The Neuroscience of Porn Addiction: Bringing the Nervous System Into Calm With The "3 Brains" Approach - How the Brain, Heart, and Gut All Help You Recover
- Jake Kastleman
- 1 day ago
- 23 min read
For years, I believed the reason I kept struggling with porn was simple.
I didn’t want sobriety badly enough. I wasn’t disciplined enough. I hadn’t found the right mindset yet.
If I could just care more about my future, my relationships, my values, God—then surely I’d be free.
But that belief nearly broke me.
Not because I didn’t want recovery. But because willpower was never the real problem.
What I didn’t understand back then—and what most men struggling with porn addiction have never been taught—is this:
You are driven by three.
And when those three brains are out of sync, no amount of discipline will save you.
Why Willpower Fails in Porn Addiction Recovery
Most recovery approaches focus almost entirely on the thinking brain—your thoughts, beliefs, rules, and resolve.
And while those matter, they only work when the nervous system is stable.
Relapse rarely happens when you’re calm, grounded, and emotionally regulated.
It happens when you’re stressed, lonely, overstimulated, emotionally disconnected, or physically run down.
Under those conditions, something critical happens inside the brain.
The prefrontal cortex—the part of the brain responsible for impulse control, long-term thinking, and values—goes offline under stress. This isn’t a metaphor. It’s measurable.
Blood flow shifts away from the prefrontal cortex toward survival circuits.
That’s why so many men say, “I knew better, but I still did it.”
That wasn’t a moral failure. That was biology.
Trying to overcome porn addiction with willpower alone is like trying to drive on ice while blaming yourself for sliding. The system wasn’t stable.
Porn Addiction Is a Nervous System Problem, Not a Willpower Problem
Porn addiction is not driven by excessive pleasure-seeking.
It’s driven by dysregulation.
When the nervous system is overwhelmed, the body looks for the fastest way to reduce internal pressure.
Porn becomes wired in as an efficient regulator for stress, loneliness, boredom, emotional pain, fatigue, and even physical sickness.
Over time, the brain learns to associate porn not with pleasure, but with relief.
This is why cravings often show up when sex makes no sense at all—when you’re tired, stressed, sick, or emotionally depleted.
The reframe that changes everything is this:
You don’t want porn. You want relief.
Recovery begins when you stop fighting the symptom and start stabilizing the system beneath it.
You Have Three Brains That Drive Porn Cravings
Modern neuroscience confirms something ancient wisdom has hinted at for thousands of years.
You are an integrated intelligence system.
Not just a thinking mind.
The Brain (Head Brain)
The brain in your head contains around 86 billion neurons.
It governs planning, reasoning, impulse inhibition, and meaning-making.
But under stress, it loses authority.
That’s why trying to “think your way out” of cravings often fails. The thinking brain cannot lead when the nervous system is overwhelmed.
The Heart (Emotional Brain)
The heart contains around 40,000 neurons, known as the intrinsic cardiac nervous system.
Even more important, the heart sends more information to the brain than the brain sends to the heart, primarily through the vagus nerve.
Your emotional state is not just happening in your head.
It’s being driven by heart rhythms.
Research on heart rate variability (HRV) shows:
High HRV = emotional resilience and self-regulation
Low HRV = rigidity, anxiety, and impulsivity
Men struggling with porn addiction often have chronically low HRV, especially under stress.
When the heart is chaotic, the brain becomes less flexible, less compassionate, and more reactive.
The Gut (Safety and Impulse Brain)
The gut contains over 500 million neurons.
This means mood, motivation, focus, and impulse control are deeply connected to gut signaling.
When the gut is stressed, inflamed, or tense:
anxiety increases
impulsivity increases
porn cravings intensify
Many porn cravings are not sexual urges.
They are gut-level safety and soothing signals that the brain interprets as sexual because porn has been trained as the fastest regulator.
