On the other end of the continuum is very slow energy. In the middle is medium energy for calm focus. When your brain is going very fast, it will make you feel anxious. And then of course, in terms of social anxiety, when you go into social situations, you have a spike in that high fast energy, so it will make you feel even more anxious.

How is this related to porn use?

We know when someone develops a porn habit early, usually in late childhood or adolescence, it delays development of the brain especially development of the frontal lobe. We also know that continual porn consumption knocks the frontal lobe out structurally and functionally. That means your frontal lobe doesn’t learn how to socialize in the way that it would if you hadn’t consumed pornography.

It’s using a lot more of that slow energy. This is called hypo frontality. Then, when you go into social situations, you get this spike in high fast energy to compensate for all the slow energy that porn has been creating.

When you go into social situations, it spikes, and you feel more anxious than you would if you didn’t consume pornography. What also happens when you escape into the screen is you’re teaching your brain that isolation is safe and that connection and socialization is not safe.

Your brain goes into a vigilant mode to protect itself because it’s broadcasting a read alert, you know, “DANGER! DANGER! WILL ROBBINSON!” Your brain is telling you, “This situation is not safe,” because what it thinks is safe is escaping and isolating and being by yourself.

If you think about a lot of the behaviors such as escaping into the screen to consume videos, consuming explicit videos, playing video games, or just trolling on your phone where you’re just looking at other people on different social media, it puts you in a position where you’re not using those socialization skills. Plus, you’re slowing your brain down. So, the next time you are in front of a real live human being, those danger bells go off.

What can you do about it?

This is your brain tip strategy for the day, and it’s in perfect timing to move into the new year and holiday season for most people because there tend to be more gatherings. Next time you are at a gathering, I would love for you to have a plan… a strategy. This is so important because if those warning bells are going to go off, you need to have a way to reset them in that moment.

I’m going to give you two strategies. Number one is if you consume pornography, obviously you must leave the screen behind. That’s not your strategy for the day, but you need to leave the screen behind because it’s going to put your brain in that hyper-vigilant mode when you’re being social. It’s going to keep your brain slow and low, and peppered with this fast energy. When you leave the screen behind, that’s going to get better.

I actually was just on the website Your Brain on Porn and there is an 80-page PDF of people’s experiences when they’ve left porn behind. They explain how their social anxiety decreased and how they felt better than ever. They were able to be more social than ever. So, go check that out.

Number one is the brain training headband that I am always encouraging people to get and to use. I talk to a lot of people. I’m like, “You have the headband, right?” And they’re like, “Yeah, but I haven’t used it.” USE IT! It only works if you use it.

It teaches your brain to use less of that high fast energy, less of that slow energy, and more of that perfect, calm, focused energy in the middle. If you use it every day or every other day for only five minutes, it’s going to reset that baseline, bringing the slow back to the middle, bringing the fast back to the middle and you’ll just feel better and you’ll have less anxiety going into social situations. It absolutely works. Here is the link for 15% off. Grab the headband if you want help in learning how to use it. I have a program called Brain Training 101. You can use the coupon code Trish10 to get 10% off.

What I would love for you to do here is to make a plan when you go into socialization. When you approach a social situation, have a plan. Your plan needs to be baby steps, therapeutically. It’s called scaffolding. You can’t just march into a social situation where you’re going to have this trigger and a spike in high fast energy and then just go at it.

The better plan is to dip your toe in and take baby steps towards success. One strategy for you can be to plan your own gathering. Plan it with your friends, the safe people in your world, and then invite one or two new people to practice those socialization skills with. Plan ahead. What are you going to talk about with those few people in this safe environment? Literally, plan what you will say to them. This way you’re growing up your brain through practice by using the action steps and the skills that you need to navigate social situations.

Then, if you’re going to go to a social event, you can use my strategy. I must tell you though, it will be slightly anxiety-provoking. Right out of the gates I do this. I walk into a social situation, and I immediately but slowly work the entire event and introduce myself to everyone.

I say, “Hey, I’m Trish, how do you spend your time?” In doing so, I throw the ball over into that person’s court. Many times, I don’t even have to talk about myself because people enjoy talking about themselves. Most people do. I’ll say, “Hey, I’m Trish. Nice to meet you. What do you do to spend your time?” They’ll tell me all about it. Sometimes they’ll ask how I spend my time. I have that response prepared. Then, I will excuse myself and go say hi to another person. That person can see I’m saying hi to all the people in the room. So, it’s natural for me to only go over there for a little bit and to move on to say, “hi” to the next person.

When I’m done with that, I’m able to go find my friends. I can be in my safe zone and stay there for the rest of the event exactly where I want to be. I encourage you to do that. It’s a strategy that gets the anxiety over with at the very beginning of a social gathering, and then you can choose who you want to spend more time with and get into your safe zone. It totally works!

Use that strategy going into social situations and absolutely get the MUSE brain training headband. If it’s in the cards for you. It is an investment. You’re not getting it through me. It’s through the company but I’m a muse ambassador because I endorse it for so many people. I think it’s the tool that everybody in the world should have, and I use mine all the time.

You can see some of my brain training graphs using the MUSE headband on my Instagram account @DrTrishLee. I use mine all the time, and what it does is in five minutes, it will reset my brain from a more anxious and busy mode into the calm focus mode. You can see a few of my graphs there. When it’s active, it’s more anxious. When it’s calm, it’s calmer and more focused, and it can do the same for you. You can start five minutes a day, bringing your brain down. It’s going to reset it for you. It is going to create beautiful things.

OK, go use those strategies, I hope they help you out. Until next time, control your brain or control you.