Brain on Porn (Social #2) - DeYtH Banger (a book to read TXT) 📗

to avoid always eating high-sugar, high-starch and processed foods. The second benefit is that you now have one more healthy activity in your life instead of porn. Cooking your own food is productive in more ways than one. It’s all about being informed and being in balance. Take care of your body and your brain will thank you.

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 1.1 - Insight

 "Superficial conditioning (or learning) can be summed up as, ‘So this is how people have sex and this is how I should do it.’ Unconscious sexual conditioning can be summed up as, ‘This is what turns me on’ or, at a brain level, ‘This is what jacks up my dopamine’. It could be as simple as preferring redheads. Or maybe dainty feet or pecs appeal more than breasts.  
However our preferences arise, our brains evolved to record what turns us on. This phenomenon rests on a crucial neural principle: Nerve cells that fire together wire together. Briefly, the brain links together the nerve cells for sexual excitement (in the reward circuit) with the nerve cells that store memories of the events associated with the excitement."

"In 2004 Swedish researchers found that 99% of young men had consumed pornography. That's ancient history in terms of porn's delivery, yet more than half felt it had had an impact on their sexual behaviour.[71] 
Even if you're watching tame porn and haven't developed any porn-induced fetishes, the issue of how you get your jollies can have repercussions. If you use internet porn, you may be training yourself for the role of voyeur or to need the option of clicking to something more arousing at the least drop in your dopamine, or to search and search for just the right scene for maximum climax. Also, you may be masturbating in a hunched-over position – or watching your smartphone in bed nightly."


"Spending years before your first kiss hunched over a screen with 10 tabs open, mastering the dubious skills of learning to masturbate with your left hand and hunting for sex acts your dad never heard of, does not prepare you for fumbling your way to first base, let alone satisfying lovemaking."

"Are We Really Talking About Addiction Here? 
  
Some psychologists and clinicians outside the addiction-neuroscience field claim it is a mistake to employ addiction science to understand behaviours like compulsive gambling and out of control consumption of internet pornography. They argue that addiction only makes sense when talking about substances like heroin, alcohol or nicotine."


"Unlike smoking, porn addiction is tied to an underlying biological need, which merges with the addiction and makes everything more difficult."

 

 

Via Brain on Porn by Garry Wilson

 

 

 

"Already, some seventy brain studies on internet addicts reveal the presence of the same core brain changes seen in substance addicts.[87] If internet use itself is potentially addictive, then obviously internet porn use is too."


"Predicting compulsive Internet use: it's all about sex!" Dutch researchers found that online erotica has the highest addictive potential of all online applications (with online gaming second).[88] This makes perfect sense because addictive drugs only cause addiction because they magnify or inhibit brain mechanisms already in place for natural rewards, such as sexual arousal."


"The more porn used, the less reward activation when sexual images were flashed on the screen. A possible explanation is that heavy users eventually need more stimulation to fire up their reward circuitry. Said the researchers, ‘This is in line with the hypothesis that intense exposure to pornographic stimuli results in a downregulation of the natural neural response to sexual stimuli."

"To sum up: More porn use correlated with less gray matter and reduced reward activity (in the dorsal striatum) when viewing sexual images. More porn use also correlated with weakened connections to the seat of our willpower, the frontal cortex."

 

 

 Via Brain on Porn by Garry Wilson

Chapter 2 - Let's Face it

4 Scientific Studies That Prove Porn Can Be Beaten

 

 

We talk a lot about the doom and gloom of porn addiction. How it will affect our brains, ruin relationships, etc, etc. That information can be important and help us create better strategies for our recovery but let’s be honest; it can also be really depressing. So let’s look at the other side of the equation, most of the science that supports how harmful porn can be also proves that recovery is possible. More than possible; biological.

 

Once porn is left behind, the brain pathways it created will start to fade. ● Doidge, Norman. The Brain that Changes Itself. New York: Viking, 2007. —

Have you heard the “feed the right wolf” analogy? If not, it’s pretty simple.

If there are two metaphorical wolves locked in a power struggle, you can decide the outcome by choosing to feed one or the other. As one influence or “wolf” becomes stronger the other becomes weaker. This is exactly what happened when we started getting involved with porn, we kept feeding it and it got stronger. If we turn the tables it can be our way out.

As we build positive influences into our lives and gain more and more distance from pornography the pathways in our brain that tell us we need it will start to shrink. It will be slow but it will happen.