Brain–Heart–Gut Coherence: The Missing Link in Recovery
Coherence is when your brain, heart, and gut are aligned and communicating clearly.
Incoherence looks like this:
Your brain says, “I don’t want porn.”
Your heart feels lonely, numb, or disconnected.
Your gut feels tense, restless, or unsafe.
That mismatch creates internal pressure.
And the nervous system resolves pressure the fastest way it knows how.
Porn isn’t chosen because it’s good.
It’s chosen because it’s efficient.
When coherence is restored, cravings lose their urgency—not because you fought harder, but because the system no longer needs them.
Emotional Mindfulness: The Bridge Between the Three Brains
The brain, heart, and gut communicate through emotion.
When emotions are ignored, judged, or suppressed, signals get distorted and the nervous system escalates.
Research shows that simply naming emotions reduces limbic system activation and restores prefrontal function.
You don’t need to fix emotions.
You need to listen accurately.
This is why emotional mindfulness isn’t weakness—it’s leadership.
Cravings often soften the moment an emotional state feels seen instead of resisted.
How to Reduce Porn Cravings by Creating Coherence
Reducing porn cravings requires regulating the whole system, not just the mind.
Here are the most effective, science-backed practices I teach.
Coherent Breathing
Slow, low belly breathing restores nervous system balance.
Inhale for 4 seconds. Exhale for 8 seconds. Continue for 2–3 minutes.
This activates the vagus nerve, improves heart rate variability, calms gut signaling, and brings the prefrontal cortex back online.
This isn’t relaxation.
It’s alignment.
Heart-Based Emotional Regulation
Place a hand on your chest.
Bring to mind something you genuinely appreciate—not intellectually, but emotionally.
Let the feeling emerge.
Appreciation and gratitude create heart coherence within minutes, sending calming signals to the brain and gut.
This is emotional safety on demand.
Gut Safety Awareness
Ask yourself:
What does my gut feel like right now?
Tight? Heavy? Restless? Calm?
Don’t analyze. Just notice.
Then relax your belly and jaw.
Safety must reach the body—not just the mind—for cravings to soften.
Name the State, Not the Urge
Instead of saying, “I want porn,” try saying:
“My system is dysregulated.”
“My body wants soothing.”
“I’m in a stressed state.”
This reduces shame and keeps the thinking brain online.
Cravings are signals, not commands.
Core Principles for Lasting Porn Addiction Recovery
Over time, these principles reshape your mindset and lifestyle:
Regulate first, decide second
Feel before you fix
The body sets the ceiling for discipline
Cravings are messages, not orders
Presence is your most valuable asset
Strength is not white-knuckling.
Strength is self-regulation, presence, and alignment.
A New Definition of Freedom
When your brain, heart, and gut are working together, sobriety stops feeling like a fight.
Recovery becomes stable. Focus returns. Desire is reclaimed rather than suppressed.
This is the deeper work of overcoming porn addiction.
Not forcing yourself into control—but training your entire system to work with you instead of against you.
Freedom means your nervous system can experience stress or desire without immediately reaching for escape.
It’s the ability to stay present, grounded, and values-led even when discomfort arises.
That kind of freedom lasts.
Join the free No More Desire Brotherhood and access the February Challenge inside the community. You’ll get a free PDF with daily body-gratitude meditations, the Story Over Skin tool, and an optional 10% discount for the full Reclaim Sexual Joy course. Sign up for the February Challenge here!
Free Resources:
If you’re ready to build the mindset and lifestyle that lead to long-term freedom from porn addiction, join the No More Desire free online community and connect with men who are committed to real recovery. When you sign up, you'll gain access to The 4 Pillars of Recovery Online Course FREE. You can also check out my Free Workshop and Free Ebook, designed to help you overcome porn addiction, rewire your brain, and rebuild your life.
