Brain on Porn (Social #1) - DeYtH Banger (uplifting book club books .txt) 📗

for lasting bonds are absent. 
Research in humans also suggests that too much stimulation weakens pair bonds. According to a 2007 study, mere exposure to numerous sexy female images causes a man to devalue his real-life partner."

"* 
(Age 19) Even though I watched porn I was never really one to want sex. TWO guys managed to grab my interest. However, I think porn/masturbation was suppressing my longing to be with either of them."

"(Age 30) In the past, sex wasn't emotional. On some level it was like nobody else was there because I was in my own head the whole time for one reason or another (fantasizing, DE issues, etc...). Girlfriends during my mid 20's to early 30's just didn't arouse me anywhere close to what high-speed porn offered, no matter how good they looked. I didn't recognize these things at the time of course, but since beginning this journey

4 months ago, I can honestly say I'm shocked how good sex can be with your girlfriend when you eliminate the constant, steady pattern of porn use. 
* 
(200 days) I now have an undeniable sex drive. I want my wife more than ever. If a long time passes without sex, I feel this thing called 'sexual tension', which is apparently real. I notice things I never noticed before. Hair tossing, quick glances, breathing patterns, body language. It is a different world. And let me tell you – when you get to this point, you really won't care about whatever super-specific porno fetishes you thought were the only thing you could get off to, because just the word WOMAN (or man or whatever) will make you feel urges."

 

 

What Sleep, Food, And Exercise Have To Do With Recovery

 

 

When you think of ways to help in your fight against pornography, how often do sleep, food and exercise come up?

You might be surprised at how often research connects compulsive patterns to these basic lifestyle factors—especially what we call the Big Three— sleep, food and exercise. Each of these makes a huge difference in the quality of our mood and our overall mental and emotional well-being — including depression and anxiety, or how well we can focus our attention at any given moment.

But you don’t need any scientist to tell you that. Think of the last time you binged on sweets or spent the whole day sitting around inside. When we’re paying closer attention, something that seems pleasant in the moment can actually really tank our mood over time. And when we don’t feel well, it’s all too easy to scramble for some way—any way—to feel better. Let’s take a closer look at each of the Big Three, and how they can help you on your journey to freedom.

 

Get Some Sleep

 

Research studies consistently find that both teenagers and adults are seriously deprived of sleep. For most of us, we’re simply not getting what we need.

Sufficient sleep is especially crucial for anyone wanting to find freedom from addiction. Not only does the brain recharge and repair during sleep, there are rippling effects that impact the whole body. Going without sleep has been connected to lower immune function, serious disease and weight gain – as well as impaired ability to reason and think clearly.

When you’re tired you’re just not yourself; your brain’s not running at full capacity.

Bottom line: a tired body and cloudy mind will leave you vulnerable and less prepared to fight.

Make healthy amounts of sleep a top priority. If anything is getting in the way of getting enough sleep, take it very seriously, because if it’s interfering with your sleep, it’s probably messing with your freedom, too.

 

Get The Right Fuel

 

In addition to sleep, another way to recharge your body is to check out what kind of fuel you’re giving it.

How far would you get in your car if you put maple syrup or Coca-Cola in the gas tank? It sounds dumb, but let’s be honest: we’re sometimes just as dumb with our own body by taking in stuff the body hardly recognizes as nourishment. And then we act surprised when the body doesn’t run so well…

Want to build strength in this battle? Take a look at the food you’re taking in.

Rather than only listening to others tell you what to eat, why not listen to your own body – try paying closer attention to what your body needs and wants.

 

Get Moving

 

Alright, one more example. While recharging your body through rest and good fuel is important, if you really want to supercharge it, then try something reallyradical: move around more!

Although there is a lot of discussion about physical activity these days, we still do a ton of sitting around.

You might be asking what the problem is with sitting so much. So let’s look at the facts: without enough movement and activity, we are starving our brain in another way and setting us up for the same old patterns.

What about the reverse? What if we bumped up our activity level? In the late 1990s, Dr. Van Praag and his colleagues at the Laboratory of Genetics at the Salk Institute in San Diego, California, showed that exercise increases neurogenesis (or the birth of new brain cells).

When you exercise, a flood of oxygen heads to your brain and a number of other processes are triggered that help your brain grow. So by exercising, we’re actually rewiring the brain in a healthy way and giving our brain an extra boost to function at peak performance.

 

Get Started

 

Studies are showing that poor health can cause us to be more susceptible to impulsive decisions. When we are tired, hungry, or in bed all day, it can be much harder to resist those cravings when they come. However, it doesn’t have to be that way. Even simple adjustments in the Big Three – sleep, diet and exercise – can super-charge your path to freedom in surprising ways.

There are countless ways to strengthen your defenses and Fortify yourself. By recharging your body with the sleep, fuel, and energy it needs, you can give yourself an even better shot at kicking porn to the curb, for good. We may not be running this marathon with you, but we are cheering for you the whole way.

