Andrew Huberman and Prn on the brain

The Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam told us to whoever builds a mosque for Allah, Allah will build for him a similar the house in Jannah. And we know the great reward that will not only be gained but rather, will fill your grave after your death. Whenever someone prays that whenever someone gives shahada in the masjid whenever someone learns something in the masjid, yes, that will be something that you will have on your scale

as salaam alaikum, warahmatullahi Oh, but I can't so how are you guys doing? Andrew Hoberman, an individual who is a specialist in dopamine, from what I understand, has his own laboratory and speaks at length on podcasts online relating to dopamine in particular, but also testosterone. Hormones AND, and OR, and your transmitters and how that has an impact on the psycho physiological state of the human being has said something quite interesting about pornography. So I wanted to just see a part of what he said and then come back and respond in kind. There's an additional issue with pornography, which is not often discussed, which is that remember, guys in particular,

the brain is a learning prediction machine. And if I'm not trying to say that all pornography is bad, but there are good data to support the idea that if your brain learns to be aroused by watching other people have sex, it is not necessarily going to carry over to the ability to get aroused when you're one on one with somebody else. Right? Especially young kids who are consuming a lot of pornography, the brain is learning sexual arousal to other people have, you're gonna program yourself into being a via, or Yeah, or just create challenges in in sexual interactions with, you know, with with pure with a, with a real partner, Mary Harrington has the three laws of porno

dynamics. And the second law of porno dynamics is the law of fap entropy. And it says that whatever you started wanting to, we'll get progressively more intense over time. And I think that this is sort of speaking to that ever, ever sort of escalating amount of the wildness that you need to watch in order to get an ever decreasing stimulus that comes back. Yeah. And you know, here I'm, I'm approaching this only through the lens of biology, right. I'm not a, you know, not a psychologist, and I'm certainly not political in in any way. At least not I have ideas about politics, but I just don't discuss them publicly. But the but the idea here is that, you know, I'm not saying pornography

as a stimulus is bad or good. What I'm saying is it in its availability, and its extreme forms, it's a very potent stimulus, and very potent stimuli of any kind, extremely palatable food, extreme pornography, extreme experiences like bungee cord jumping, those set a threshold for dopamine release. And ANA will tell you that, and I'm sure she did that, the higher the dopamine peak, the bigger the drop afterwards, and it's not that you dropped to baseline you drop below baseline. I think it's interesting what he said here, because he's coming at it from a purely, you know, scientific perspective. And obviously, from our perspective, we do believe that pornography is a

sin. We believe that looking at the opposite gender and the lustful way, looking at nakedness and so on, is a sin. And so many people will know that this is obviously part of the traditionalist religious mantra. It's not just us as Muslims, of course, Jews and Christians will feel the same way about these issues and many other people from different spiritual backgrounds. But what I found quite interesting is he was relating it to US states of being from a dopamine perspective. Now there's something I want to say, to preface the discussion about Andrew Hoberman. I do believe that he's a physicalist and Hamza sources who was the CEO of the Sapiens Institute, one of the

cofounders, as well has made a response to this because I think that there are some assumptions, some psychological sort, I should say, philosophical assumptions, which are problematic, which he does make. And there is a bit of reductionist reasoning that follows As a result, so no one is perfect. And although there are issues with his let's just say, epistemological, or metaphysical worldview, I don't think that means that we can't, you know, generally benefit from the man. So, on this point of talking about dopamine, he mentions and he has a whole kind of series on dopamine talking about if you, for example, drink a cup of coffee that your dopamine goes up a certain lumbar

level. If you have intercourse, or you're certain dopamine goes up certain level and then there's a subsequent crash. If you do certain activities, then your dopamine goes up, and then there's a subsequent crash. And here is talking about pornography and he gives some of the risks associated with it.

because obviously it raises your dopamine at a certain level, which is, by the way, something which human humankind has never experienced before. In fact, I was reading a book, it's called a billion in one, wicked thoughts. I don't recommend this solely, young people read it. And there is a explicit cover of the book, which I, you know, there's a way of trying to remove that or whatever. But the book has some very interesting information, which is, for example, in the very introduction, the author states something quite telling, which is that

a young person nowadays in his teenage years, may see more naked bodies than an individual in the Victorian era would have seen in a whole lifetime. And that is, to put things in perspective, we are now in the age of internet and soap and social media exposed to so much more than we would usually be exposed. And as a result, we get bored very quickly. As a result, we cannot focus on tasks anymore. As a result, we've lost discipline, we've become weaker, as a result, we crash a lot more, we crash a lot more. And this is something we genuinely need to struggle with, by putting in place routines, strategies that aim to minimize or remove these kinds of things. And I think the second

point that he made on this particular video was of the utmost pertinence, which is that

sometimes when you're used to just visually stimulating yourself and just watching pornography, watching things on a third person level, then it actually, if you want to put it colloquially, Blanton's, your dopamine receptors to the point where you would, for example, not be able to transfer that if you like,

in a sexual capacity with your partner. That's why a lot of, for example, married people now suffering in sexual relationships, because people are getting their fixes men and women, by themselves, they're getting their fixes. By satisfying themselves, they are incapable of become lazy. Actually, they have become lazy to try and engage in a sexual process with any real authenticity or real

kind of

energy if you like. And these are all problems, because of course, and this is another kind of research if you like, area, sexual intercourse, and a marriage is one of the things that really solidify it. For instance, Helen Fisher, for instance, speaks about love. And she's a anthropologist, that does so and obviously, when you have intercourse, she mentioned that there are different systems of the body. One of the systems is the dopamine system. The other one is the testosterone system. The other one is the oxytocin system.