Recommended Episodes:
The Science Behind Porn Addiction—and How to Stop | The Truth About Addiction Genetics, and Why You’re Not “Doomed” to Be an Addict Forever The Neuroscience of Quitting Porn | Build a New Brain By Changing Habit Patterns, Fixing Dopamine, Altering Nutrition, Transforming Identity, and Finding Deeper Meaning Addiction, Identity, and the Illusion of Brokenness: Jason Shiers on Childhood Trauma, Secret Shame in Recovery, and What Real Healing Looks Like
Full Transcription of Episode 131: The Neuroscience of Porn Addiction: Why Willpower Fails and the Three Brains Behind Cravings
Jake Kastleman (00:01.006)
Welcome to No More Desire, where we build the mindset and lifestyle for lasting recovery from poor. My name is Jake Castleman, and I'm excited to dive in with you. Let's get started, my friend.
Jake Kastleman (00:24.652)
What if reason you keep struggling with porn isn't because you lack discipline, it isn't because you're weak, and it isn't because you haven't found the right mindset yet? What if the real issue is that you've been trying to recover using only one third of your intelligence? Most recovery models focus almost entirely on the brain, thoughts, beliefs, and resolve. But you don't have just one brain. You have three brains.
Most of us know about the brain in our head, 86 billion neurons that make up the central nervous system. But what if I told you that you have two more brains? One on your heart, one on your gut. The brain, the heart, and the gut are all linked up to the intelligence network of your body. Billions of neurons connected via the nervous system. This is a far more intelligent and integrated complex than we have given it credit for. These three distinct intelligence centers, the brain, the heart, and the gut,
are constantly communicating with each other. And when they're out of sync, cravings feel overwhelming, emotions feel erratic, and value-based decisions become muddled. But when they're aligned, urges lose their urgency, and we feel more connected to ourselves, others, and God. Today, I want to introduce you to a concept that might change how you understand recovery and yourself as a human being entirely. Brain-heart-gut coherence. This is a powerful concept
that has changed people's lives across the world, including my own. This is grounded in neuroscience, neurocardiology, and gut brain research. And it explains why willpower alone so often fails and what actually works instead. Before we dive in, a reminder to follow and rate this podcast so that others looking for help can find it. And make sure to hit that notification button so that you can keep finding it. All right.
Let's get started, my friend.
Jake Kastleman (02:29.708)
Most men believe relapse happens because they didn't want sobriety badly enough. But if that were true, then knowledge, motivation, and fear of consequences would be enough. They're not. I remember the years I spent white-knuckling and trying to push myself into recovery, thinking if I just had the right motivations or if I just cared enough, then I would get sober. I remember thinking if I just cared about my loved ones enough, if I just cared about the people around me enough.
These cultural messages made it clear that I just needed to want it bad enough. And if I were more selfless than I would do it and that anyone who was an addict, quote unquote labeled, was selfish and immature. So I figured that that included me. The only thing was, I didn't really see myself that way. I didn't feel inside deeply at my core that I was a bad person or that I was selfish. I wanted to do the right thing. I wanted to live a meaningful life.
I was motivated to make changes for people. I wanted to feel peace. I wanted to feel joy and I wanted to change people's lives. I wanted to make an impact on the world. Relapse doesn't usually happen though, when you're calm, when you're grounded and when you're emotionally regulated. That was the thing that I didn't understand. I thought it was about willpower, motivation, focus. I just needed to want it bad enough. But the thing is, it is.
Relapse and addiction come as a symptom of underlying causes. Now, we can relapse when we are feeling emotionally regulated, grounded and calm, but that has to do with self-sabotage, it has to do with habit-based learning, and that's an entirely different topic. For the most part, relapse though and addiction emerge from us feeling stressed, us feeling lonely.
feeling overstimulated, feeling emotionally disconnected, or feeling physically dysregulated, right? Chronic pain, digestive pain, or issues in our body biologically. In other words, relapse is almost always a state-based problem. It's a problem of the nervous system. It's a problem of biology. It's a problem of my emotional regulation, my emotional state. It doesn't happen because you're a bad person, my friend.
