Sex & Mental Health - 026

SPEAKER A The following program presents principles designed to promote good health and is not intended to take the place of personalized professional care. The opinions and ideas expressed are those of the speakers. Viewers are encouraged to draw their own conclusions about the information presented. SPEAKER B Welcome to healthy living. I'm your host, Margot Marshall. Today we explore research on the connection between sex addiction and mental health. We recommend parental guidance for this program. SPEAKER C Healthy Living is a 13 part production of 3ABN Australia television focusing on the health of the whole person, body, mind, and spirit. You'll learn natural lifestyle principles with practical health solutions for overall good health. SPEAKER B We live in a sex crazed society. Are there negative consequences to that? Let's ask our guest, Dr. Eddie Ramirez. Welcome, Eddie. SPEAKER D Thank you. SPEAKER B Looking forward to what you have to tell us about this connection with mental health? SPEAKER D Yes, this is an extremely important subject because there are many people struggling with this subject. And in the old days, number one, it was less available, and number two, if you wanted access to this type of material, like pornography, you had to show up your face, you had to go to the store and people could see you, et cetera, et cetera. But today, many people with the advent of the Internet have easy access to this type of material, and many people actually struggle, and they would like a solution from this. And stay tuned. We will give you some good strategies for you to conquer this. And the reason why is that we have quite a bit of experience with this, because we have a residential mental health program, and I can tell you many of those patients actually have a history of using this type of materials. And we know that in order for them to get better, they actually need to deal with this issue. SPEAKER B So that's a contributing factor to their mental illness. SPEAKER D That's right. In fact, I published in the Journal of Sexual Health two important papers, one of them showing how sexual relationships outside of marriage are related to worsened depression, and that included masturbation. In that sample, it was a big sample, 5600 participants. And the second study that is also published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine is how this behavior also decreases what is called emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is related to your ability to interact with other people. So it's a very important factor in success. If you want to find this research, search research gate. Ramirez and depression. And you'll find that on your Google. SPEAKER B All right, then. Ramirez. And you're spelling that R-A-M-I-R-E-Z. SPEAKER D Correct. SPEAKER B Okay. SPEAKER D And, you know, there are some interesting studies that have been done with animals. For example, you get a female rat that is receptive, and you put in that same cage a male. Immediately, the male will start to do his romantic type of approaches. There will be copulation. This will be repeated, repeated until it slows down and he doesn't want anymore. You introduce another female to the cage and you know, the pattern starts again, starts getting romantic. Copulation takes place with a new rat, but also he gets tired of her. You introduce another one and the same pattern continues. This happens until this male rat is completely exhausted. This effect has been given a name and we call this the coolidge effect in which with novelty, this pattern starts to restart. And you know, this is exactly the same situation that happens with humans and pornography. The reason why is that there is novelty and the availability of something new and the pattern repeats and repeats and repeats. But this has negative effects in mental health as we will talk about it in a minute. SPEAKER B Yes, well, that's a really big concern. I mean, I don't know whether people have made that connection that there's also an effect on your mind or your mental health, really not just on physical aspects. So talk more about that. SPEAKER D And by the way, this not only happens on males, but this effect also can occur in females. And if given the opportunity, both males and females will behave in this way. So in order to understand this topic, we need to review a little bit an important chemical that we have in our brain that is called the dopamine. And the reason why you pursue sex is because you are pursuing this dopamine. And you know, this reward circuit is a very important part of our brain. There's a reason why is there and we can see in screen a little bit about this dopamine reward system. We see that at top of that we have food, sex, love, friendship, novelty and these natural reinforces are contrasted with natural addictive substances. And the reason why we have this circuit, the creator put it there for a reason because when we are active, we are focusing in work, in something else, school, so forth, we are very focused on that. The reason why God put that in us is because those things reminds us that there are other important things in life like eating. If not, you would be working so focused in your work, you would forget about eating, you would forget about resting. And there are things that gives us displeasure when we do it so that we can break our focus and concentrate in other things that actually help us with our survival. So when you are aware that you're hungry via the dopamine system, then you start thinking well, what am I going to eat, where am I going to eat? When am I going to eat, with whom I'm going to eat? And so forth. Then your mind starts planning due to the reminder that this dopamine circuit gives you, and this is very fascinating, the more you want something, the more the amount of dopamine that will be secreted. So if there's no dopamine, you usually will ignore that for example, chocolate cake, ice cream, those you have a big amount of dopamine while celery not that much. And you know, sexual stimulation and orgasm are one of the biggest natural secretors of that dopamine in the brain. That's why the people seek that and that's why this dopamine has been called the molecule of addiction, okay? So when this mechanism is used with moderation and so forth, it's a big blessing. You actually tend to have more of a balance in your life and so forth. But when this reward system is being overloaded with excess or with material like pornography, things start going out of that balance. And this is when you actually start having a very negative effect in your whole being, because not only your mental health suffers, but also things like productivity and creativity get affected by this. And, you know, this super normal stimulants, for example, the novelty of the pornography