And she explains that, for example, when you have intercourse with your partner, that what is released for both people is oxytocin, which of course, creates bonding or pair bonding and these kind of things. And so if you are already satisfying yourself outside of that, or that you're conditioning yourself before marriage, to that kind of self pleasuring, then what you're doing is you're putting yourself at a disadvantage when you come into a marriage because then you're reducing

the would be interest in your partner. So these are some of the obviously clear disadvantages, from biologic from a psychological

and from an familial perspective, or from a relationship perspective of watching pornography but these are things world related, we have things from my Muslim perspective, which relate to our spiritualities and which relate to the afterlife, the realm of the afterlife.

And for us, you know, there are Halal means the means which are allowed in the religion of Islam and the religion of Islam is not a religion of monasticism, actually, a religion which degrades or demotes the status of intercourse, or even encourages individuals to be in a celibate state, in any any part of their spiritual journey. Like for example, Christianity, and not just Catholics ism, but Protestantism, as well, though, many now priests in the Protestant church, especially in for example, the Church of England, and so on, they've left the practice of being celibate and so on. But let's just say is still maintains or still remains. In big parts of the world. We don't believe

that that is the solution. Because sexual or sexuality is something like a wave. You can't just stand in front of it because you will be engulfed by it. It's not about standing in front of sexuality is being able to maneuver sexuality in a way which allows you to function as a reasonable member of society and

In a way, which allows you to actually get pleasure from sex. The thing is with pornography is that it can create boredom and a sexual experience, which, of course, is catastrophic because sex is predicated on excitement, curiosity and novelty. But if you've seen it all already, then it kills the experience. Now, what I want to say, in addition to this, therefore, or in addition, is, if one, what Islam proposes, is that one gets, obviously to a marriage, if one is not married, and many of you guys will be single, and it's not about not having sex with their partners, because there's no partner to have sex with, then it is a good opportunity for you to know that you can control

yourself on a sexual capacity, it is a good opportunity for you to know that restrict this is an opportunity for you to be restricted, to restrict yourself from seeing certain things and doing certain things. And that will build within yourself a kind of mental resilience, okay, which will feature in your life make you a stronger person in your life, make you an individual who is not just easily hedonistic or crumbles under the slightest pressure, you know, individuals that cannot control themselves. And we all have work to do in this regard. In fact, there's a Hadith of the Prophet house that Solomon he says that, you know, everyone has a, a, a portion of Zina that

there'll be attached to Zina be being,

you know, the actual translation would be fornication, or, or engaging in some kind of promiscuity. However,

obviously, it doesn't mean that you're going to do that, like outside of extra marital or pre marital way, you can just be watching it. And this is what is intended by the Hadith. The point is that, it's almost inescapable that you're going to fall into this sin. If you're living on this earth, and you're not asexual or castrated, or, for example, have some issue. However, it's about limiting this into a point where it doesn't take hold of you think of desire or sexual desire, as a fire, AC has to be warm enough to keep you warm, but not hot enough to burn you and destroy you. And with that, I hope you have some,

you know, incentive, if you like to put in place an action plan, if you are suffering from addiction, for example, because any kind of addiction can be broken. Yes, any kind of addiction can, if you're suffering from pornography addiction, that now you have enough reason. And going back to

I would call it the cornerstone of motivation. If you have a why than any house possible, your why now can be strengthened. And if you really have a motivation to stop being addicted to pornography, then you have to put an action plan for yourself, which includes but is not limited to the fact that you can't trust yourself alone in certain areas, cut things from the root. If you're if you know there's certain triggers that trigger you to the sexual experience, or certain psychological reasons why you are addicted to this thing. Maybe it's a form of escapism, you have to address those things. Because what you relieve yourself and you get rid of this thing from your life, I genuinely believe

that you will, actually, ironically, in a sense, have more pleasure, you'll gain more pleasure. And Islam is not against pleasure. In fact, there are three men that came to the Prophet one of them says, I'll never have sex. You know, I'll never get married. And I've never, you know, engaged in this in my life. He said this is whoever goes against my I get married, the Prophet said, and whoever goes against my way is not from me. Meaning we're not once again, encouraging a celibate lifestyle. We're encouraging a disciplined one. And I hope with that you have the motivation to go forward, and to put yourself in action plan that removes the sin to spiritualize and purify yourself

from this despicable action to sin. And hopefully with that, you will benefit with Santa Monica, Monica. How are you? Are you wasting your time on social media again, your brothers and sisters in Islam net from Norway are establishing a message in a Dawa center. Establishing a message to convey the message of Islam is one of the best deeds a Muslim can do. There's a huge need for a knowing you know this and I know this, so that makes the road even greater. So give generously and Allah azza wa jal give you even more