Jake Kastleman (04:46.571)
or that you don't care about your wife or your kids. Instead, a part of your unconscious mind is hijacking your system in an attempt to regulate you when you feel dysregulated. A key insight that we have to understand when your nervous system is dysregulated, your thinking brain loses authority over you. You lack agency. Parts of your unconscious mind take over. They control you rather than you being a master over them.
So blaming yourself for not thinking clearly during a craving is like blaming a car for sliding on ice. You become dysregulated, your prefrontal cortex goes offline. You are no longer capable of critical thinking. The system isn't stable. So you need to train your brain to drive on other roads or to know how to slow down when the environment becomes icy or hazardous. We're gonna talk about this.
First though, I wanna share the neuroscience behind brain, heart, gut coherence. We need to start by breaking down these three brains. Something that can be very helpful in this process to overcome addiction is learning how to create brain, heart, gut coherence in the body. And this is something that I've been practicing with my clients. I've been doing in the inner circle. I've been doing in one-on-one coaching sessions. I wanna break down the biology of this. The brain,
that we all know very well in our current neuroscience and our current study of biology. We are taught about the brain again and again and again. It's emphasized so heavily because it's an amazing system. It's incredible. It's the thinking center, right? Your brain, especially the prefrontal cortex where critical thinking happens, is responsible for planning, decision-making, inhibiting impulses, and
holding long-term values, right? But here's the problem. Under stress, the prefrontal cortex that's responsible for my direction in life, my sense of identity, my sense of my moral compass, under stress, the prefrontal cortex goes offline. This is not a metaphor, it's measurable. When your nervous system detects threat,
Jake Kastleman (07:15.733)
emotional pain or overload, blood flow shifts away from the prefrontal cortex toward survival circuits. wow, seems incredibly inefficient, we might say, right? So when you say, I knew better, but I still did it, that's not a moral failure so much as it is a human failure. You weren't thinking and you likely didn't, you likely haven't been taught how to bring the prefrontal cortex back online
intense or stressed moments, which is fully possible. But you have to know how to do it and you have to practice it and get good at it over time. There are methods for this. So let's go to the heart now. The heart is the emotional regulator. Incredible. It's a fascinating thing. The heart contains around 40,000 neurons. So remember, brain central nervous system contains 86 billion neurons.
but do not underestimate the heart and its impact on the body just because it contains less neurons. I have the impulse to do that as well. I hear 40,000, that's a lot, but 86 billion is a lot more. Okay, but get this, let me share some things. This is often referred to as the heart brain in current neuroscience, the ICNS as it's called. This is the intrinsic cardiac nervous system. Okay, so we have the central nervous system of the brain.
We have the intrinsic cardiac nervous system of the heart. There are neurons that are not just surrounding the heart, but actually integrated throughout the heart. So even more important, the heart sends more information to the brain than the brain sends to the heart, primarily through the vagus nervous. Millions of strands of nerves that connect the brain to the heart, to the gut, and they all communicate.
Your emotional state is not just happening in your head, it's being driven by heart rhythms. You notice we say things like, my heart aches or I feel for them, right? In my heart, I feel for them or my, what? Listen to your heart, right? We say these things intuitively throughout, well, a very, very long time, we've said things like this. And the heart is significant in culture throughout thousands of years, right?
Jake Kastleman (09:41.453)
Plus, so research on heart rate variability or HRV shows that high heart rate variability equals emotional resilience and self-regulation. Low heart rate variability equals rigidity, anxiety, impulsivity. Men struggling with addiction often have chronically low heart rate variability, especially under stress. When the heart is in a chaotic rhythm, the brain becomes less flexible.
less compassionate and more reactive. Get that, how incredible is that? When the heart is in a chaotic rhythm, when my heart is not doing well, my heartbeat is not doing well, the brain becomes less flexible, less compassionate and more reactive because my heart is communicating to my brain. When the heart is coherent, on the other hand, smooth, rhythmic, high HRV, the brain regains
clarity.
