File 003 Flashcards
Effects on libido, romance
Relationships, too, are affected by porn use, which makes sense. Too much stimulation can interfere with what scientists call pair-bonding, or falling in love.
The artificial stimulation hijacks their bonding machinery, leaving them just like regular (promiscuous) mammals – in which the brain circuits 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.
He rates her lower not only on attractiveness, but also on warmth and intelligence.
Also, after pornography consumption, subjects of both sexes report less satisfaction with their intimate partner – including the partner’s affection, appearance, sexual curiosity and performance.
And both men and women assign increased importance to sex without emotional involvement.
Social anxiety, self-esteem
As users manage to abstain from porn, their desire to connect with others generally surges.
Often, so does their self-esteem, their ability to look others in the eye, their sense of humour, their optimism, their attractiveness to potential mates, and so forth. Even those formerly suffering from severe social anxiety often explore new avenues for social contact: smiling and joking with work colleagues, online dating, meditation groups, joining clubs, nightspots, and so forth. In some cases it takes months, but for others the shift is so rapid that it catches them by surprise. YBOP wasn’t alone in chronicling this unexpected connection. In his famous TED talk “The
Demise of Guys”, well known psychologist Phillip Zimbardo noted that ‘arousal addiction’
(porn, video games) is a major factor in the increase in social awkwardness and anxiety and
among digital natives.
Zimbardo’s hypothesis is that excessive screen time interferes with development of normal
social skills.
Inability to concentrate
Those who reboot commonly report that they have ‘better concentration’, ‘no more brain fog’, ‘clearer thinking’ and ‘improved memory’. Addiction neuroscientists have repeatedly shown that internet addiction produces memory, concentration and impulse-control problems in some users, as well as corresponding brain changes. For example, researchers found that the severity of ADHD symptoms correlates with the severity of internet addiction, even when they take into account anxiety, depression and personality traits. And, as we’ll see later, German researchers recently confirmed that moderate porn use, even by non-addicts, correlates with shrunken grey matter in regions of the brain associated with cognitive function.
After 7-10 days without porn this feeling went away. My mind became very clear, thoughts easily controllable, and I became much more relaxed in general.
Supernormal Stimulus
Dopamine fires up for other emotions and stimuli too, all of which often feature prominently in internet porn:
* Surprise
* Shock (What isn’t shocking in today’s porn?)
* Anxiety
* Seeking and searching (Wanting, anticipating)
When we make an artificial supernormal stimulus our top priority it’s because it has triggered a bigger blast of dopamine in our brain’s reward circuit than its natural counterpart. Today’s internet porn is laced with supernormal stimulation. First, it offers endless novel hotties available at a click. Research confirms that anticipation of reward and novelty amplify one another to increase excitement and rewire the reward circuitry of the brain. Third, for most people, static images cannot compare with today’s hi-def 3-minute videos of people engaged in intense sex. ‘I told you so’, today’s porn users often find internet erotica more stimulating than real partners.
There are no physical limits on internet porn consumption, other than the need for sleep and bathroom breaks.
A user can edge (masturbate without climaxing) to porn for hours without triggering feelings of satiation, or aversion. Bingeing on porn feels like a promise of pleasure, but recall that the message of dopamine isn’t ‘satisfaction’. It’s, ‘keep going, satisfaction is j-u-s-t around the corner’.
Sexual Conditioning
One possible outcome is unanticipated sexual conditioning – which didn’t happen to your father when he used Playboy. Perhaps you wire your sexual excitement to a screen, constant novelty, voyeurism or bizarre acts. Worst case, you eventually need both porn’s content and delivery-at-a-click to sustain arousal. 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. Each of these cues, or triggers, can now light up your reward circuit with the promise of sex … that isn’t sex.
Addiction
Sex with ejaculation shrinks (for a week at least) the cells that pump dopamine throughout the reward circuit. These same dopamine-producing nerve cells shrink with heroin addiction.
Put simply, addictive drugs like meth and heroin are compelling because they hijack the precise mechanisms that evolved to make sex compelling.
Researchers know that in all addictions, despite their differences, chronic dopamine elevation tips specific neurochemical dominoes, which bring about an established set of core brain changes.
These, in turn, show up as recognized signs, symptoms and behaviours, such as those listed in this standard addiction assessment test known as the ‘Three Cs’[77]:
craving and preoccupation with obtaining, engaging in or recovering from the use of the substance or behaviour
loss of control in using the substance or engaging in the behaviour with increasing frequency or duration, larger amounts or intensity, or in increasing the risk in use and behaviour to obtain the desired effect
negative consequences in physical, social, occupational, financial and psychological domains
Brian Changes
These are the brain changes associated with addictive behaviour. They show up in all addictions, whether substance or behavioural.
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Desensitisation, or a numbed response to pleasure. Reduced dopamine signalling and
other changes leave the addict less sensitive to everyday pleasures and ‘hungry’ for dopamine raising activities and substances. The addict may neglect other interests and activities that were once high priorities. shock, surprise and anxiety can jack up dopamine. -
Sensitisation, or an unconscious super-memory of pleasure that, when activated, triggers
powerful cravings. Rewired nerve connections cause the reward circuit to buzz in response to addiction-related cues or thoughts – the ‘fire together wire together’ principle.
This Pavlovian memory makes the addiction more compelling than other activities in the addict’s life.
Cues, such as turning on the computer, seeing a pop-up, or being alone, trigger intense cravings
for porn. Are you suddenly much hornier (true libido) when your wife goes shopping? Unlikely. But
perhaps you feel as if you are on autopilot, or someone else is controlling your brain. Some describe a sensitised porn response as ‘entering a tunnel that has only one escape: porn’. Maybe you feel a rush, rapid heartbeat, even trembling, and all you can think about is logging onto your favourite tube site. These are examples of sensitised addiction pathways activating your reward circuit, screaming, ‘Do it now!’ -
Hypofrontality, or reduced brain activity in the prefrontal regions, which weakens willpower
in the face of strong subconscious cravings. Alterations in the prefrontal regions’ grey
matter and white matter correlate with reduced impulse control and the weakened
ability to foresee consequences. A recent German review of brain and psychological studies
concluded that reduced brain function in internet addicts may be related to their loss of control over their internet use.
Hypofrontality shows up as the feeling that two parts of your brain are engaged in a tug-of-war.
The sensitised addiction pathways are screaming ‘Yes!’ while your ‘higher brain’ is saying, ‘No, not
again!’ While the executive-control portions of your brain are in a weakened condition the addiction pathways usually win. - Dysfunctional stress circuits, which can make even minor stress lead to cravings and relapse because they activate powerful sensitised pathways.