 

 

When a brain that has become accustomed to chronic overstimulation stops getting that overstimulation, neurochemical changes in the brain start happening. As a result, many users report withdrawal symptoms. ● Avena, N. M. and P. V. Rada. “Cholinergic modulation of Food and Drug Satiety and Withdrawal.” Physiology & Behavior 106, no. 3 (2012): 332–36. —

 

This might sound bad but it is actually very good. Like a marathon runner who learns to love the burn because it means they are growing stronger and faster we can celebrate the pain. Withdrawal sucks and it can be frustrating but it means our brain is changing. Instead of looking at it as evidence of how messed up you are think of it like burning calories or soreness after a workout.

And guess what? People have found that when they approach their withdrawal symptoms with this type of positivity they find them less powerful and shorter. So it’s a win-win.

 

 

The brain can regain sensitivity to healthy, everyday activities. ● Lisle, Douglas and Alan Goldhamer. The Pleasure Trap. Summertown, TN: Healthy Living Publications. —

One of the main parts of our brain that is affected by porn use is our reward center. Basically what happens is that thing gets over-clocked. This results in it producing less of the the “happy chemicals” (dopamine, serotonin, adrenaline, etc) and also becomes less responsive to them. Which means it takes more to make us feel good.

If we eliminate porn as our main source of these chemical releases our brain will start looking for new ones. We need start to connecting to positive things in our live that support our physical, emotional, mental and social health. These connections might start off small but they will grow and eventually replace the old neural pathways.

 

 

Research indicates that damaged frontal lobes can recover once constant overstimulation stops. ● Kim, Seog Ju, In Kyoon Lyoo, Jaeuk Hwang, Ain Chung, Young Hoon Sung, Jihyun Kim, Do-Hoon Kwon, Kee Hyun Chang, and Perry Renshaw. “Prefrontal Grey-matter Changes in Short-term and Long-term Abstinent Methamphetamine Abusers.” The International Journal of Neuropsychopharmocology, 9 (2006): 221–28.

Addiction can cause actual brain-damage, the most common of which is frontal-lobe shrinkage. This is the part of the brain that deals primarily with choice, logic and reasoning. This change is one of the main reasons scientists believe addictions can become so powerful, it’s like we’re missing the part of our brain that helps us make good choices.

 

What’s the silver lining?

 

It grows back!

Like anything it takes time but victory after victory will make a difference. The coolest part is that as our brain gets healthier it can theoretically get easier. Recovery teaches us core principles and builds specific habits that support the development of that decision-making part of our brain. Think of it like a muscle that gets bigger and stronger the more you use it.

All it takes is practice.

 

 

 

10 Excuses That Will Keep You Watching Porn

 

 

 

 

Addiction teaches us to rationalize and justify. Over time we get really good at making excuses for ourselves to act out and we keep buying into our own lies. There is no end to what a porn addict can come up with in the moment; we look for any and every reason to act out. Fortifiers need to do some serious soul-searching to find out what their biggest excuses are. We aren’t telling you this to make you feel bad, we just hope that this list will help you identify some of the excuses that are holding you back.

 

Here are the top 10 excuses we hear most at Fortify HQ:

 

 

This is the last time.
There will never be a last time as long as you keep telling yourself this. Accept that you have a problem and realize that recovery is a constant road of victories and setbacks. The sooner you realize that relying on your own strength (or “white-knuckling it” as well call it) won’t work, the closer you are to real change. It could be worse.
A lot of things could be worse, but recovery is about what can be better. Focus on your potential, not your rock bottom. If we know anything about porn addiction, it’s that it will get worse if we let it. Realize that what you’re doing is harmful and commit to getting healthy. I’m not hurting anyone.
Your addiction is actually hurting a lot of people, including yourself. If you don’t already know, studies have shown that pornography is directly tied to emotional and sexual dissatisfaction in relationships. Not to mention all of the emotional, mental and physical ramifications from addiction that you’ll end up dealing with yourself. All the problems that porn creates make it so difficult, if not impossible, to freely give all of yourself to your loved ones. This type of porn isn’t as bad.
This one can be subtle. A lot of the time we will let ourselves get close to things we know are triggers because they maybe aren’t technically pornographic, or they are “just” softcore. Sometimes we just personalize the situation to convince ourselves that some kind of porn is okay for us, telling ourselves that we are lonely or even that we “deserve it.” No porn is good or even okay. Stay away from the cliff’s edge and you’ll never be in danger of falling. I need the release. I’m so stressed/worried/upset/bored.
This is just the porn-addicted version of your brain talking, not your healthy one. Be smarter than your brain.