Here's the key point, emotions like appreciation, gratitude and compassion create heart coherence within minutes. So in scripture, when we hear Paul say, men's hearts will fail them in the last days, I think of this, I think of the neuroscience of the heart and how men who struggle with addiction often have chronically low heart rate variability.
That is, for those of us who are religious, that is the fulfillment of a prophecy. Fascinating to think about that. Okay, the gut, the safety and impulse center.
Jake Kastleman (11:28.201)
I want to talk about this, the gut, right? This other brain. Your gut contains over 500 million neurons. So a lot more than the heart. But again, consider these as equally valuable to one another. Your gut contains over 500 million neurons. That's why it's often called the second brain. So about 90 % of serotonin and 50 % of dopamine are produced in the gut.
Wow, when I learned this, it blew my mind. It blew me out of the waters. Like how have I not been taught this in years of education and biology and neuroscience and all that I did in my studies of psychology in college? How did I never learn this? 90 % of serotonin is produced in the gut. 50 % of dopamine. Serotonin, for those of us who don't know, it brings feelings of peace.
that brings feelings of ease, calm, relaxation. Okay, it makes me more coherent and more focused, but in a calm state, right?
I should say it enables focus because I'm calm. Dopamine, right? 50 % of dopamine is produced in the gut, depending on the research that you look at. Dopamine is responsible for my focus, for my attention, for my feelings of being connected to those around me, to self, to God. It's responsible for my feelings of identity and self-direction. Dopamine is so important.
And it's more than that, by the way. But it would take, we could have several master classes on dopamine and how it functions in the brain. There's much I don't know about it. But needless to say, those are some of the key functions. So things like anxiety, depression, ADHD, these things all incorporate our function of dopamine and serotonin in a very heavy way, right? These neurotransmitters are crucial when it comes to those and when it comes to addiction.
Jake Kastleman (13:36.743)
and how susceptible I am to addiction. So this means mood, motivation and impulse are deeply connected to gut signaling. When the gut is stressed, inflamed or tense, anxiety increases, impulsivity increases and cravings intensify. Many cravings are not sexual urges, my friends. They're gut level safety and soothing signals. Again, I want you to hear this. Many cravings, porn cravings.
that we're so convinced are all about us wanting to see a nice butt or what have you are not sexual urges. They're gut level safety and soothing signals that the brain, our brain interprets as sexual because porn has been trained as the fastest regulator to make me feel well again. I have experienced this in my life with feeling tired or when I feel sickness.
For many years, the go-to for my brain was I craved porn. I craved video games. I craved masturbation. I craved junk food. When I would be sick or tired or feel stressed out, obviously, but sick or tired, I would crave these things. And I'm like, why am I craving masturbation when I'm sick? It seems so odd. I thought of myself as a terrible person. mean, I'm like, I must be so...
strange and flawed and screwed up. I must just be this oddball. If anybody knew what I went through, they would be like, you are disturbed. That's how I felt. But when you understand the nervous system, the neuroscience behind it, that gut level safety and soothing signals are actually triggering the brain. The brain interprets this as sexual because I've been trained into it since I hit puberty.
And that can shift by the way. Now I can get sick and I often don't feel those cravings. Sometimes I may, but I don't feel those cravings often. And when I do, I know how to handle it. I utilize the RAIL method. Same thing that I teach my clients. I have a framework. So things like nutrition, okay, when it comes to just moving outside the realm of psychology, nutrition, exercise, sleep, these all impact digestion and gut wellness. These are crucial when it comes to recovery.
Jake Kastleman (16:02.599)
and how, what I feel as far as cravings go. If my gut is not doing well, if I'm not treating myself well from a nutrition, exercise and sleep perspective.
