Welcome

to Your Brain on Porn.

This is a series

for those who are hooked on porn.

Only you can decide if you are.

So,

my wife and I have a website on relationships.

It has nothing to do with porn or at least it didn't.

However,

several articles were there on neuroscience of sex,

orgasm and love

and evolution in sexuality and even addiction.

So about five years ago,

porn users began showing up.

I guess they found us through Google,

and they began telling their stories

and blogging and sharing,

and more showed up and more showed up.

We learnt a lot.

Here's a little bit of what we learnt.

No. 1:

internet porn is not Playboy,

but I bet you already knew this.

You know the centerfold

of all of the magazine

gets old pretty quick.

Internet porn is really

far more stimulating

than just images.

It's really due to the endless novelty

and the ability

to click from one image to another.

Another reason internet porn is so stimulating

is that it can escalate rather quickly

to more kinky or more shocking material.

No. 2 :

addictive personality

is not a prerequisite

for getting hooked on internet porn.

Now,

the standard model

is that you have to have a predisposition.

You have to be genetically inclined

to get addicted.

Well, this is definitely true.

But what we found out

is that many of the guys

who are showing up on the site

had never had any other addiction.

They were just a regular guy

who started watching and got hooked.

And what's interesting

is once they get off a porn session

they return to their “normal selves”.

No. 3:

understanding how heavy porn use

affects the brain

is very helpful to users.

When you understand how the brain works,

it really allows you

to steer your ship a lot better

when you're trying to get off porn.

Here are the basics.

Porn overstimulated your brain

and your brain changed.

You see,

being hooked on porn

is due to the same brain changes

that go with all addictions.

This brain changes are behind your cravings.

This brain changes

keep you coming back to porn

even if you want to quit.

The internet porn

is what we called a super stimulus.

What that means

is that it's way beyond

what we've ever encountered

during our evolution.

Here is the big picture.

We're a hunter-gatherer brain

living in a modern world.

Our environment has drastically changed.

I suppose I don't need to tell you that,

yet our brains have barely evolved

in the last 100,000 years.

This means

we are not well-suited

to many aspects of modern life.

From living in isolated boxes

to going to work,

to working in desk jobs,

to worrying about global warming or the economy.

We're supposed to be sitting around the camp fire,

not sitting in front of the computer

watching internet porn for hours a day.

Here's another example

of environment changing

and our brains not quietly catching up.

I haven't seen too many pictures

of fat hunter-gatherers,

have you?

And yet,

70% of Americans are overweight.

So, what's going on?

Our brains are programmed

to love high calorie foods,

that's necessary for survival.

In the old days,

it was very rare

to find high calorie foods,

maybe honey, sweet fruits, nuts.

Today,

we have refined carbohydrates

and high fat junk foods,

all of these are highly stimulating.

So they're called super normal stimulation,

way beyond anything we've ever encountered,

just like internet porn.

Brain rule #1 says

You Must Survive.

Which means

get calories!

For food that means

get it while the getting is good

because

you don't know when something is going to rot,

at least in the old days.

So,

your primitive brain is urging you

to binge every opportunity

to get as much as you can.

This leads to overconsumption.

This will also apply

to sexual partners.

Brain rule #2 :

making babies.

Well,

maybe that's rule #1.

See, evolution's top priority

is making more gene packets,

more copies of you.

Here's a question:

in the lifetime of a hunter-gatherer,

how many potential sexual partners

would he or she meet?

Not too many, I imagined.

How about

how many would he have sex with?

I'm sure whole lot less.

A heavy porn user would view

more hot babes,

or hot guys,

or hot whatever

in one session

than our ancestors would need

several lifetimes

to this can be considered

another super stimulus.

Our brains aren't evolved

to handle heavy porn use like this

and unlike junk food,

you can never get full.