and so forth override your brain satiation mechanisms that would say, you know, this is enough, but you're bringing that overstimulation and this actually rewires the brain. In other words, the brain change. So instead of saying I'm done, the person wants more of this dopamine stimulation and this has negative effects. SPEAKER B So the negative effects are what are we talking about here? SPEAKER D What we were talking at the beginning, such as mental depression, low emotional intelligence, but also an unbalance in life. So these things start to run your life and you're supposed to go to work, enjoy your work and play with friends and talk to family and so forth. You're so concentrated in seeking the stimulation of the dopamine in your brain that there is an unbalance and you start neglecting things that are normal part of life in order to seek the super stimulation by the novelty of the material and so forth. So things like unhealthy food, unhealthy sexuality are more addictive, according to neuroscientists, than alcohol. And the anticipation of the reward and the novelty amplifies the signal of the dopamine. And this end up changing a part of your brain that is called the limbic system. SPEAKER B Okay? That's where you have your feelings, your emotions. SPEAKER D That's right. And things go out of control. Your frontal lobe should be what humans should use to guide their decisions. But when you are overstimulating your dopamine reward system, your limbic system is the one that takes control. And it is like putting a child as president, for example. It is disaster because it is just oh, I want this, I want that, not thinking about consequences and load long term effects and so forth. So there are some stages that the brain starts to go through as this overstimulation of the dopamine system is taking place. Number one, you start losing your sensitivity and those receptors in your brain that are supposed to receive the signal of the dopamine start to decrease. That means that in order to get the same high or the same pleasurable effect in your brain, you need higher and higher stimulation. And you know, this is a big problem worldwide. People start getting into more of a hard material and so forth, even to the level of pedophilia and so forth because the usual one doesn't even give them that dopamine pleasure and that's why they seek that more perverse type of material and so forth. And the interesting thing is that the more pleasure they seek for their dopamine reward system, the less pleasure they get. SPEAKER B That's interesting, isn't it? Just the very opposite of what you would hope for. SPEAKER D And this is what Solomon experienced. If you read Solomon book, he describes that's right, how he was seeking all the pleasure that he wanted. What happened to him? He end up depressed exactly because of that. If you're not familiar with that google on the internet, the Book of Ecclesiastes, it's a very interesting study how pleasure instead of creating a happy king, he actually became a miserable person. And you know, there it starts. SPEAKER B He had quite a bit of excess when it came to women, didn't he? SPEAKER D Women and building and food and whatever he wanted, he got it. SPEAKER B I think he had something like 900 women altogether. SPEAKER D That's right. And he lost the pleasure of having a normal relationship as God had designed. A there's a saying in Spain that says the one that has slept with one woman has slept with all of them. The one that has slept with all of them has slept with none. And there is very much truth in that saying. How you lose that blessing and pleasure that God wanted human beings to experience as you take this to excess has negative consequence. So this starts having something that is called a super memory of pleasure. And the person starts seeking this pleasure, cutting corners, lying and having behaviors that are negative in order to accomplish that. And they need higher amounts. And this is the stage in which depression starts coming in, anxiety starts coming up and things don't start not getting well. Then you go to the third stage, which is called hypofrontality. The frontal lobes of the brain that are supposed to be the guide and where you take your decisions start not to work very much because the limbic system, the animal part of the human brain starts to take over and this actually leads to very bad consequences. And the thing of it is that there's actually a rewiring at the level of the brain. The neuron starts to connect in different patterns and so forth. SPEAKER B And in this stage there's actually something physical happening. SPEAKER D There is actually physical in the brain changes rewiring, the impulses are reduced. Your ability to control your impulse as your will is weakened and you're not able to foresee the consequences of your actions. And here limbic system is guiding, frontal lobe is decreasing and that is actually not very good. Now, during that time in which there is that decrease in the relationship of a normal couple. There's a reason why the desire comes down is because the brain needs some rest, the body needs some regeneration and so forth. And when you are forcing the body beyond that point, you actually end up having negative consequences. There's research that show that androgen receptors decrease, estrogen increases and, you know, tell. SPEAKER B Us about androgen receptors. That's right. SPEAKER D This is when the testosterone comes in. And we can see here in the screen reduced androgen receptors, higher estrogen receptors and increase in opioids that dampen the libido and the androgen receptors is what gives the drive to a human being. The reason why some people have this leadership abilities and so forth. Androgen receptors are working very well. Enough levels of testosterone are present. And we can see here about the importance of the testosterone and the androgen receptors. This is what brings creativity, this is what brings persistence, this is what brings courage. And we also know that some of the greatest physical and mental accomplishments are done among single people before marriage. And these positive associations between testosterone level and spatial cognitive function and memory for verbal and visual stimuli are less in males. So you can see that this is very important. So what couples tend to do when they start reducing having this type of situations is that sometimes they try to awaken this by artificial stimulation such as they go ahead and try to use if they're a couple, they try to have access to pornography and so forth, supposedly to spice up a little bit the relationship and so forth. And this actually has negative consequences because this starts to actually instead of making the motions between the couples more strong, you actually end up separating and then strange forms are introduced