I'm gonna experience a lot of cravings for porn. Seems so random when we experience it, but it makes perfect sense. Okay, so this can change so much when we shift our nutrition. Hey guys, quick note before we continue. For the month of February, 2026, I'm running a monthly challenge inside the online community called Reclaim Sexual Joy.
If you struggle with porn addiction, you know how easily sexuality can turn into something charged with shame, fear, self-judgment, or compulsive craving. You either fight your desires or you feel controlled by them. But there's a third way. In the free online community, The No More Desire Brotherhood, we're focusing on two simple daily practices that help retrain the emotional mind. Daily gratitude for the body and a
powerful tool we use called Story Over Skin, which helps reduce objectification and calm sexual fixation by reconnecting you to humanity and meaning. Inside the community, you'll find a free PDF in the monthly challenges space with short two to three minute meditations that you can use each day plus clear instructions for using Story Over Skin in real everyday life.
These are exclusive resources you can only gain access to by being a member of the online community. These practices are simple, they're grounded, and they're designed to help you experience sexuality as something good again, not something to fear or something to fight. And for those of you who want to take this work deeper, the PDF also includes a 10 % discount code for my full online course, Reclaim Sexual Joy.
Jake Kastleman (17:59.763)
This 10 % discount is for the month of February only. If you want to join us for the February challenge to reclaim sexual joy, sign up or log into the community and click into the monthly challenges space. Everything you need is there. You'll find a link to join the February challenge for free in the description below this episode. All right, back to the show. What is brain heart got to coherence? What?
does coherence actually mean? Coherence is when your thinking mind, your emotional system, and your body signals are aligned and communicating clearly. Incoherence looks like your brain says, I don't want porn, but your heart feels lonely, disconnected, or numb, and your gut feels tense, restless, or unsafe. That mismatch creates internal pressure, and the brain does what it's trained to do.
It reaches for the fastest relief that it knows, the most efficient source. Porn isn't chosen because it's good. It's chosen because it's efficient. Coherence changes this though. It changes it guys. When your body feels safe, your emotions are acknowledged and your mind is clear. Cravings lose their intensity. Not because you fought them well enough, but because the system no longer needs them. No more desire.
Porn addiction is a regulation problem. This is one of the most important shifts I teach clients. Porn addiction is not driven by excessive pleasure seeking. It's driven by emotional dysregulation and nervous system overload, which plays in with nutrition, sleep, exercise, things that I'm doing on a daily basis as far as activities that are impacting my dopamine and my ability to regulate emotion mentally and emotionally, spiritually. Cravings increase when the gut is stressed, when the heart feels disconnected.
and when the brain is overwhelmed, which means you don't relapse because you wanted more porn. You relapse because your system needed regulation and porn has been wired in as a regulator. So you need to train into better regulators that serve every part of you that no part of you disagrees with. And many parts of you disagree with using porn because it's a waste of time, potential, and it's a ruiner of your intelligence as a human being.
Jake Kastleman (20:21.927)
Intelligence as a very broad term, okay, not just academic. Emotional mindfulness, the bridge, and I want to just emphasize, right? When I say that, I'm not saying you're unintelligent if you have a porn addiction problem. What I'm saying is your potential for growth increases substantially when coming off of pornography because your dopamine regulates, serotonin regulates, your systems come back online, you're able to...
Live the kind of life that you wanna live. Live with the meaning you wanna live. Feel connected to people. Feel coherent and focused. Feel the attention that you want to. Feel the sense of identity and direction that you want to. So emotional mindfulness. This is the bridge. How do these three systems reconnect? In part, we've talked about some of the biological. And if you wanna learn more about the biological pillar of things, nutrition, sleep, exercise, and much, much more,
You can join my community and get the four pillars of recovery online course for free that teaches you about this pillar. In part, these three systems, brain, heart, gut are connected through emotional mindfulness, which is, one of the most complex and difficult things that we do as human beings. It's why I emphasize and focus upon this so much with clients. We need to build emotional mindfulness.