 

 

 

 

 

The Science of Getting Stuck

 

 

 

Let’s talk about the brain. It seems like every day, scientists are discovering another way the brain influences our daily lives – shaping our choices and ultimately influencing who we become.  So it’s pretty important that we protect the brain.

There are a lot of things that we can do to damage the brain, of course. We’ve all probably lost a few brain cells, whether from a bad fall, a helmet-to-helmet hit in football, wrecking hard on a mountain bike trail, or getting a roundhouse kick to the face by Chuck Norris. OK, maybe not that last one—you’d be dead.

 

How It Starts

 

Think back on a time when you were younger—before you even saw pornography: Did you feel your day was ruined if you couldn’t watch porn? Did you feel nervous or uncomfortable, or unable to concentrate because you couldn’t check out a video?

Of course not!

Your life went on just fine as a non-porn viewer. You were able to get on with your life without giving the slightest thought to porn.

But then the problem started.  And like a new smoker or drinker, your body got a shock. The reason for this is that pornography is a powerful example of what scientists call a “supranormal” or “super” stimulus – something designed to be so artificially intense that it can quickly overpower and hijack the attention of most human beings.  By “mimicking” real sexual intimacy, pornography – when we let it in – tricks the brain into releasing powerful neurochemicals like dopamine into the “reward pathway” of the brain, which is what provides that momentary rush.

You see, in the beginning, this intense dopamine punch leaves people feeling a little overexcited, shocked or even sick at first exposure to porn. Some also report some kind of internal resistance, like – “I’m not sure about this.”

 

The Cycle Continues

 

Over time, as people continue to use, the body gets so used to that dopamine spike that it starts to demand more and more. It’s like that guy who ate McDonald’s every meal for thirty straight days in that documentary Super Size Me. At first, he got really sick, but after a while, his body got used to the grease and the fat – to the point where he actually started to crave it.

If your body can start demanding fast food, it’s no surprise that this can happen with pornography, right? Thus users go from not needing porn, to trying it, to wanting it, to eventually to feeling like they need it.

And remember, the brain by this point has become so used to all that dopamine, that it requires large amounts just to feel a rush anymore.  And that is how addiction gets started. It hijacks your brain’s natural appetites and slowly starts to take over your life, robbing you of your freedom to make your own choices.

Not cool!

This is more than just a physiological shift, by the way.  As we go back to something like pornography over and over, our desires, interests, and motivations also start to change—to the point that a new appetite begins to emerge….introducing cravings and urges, until we think we “really want” what we used to be repulsed and shocked by…

 

There Is Hope

 

Notice something important here: we don’t start off loving porn.  We start off trying it.  At some point, however, this new appetite can become almost impossible to distinguish from our own deeper desires—leading some to just decide, “Hey, this is just what I want” or “This is just who I am.”

No wonder it’s not so easy to step away from this stuff…we’ve been trained in another direction – both in our desires and in the brain itself – to chase after this super stimulus anytime we don’t like how we’re feeling, anytime we want to escape.

Regardless, the good news is that this process can be reversed.  A good starting point is understanding the basic scientific reasons why we’re feeling stuck in the first place.

No matter how deep you are into this stuff and no matter how long you’ve been struggling, there is hope. As long as you don’t give up the fight…and as long as you don’t try to do this alone…your brain can totally change and rewire itself back to a healthy state over time.

 

 

Note: Sounds impossible... , but it's possible just build a healthy habbit, which replaces the bad habbit. 

 

 

 

3 Tips To Fight Smarter, Not Harder

 

 

 

Freedom in any form, as you’ve heard before, never comes easy; there’s always a price.

So what will it take for you to find freedom from your addiction? It’s not like you haven’t made real efforts before, right? Have you ever tried to rally yourself into stopping by saying, “Enough! No more!” attempting some kind of dramatic, night-and-day shift?

Most of us have. Like the Incredible Hulk, we think we can just clench our fists, gather our willpower, and suddenly change ourselves by sheer force. Most of the time, these efforts only make it worse. Like quicksand, sometimes the harder we struggle against something, the deeper we’re pulled into it. Instead of making progress, we can become easily frustrated and discouraged. In a similar way, those who run directly at a strong habit—trying to battle it back with sheer willpower and force—almost always become exhausted before long. For a day or two after a dramatic declaration of “No more!”, we pat ourselves on the back for being able to control ourselves as this “new person.” Then, when that new person isn’t looking, we’re often right back where we started.

Rather than simply “fighting more” or “fighting harder” – this is about fighting smarter. If you’re serious about getting to a new place, it’s going to call for a new and different way of fighting.  One that goes deeper than behavior alone, one that takes the full picture of your life serious – and one that strengthens your mind as heart as much as your muscles. While