such as bonding and pain inflicted type of situations and all kinds of aberrations in order to somehow overstimulate that dopamine system. There's a reason why saying calm down because regeneration takes place. And this actually creates many emotional and problems between the relation between the male and the female. Yes. SPEAKER B Well, I was just thinking about this overstimulation and a very similar kind of things can happen with food, where you really have had enough. You know you have and you're feeling full, and you even get to the point of feeling like, oh, I think I'll be sick if I have any more. But it tastes so good. And do you know, I seem to recall that was it the Romans, they would go out and vomit so they. SPEAKER D Could come that's right. They could come and eat again. That's right. SPEAKER B And keep doing that and it's like. SPEAKER D Is this the kind something similar that's right. That's right. SPEAKER B The body's saying enough. SPEAKER D That's right. SPEAKER B Deal with any more of this. And I guess too that constant sexual activity would deplete a lot of other things in the body. That's right about that. But there must be some kind of. SPEAKER D Vitamin b twelve and other things actually get depleted as a result of this. And the same thing happens. You know this experiment with the rat that I was mentioning? Same thing happens with monkeys. They get this female monkey. They actually give her hormones so that she is very receptive. You put a male monkey, suddenly he's going to get tired of that female monkey. And then you introduce another female monkey with stimulation, with the hormones and the monkey again wakes up and so forth. And we're understanding now that actually dopamine is the one that is saying stop it. And if you are going above that, you actually end up rewiring the brain in a negative sense. And there's another important hormone there called Pea. And that Pea is the reason why when there is a new relationship, you start getting in love and so forth. You kind of become blind to the situation. People say oh, are you blind? Or what's happening to you is because that Pea makes you take away from the important things and you're just focusing on that particular situation because you want to advance it and so forth. So now we explain what's the problem and what is the implications of this. Why don't we talk about some solutions? Are we doomed by this? Absolutely not. And what we do is that when we are overstimulating the system, we can see on screen this can have some negative consequences. When you are under that overstimulation, there is plastic changes, your head is literally changing. And you reduce those estrogens, there's higher estrogen, there is increase in opioids. So how can we come back to normality? See what we need to do. We need to do what we apply to our participants. That is called the 90 day reboot. That's the name of this method that we like to utilize with our participants. In that 90 day reboot we ask participants no pornography, no masturbation and if you are married, no excess in your relationships. We would like to keep that to once a week. During those 90 days, if you are not married, we would like for you not to get involved in any type of sexual stimulation. And you know what happens? The brain starts to rewire. SPEAKER B So we're looking at about three months here. SPEAKER D That's right. It takes discipline. And we have many, many testimonies about this. In fact, there is a good website if somebody is dealing with this situation. The name of the website is Yourbraininporn.com. It is a forum with many people. If you are struggling with this, you can access that. This is completely free. Just say that again, yourbraininporn.com and people that are seeking help. For example, let me read you one of the testimonies from the website. It says masturbated five times today and all the old depressive feelings came back. I could clearly see that the depression was not because I felt bad about relapsing, but because I didn't. It was all about my brain. It got depressed, paranoid and very anxious. 30 minutes after my binge, I finally understood it. Now, not just in the abstract, but as a matter of experience, I recognized the feelings that often made me depressed and socially awkward. My solution was all the time the problem. I never suspected masturbation had this big impact on my whole life. And, you know, there are so many positive effects. When somebody has that 90 day reboot, people report feeling much better, feeling alive, feeling like a man again, interacting much better with people, thinking more clearly. Physically, they feel stronger, mentally, their memory works better. And I could tell you story after story about what a blessing this is. And I want to leave with the viewers with one last resource that I have seen in the clinical experience that it works very well. That is a little book by the name of Steps to Christ. Or I know they also have another name of it. SPEAKER B Oh, it's also been put out under the title. What was that one? SPEAKER D Peace. SPEAKER B Yeah. Path to peace. SPEAKER D Path to peace. SPEAKER B Path to peace. But it's exactly the same. SPEAKER D That is a public domain book. You can access that book in your tablet in your computer, or you can Google and order one of those copies. It's just a tiny little book that will help you get victory over this type of behavior. SPEAKER B The author of that book was a prolific writer more than 100 years ago, and she is the most translated female author in the history of literature. She was named by the Smithsonian Institute as one of the hundred most influential Americans of all time, up there with Abraham Lincoln and Helen Keller and so on. So she's a very respected author and writes beautifully. And even though that book has been written a long time ago, look, it's been translated into well over 100 languages. SPEAKER D And we know that very well among addictions. If you analyze, for example, the steps that the Alcoholic Anonymous do, even though that is not per se a religious program, the Last Steps, there talk about recognizing that there is a God and asking that God for victory. Believe me, he has the power to help you go ahead and experience it in your own life. SPEAKER B In fact, that program didn't work until they introduced the spiritual component. And this book is her masterpiece on spirituality. There is nothing better than Steps to Christ. So, yes, I would really think that was a great way to go. So, in closing, I would encourage you to tap into your spiritual resources to help you to take charge of your whole life. And if you'd like to watch our programs on demand, just go to our website. That's 3abnaustralia.org.au Just click on the Watch button and God bless. SPEAKER C You’ve been listening to a production of 3ABN Australia television.