Emotions are the language between brain, heart, and gut. These systems don't communicate via words. They communicate via emotion, of course. Words come from the brain, right? I think. Who knows how it actually works, but that's my assumption. When emotions are ignored, suppressed, or judged, signals get distorted. Okay, if I ignore my emotions, suppress my emotions, judge my emotions, these signals between gut, heart,
brain get distorted. But research shows that naming emotions, even simply labeling them, reduces limbic system activation. In other words, the limbic system all about emotion, the amygdala all about emotion. So it calms that system and restores prefrontal functions. So now I can feel emotion and I can be self-led. I teach my clients to go deeper with this by breaking their emotions down into little sub-personalities.
Jake Kastleman (22:46.427)
nine of them to be specific. We train ourselves to understand each of these nine as having full spectrum personalities, little sub-personalities. Sounds a little crazy to a lot of us. I totally get that, but it's very powerful because when I feel an emotion emerge, I can engage with that emotion as I would a person. I can build a relationship with that part of me over time. I can dialogue with it. I can see its fears, its needs, its gifts that reside underneath the painful emotions like anger or cravings.
So now cravings no longer act as a method of self torture, but instead an opportunity to deepen my relationship with myself, with my emotions. They are signals that these little sub-personalities within me, these nine sub-personalities are sending out. And by engaging with them, I can get to the root needs they are trying to point me to. That's according to the self-code model that I designed to label and give full spectrum understanding of these nine personalities and how they function.
Subpersonalities and how they function. So as I engage with these parts of me productively and begin to see them as good parts of me over time, by knowing who they are, I see them as good parts of me that are trying to solve problems rather than bad parts of me that are trying to hurt me, right? It's no longer, this addict in me, I hate it. It's actually, this adventurous part of me or this peacemaking part of me that's trying to bring me comfort. This adventurous part of me that's trying to bring me adrenaline and excitement and fun, right?
Now I understand who they really are and that's emotional freedom. That's self mastery, bit of a tangent there, but you don't have to fix emotions is my point. You just have to listen to them accurately. Cravings often soften the moment an emotional state feels seen, but we have to know what's going on and the proper framework and tool set can assist with this significantly. So again, I use the rail method and the self-code model to teach people. And if you want to take the rail method online course, that is in the online community.
Very, very helpful to so many people. That gives you some basic tools for emotional regulation. Anyway, I'm done promoting myself. So practices to build coherence. Let's break down some real practices. Practice number one, coherent breathing. Here's one of the most powerful tools you can use. Breathe in for four seconds, breathe out for eight seconds. I call it four eight breathing. There's other people that call it other things.
Jake Kastleman (25:10.323)
But this is slow, low belly breathing, repeatedly doing this for just two to three minutes total. I start every session I do with clients this way, two to three minutes of four, eight breathing. This activates the vagus nerve. It improves heart rate variability. It calms gut signaling. It brings the prefrontal cortex back online. All three brains, boom, are in alignment. It's not just relaxation. It's alignment. It's coherence. It's so simple.
It seems insignificant. I know, I get that. I think the same thing about breathing, but breathing is profound. It is our built-in superpower that we often overlook because we're breathing all day. We take it for granted, right? If you are feeling overwhelmed, breathe, man. And a bonus would be to walk as well, which engages the left and right hemispheres of the brain as I move. Okay, we found this through things like EMDR and therapy, engage the left and right hemispheres of the brain.
We can do the same thing through walking, through running, through movement of the left and right side of the body, which can activate more flexible, creative and coherent thinking. It should be very helpful for working through mental or emotional problems and for working through cravings. So practice number two, heart-based emotional regulation. You can find all this on the blog, by the way. There's a whole blog article that is coherent, if you will, with this podcast episode. So it should be linked in the show notes.
