porn addiction withdrawal symptoms i'm dr trish leigh, cognitive neuroscientist and sex addiction recovery coach, porn addiction withdrawal it is real and i'm going to tell you what the top symptoms are in this video but i'm also here to tell you that you don't have to suffer with massive amount of porn addiction withdrawal because if you implement the right strategies with the right support as quickly and efficiently as possible when you decide you're going to quit porn you can have that work together synergistically so that you don't struggle and i've seen it lots of times with
the people in my program so if you need more support please get it you can get it from me drtrishleigh.com and if it feels good for you to get it from somebody else go for it just get the tools and strategies that you need because you don't have to suffer okay let's move on to what the withdrawal symptoms are we know that the number one withdrawal symptom that people struggle with is anxiety and increased stress now remember if you're going into porn you are doing it for stress reduction and it's working very well too well
unfortunately because it's frying your brain but it is in fact working well to stave off stress for you so when you go into the screen and you get this massive dopamine deluge it floods your brain and it chills your brain out so much so that there's damage but you definitely feel chill and numb and you get what you want so when you stop giving your brain that drug it's an internalized drug addiction basically when you stop giving it that drug of choice your anxiety and stress are going to go up and the solution is to
put more healthy mood regulation strategies in place and that's one one aspect of it but increased anxiety and stress so if you stop watching porn and stop masturbating and you feel more stressed out this is something that can happen to you also number two is an increase in anger and irritability that dr jekyll and mr hyde syndrome that i talk about because what happens is that you're swinging high and low your brain is going to try to cycle you through that porn addiction cycle that you've been through for so long but it's not going to
get what it wants and when it doesn't get what it wants the hijacker is going to get angry and you're going to swing back and forth in between a couple different versions of yourself but not so fantastic one and then you'll feel better and then you'll you'll feel worse so anger and irritability agitation kind of being off your game with and mood swings porn flashbacks so you might experience porn flashbacks or euphoric recall of scenes you might think about other people that you've been with that you've done some of your favorite porn acts with that
is a call from your brain for mood regulation it's saying to you woohoo i need some dopamine give me some dopamine i'm used to all the dopamine you've been giving me for so long i need some i need it now and that's why it's a withdrawal symptom because it's withdrawal from not getting the dopamine that it wants so when you give your brain dopamine in a different way then you can offset those withdrawal symptoms but those flashbacks they're a call for dopamine so if you experience them just know it's part of the withdrawal symptom urges
to watch it's the same thing when you have an urge or craving it's because your brain's telling you i need dopamine let's go do this thing because i need some dopamine but if you're going to leave it behind you have to break the cycle you have to pattern interrupted as i always say so if you feel that you know that your brain is unwiring and then you can move on to rewiring it to the healthy sexual pattern and and right off into the sunset um okay so you many times when you get a handle on
this thing in the day guess where it shows up in your subconscious it will sneak into your sleep sleep disruptions are very common but the beautiful thing is sleep's one of the first things that comes online once you move through this withdrawal period so if you have disrupted sleep it's a sign your brain is unwiring and if you can push through your brain's gonna rewire you're gonna sleep better than you ever have but in the meantime you may also have sexual dreams it's gonna sneak into that subconscious in the night and you may have porn
dreams so many people i work with they'll tell me that they weren't even dreaming about sex they were literally dreaming about watching porn and that can you know again it's your brain trying to trick you into giving it the dopamine that it's been used to getting from watching sex for a really long time so it may show up another thing that may show up for you is just low energy lack of motivation so we've talked about this before that you go into the screen so that you get this dopamine deluge and it's created a dopamine
deficit in your life no more dopamine deluge means you're still in a dopamine deficit until you rewire your brain to get dopamine from your work from your relationships and from your hobbies get on purpose in your life the more purposeful you get the more you rewire your brain to get into the world for dopamine not just dopamine serotonin dopamine is the pleasure seeking neurochemical so a way to offset low dopamine is to go do things that give you pleasure but serotonin is the neurochemical of joy and happiness so serotonin is a sunset i love a
beautiful sunset in my house we have a beautiful beautiful sun rises out the back window and beautiful sunsets out the front and i love all things celestial we have really nice moon uh being able to watch the moon rise and moon set too i chose this house on purpose because those things give me a lot of joy i can sit there and watch it joy and serotonin last a lot longer they give you happiness dopamine gives you pleasure and it dies off quickly so when you go into your world and you create purpose you're giving
your brain serotonin and oxytocin oxytocin is the neurochemical of connection so you're connecting yourself to your real life and you're disconnecting yourself from the screen and that takes a little bit of time and withdrawal happens when you're doing it but again the more things you put in place the 90-day program that i offer it has all the pieces to unwire your brain rewire your brain and then hardwire in the new brain pattern so if you're struggling with this and especially if you what happens is people stay in this withdrawal state for a little while and
then they relapse because they can't take it and then their brain it's starting to unwire that's why you get withdrawal and then it's beginning to rewire if you start to do some of the things the healthy things but then you have a relapse and you you know that unwiring might go backwards a little bit and that rewiring stops happening and if you sit and you flip-flop in that state it creates a lot of pain and anguish for you and it makes it very difficult for you to move to the other side of it so if
you've sat in this withdrawal state going back and forth with relapses for any amount of time i'm here to tell you it does not have to be that way one of the clients that i work with super cute he said to me when am i going to hit flat line flat lines another um another withdrawal symptom flat line is you have no sexual desires and you know your libido goes down because these neural chemicals are all trying to recalibrate themselves and you know you have low energy so he asked me when am i gonna feel
terrible and i'm like you're not because you would have already felt terrible because we were working together for months i'm like you you don't feel terrible because you're working this program so when you work the aspects and the strategies and you use the tools and you have the support you don't have to struggle with withdrawal okay go over to drtrishleigh.com if you have any interest in that if you are interested in helping me go upstream to help teenagers not get started or to come out of the screen as fast as possible please consider donating at
pornbrainprevention.org the links are both probably popping up or they're below and as always control your brain or it'll control you you
