getting ahead of myself. We’ll revisit that in a second.

As I’ve said before, when you hit the easy button, you train your brain that all I’ve got to do is hit an easy button and I get this massive rush from sex. Let me also remind you that watching porn is not having sex.

Those are two different things and having sex in the real world requires a partner. Which one might say involves a little bit more work or a little bit more of those objectives or smaller goals that are achieved along the way to be able to have an actual sexual experience.

For example, you have to work to find a partner. Unfortunately, the way life works is you also have to work at keeping a partner. Having a sexual experience with another person involves give and take, not just take or consuming. It involves thinking about your partner and connecting with them. It is just more than hitting an easy button. We know when you hit the easy button and you get the deluge of dopamine. You’re frying out your brain.

When you do the work, or you take the small steps towards the larger reward you are firing up your brain and you’re teaching it to be able to move in a healthy way towards a reward.

Now, let’s double back for a minute to what this has to do with food. When you hit the easy button for sex, which is a very high dopamine-producing activity from a supernormal stimulus, you’ve trained your brain that it can just hit the easy button for everything. Now, it doesn’t want to work for anything anymore. What happens to many people is they just start eating fast food or if they can remain in that healthy zone… protein shakes.

I know when I devolve a bit in terms of wanting to hit the easy button, I start drinking way too many protein shakes because I don’t want to take the time to make healthy meals.  That’s a sign for me when I start eating protein bars and protein shakes, I know I need to change something because that’s a threshold sign for me. “You’re going down, Trish because this is your second protein-based thing of the day.”

What we can do is fire up your brain so that it learns that it can take those smaller steps towards a larger goal.

Here is your brain tip strategy for the day.

Of course, it involves leaving the screen behind because you must unwire the brain pattern that just hits an easy button to get a big reward. Instead of going to the screen you should research, plan and prepare a meal. It will be so good for your brain. Food is very dopamine-producing. Another reason your brain wants to go towards junk is that there is a higher level of dopamine in fat and sugar-laden foods.

So, you’ve trained your brain to get a high level of dopamine with just one click and a pizza comes to your doorstep. Higher dopamine-producing food than perhaps a balanced meal of salmon, Brussels sprouts, and quinoa.

I’ll give you an example. The other day I wanted shrimp tacos. I could have ordered DoorDash or UberEATS but instead, I decided to cook. I had to buy a bunch of spices. I had to get some shrimp. I had to get some corn tortillas that are gluten-free so we can keep the inflammation down. Then, I found myself a recipe. I went to the store specifically to buy those ingredients. I got cilantro, limes, and some spices.

So, on day one I looked up the recipe. On day two I went and bought what I needed. Day three I made the meal I called the fam-squad, and everybody had some shrimp tacos.

It was delicious.

It was healthy and I also got the dopamine hit from my family eating together. I enjoyed good food that was dopamine-producing and made a connection with the people that I love.

When you do that, you’re teaching your brain no more easy button. You’re teaching it that you can work for things, and it can be fun.

This also applies to your relationship. If you’re hitting the easy button and you’re just going into the screen for a sexual release, what you’re doing is you’re teaching your brain it’s not worth the time and energy to try to continue to build this relationship with my partner. My partner is a lot of work, and they don’t even do the things that I want in the bedroom.  So, I’m just going to go back into that easy button.

It’s because you’re frying out the frontal lobe. You are less likely to be able to take those steps. The frontal lobe is the part of your brain that can do executive function skills. Science shows you’re deactivating it when you consume pornography.

The easy button is simultaneously desensitizing the reward center in your brain. This means your brain needs more dopamine to feel good about the same thing.

You need porn instead of sex with your partner. You need fried chicken instead of grilled chicken because there’s more dopamine in junk food than there is in healthy food.  What we’re talking about here is dialing it back to a healthy diet that requires more time in the real world. What I think you’ll find is you might enjoy cooking.

Part of my 90-day program is learning to cook some meals for each time of the day so that you can spend time away from the screen.  Science tells us that cooking and doing executive function skills can be important in keeping a healthy brain over time.

OK, that’s your brain tip for today, and I encourage you.

Leave the easy button behind it’s damaging your brain and creating a world of hurt that you might not even realize even down to the junk food and the fast food that you’re consuming.

If you are looking for help on this journey, please reach out to me. I’d love to help you out.

In the meantime, control your brain or it will control you.

Photo by Remi Turcotte on Unsplash