Heart-based emotional regulation. Place a hand on your chest, bring to mind something you genuinely appreciate, not intellectually, but emotionally. So crucial for us. So many of us are so mental, we're so logical, especially as men. We've been taught to be that way, but it's not intellectual. It's emotional. Get in touch with the heart. This takes time to practice and it takes time in the moment, but you're gonna allow feeling to emerge. can put your heart on your chest, bring to mind something you genuinely appreciate, feel,
Research shows that this creates heart coherence almost immediately. Amazing, something so simple and coherent heart rhythms, right? Heart rate variability, send calming signals to the brain and to the gut. Amazing how it all interacts. This is emotional safety on demand. Again, another thing that we can easily overlook, myself included, because it seems too simple. Practice number three, gut safety check. Ask yourself, what does my gut feel like right now?
Jake Kastleman (27:35.593)
and actually bring your focus to the gut. You'd be amazed what can emerge as you practice this over time. Not just once, but multiple times over days and weeks and months, you can get in touch with your gut. What does my gut feel like right now? Does it feel tight? Does it feel heavy? Does it feel restless? Does it feel calm? Don't analyze, just notice, right? Mindfulness, emotional mindfulness, body awareness, embodiment, then relax your belly. Relax your jaw.
Safety must reach the gut for cravings to soften. An incredible truth many of us are not aware of. Many men try to regulate the mind while the gut stays braced. It's tight. That doesn't work. Okay, we gotta engage our body. Practice number four, name the state, not the urge. Instead of saying, I want porn, try, my body is dysregulated. My system wants soothing. I'm in a stressed state.
This reduces shame and keeps your thinking brain online. Cravings lose power when they're understood as signals, not commands or bad parts of me trying to take control. They're not bad, my friends. Simply misguided and they need your leadership. Okay. Let me lead you with a few simple principles as well. Regulate first, decide second. Never make recovery decisions in a dysregulated state.
feel before you fix is principle number two. Awareness precedes change. Principle number three, the body sets the ceiling for discipline. You cannot out discipline your nervous system. Principle number four, cravings are messages, not orders. Coherence gives you space to respond. Okay, strength isn't white knuckling, my friend. Strength is self-regulation. It's presence, it's alignment.
The most valuable asset that I have as human being is my presence. It is my focus. It is my attention. Not what I say and not...
Jake Kastleman (29:45.747)
Pushing my way through things simply by willpower. Presence, alignment, focus, being here. When your brain, your heart and gut are working together, sobriety stops feeling like a fight, starts feeling like stability. This is the work, my friend. God bless and much love. Thanks for listening to No More Desire.
It's a genuine blessing for me to do the work that I do and I wouldn't be able to do it without you, my listeners, so thank you. If you've enjoyed today's episode, do me a favor. Follow this podcast, hit the notification bell and shoot me a rating. The more people who do this, the more men this podcast will reach. So take a few minutes of your time and hit those buttons. If you want to take your sobriety to the next level, check out my free workshop, The Eight Keys to Lose Your Desire for Corn or my free ebook,
10 tools to conquer cravings. These are specialized pieces of content that will give you practical exercises and applied solutions to overcome porn addiction. And you can find them at nomordesire.com. As a listener of the No More Desire podcast, you are part of a worldwide movement of men who are breaking free of porn to live more impactful, meaningful, and selfless lives. So keep learning, keep growing, and keep building.
that recovery mindset and lifestyle. God bless.
Jake Kastleman (31:26.313)
Everything expressed on the No More Desire podcast are the opinions of the host and participants and is for informational and educational purposes only. This podcast should not be considered mental health therapy or as a substitute thereof. It is strongly recommended that you seek out the clinical guidance of a qualified mental health professional. If you are experiencing thoughts of suicide, self-harm, or a desire to harm others,
please dial 911 or go to your nearest emergency room.
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