/nofap/ - Fappers Anonymous

Viewing porn shrinks the brain: Researchers find first possible link between viewing pornography and physical harm

Study showed striatum was smaller the more porn someone had viewed

The striatum is a brain region linked with motivation and reward response

For the study, Dr Kuhn and her colleague Jurgen Gallinat from Charite University, also in Berlin, recruited 64 healthy men between the ages of 21 and 45 years and asked them questions about their porn-watching habits.

They also took images of the men’s brains to measure volume and to see how their brains reacted to pornographic pictures, says the study published in JAMA Psychiatry journal (must credit).

They found noticeable differences in the men who abstained compared with those who regularly accessed sexual videos or images.

Dr Kuhn said ‘We found that the volume of the so-called striatum, a brain region that has been associated with reward processing and motivated behaviour was smaller the more pornography consumption the participants reported.

‘Moreover we found that another brain region, that is also part of the striatum that is active when people see sexual stimuli, shows less activation the more pornography participants consumed.’

However other researchers claimed that pornography in moderation was probably not damaging.

‘Dr Gregory Tau of the Columbia University, said: ‘Everything is going to be bad in excess and it’s probably not terrible in moderation.’

Dr Tau, who was not involved with the study, said more research was needed, in particular longer studies to determine whether porn leads to brain changes.

He said ‘It is possible that there are individuals with a certain kind of brain that are more susceptible to these kinds of behaviours.

‘Or, it’s possible it’s the excessive use (of porn) that’s perpetuating itself to causing brain changes. Or, it could be both.’

Dr Kuhn said other behaviours, such as driving a taxi are linked to changes in brain size and functioning.

‘Basically everything that people do very frequently can shape their brain structure and function’ she added.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2642712/Does-watching-porn-make-LAZY-X-rated-content-shrink-region-brain-linked-motivation-study-claims.html

Porn May 'Shut Down' Part of Your Brain

Watching pornography would seem to be a vision-intensive task. But new research finds that looking at erotic movies can actually quiet the part of the brain that processes visual stimuli.

Most of the time, watching movies or conducting any other visual task sends extra blood flow to this brain region. Not so when the movies are explicit, the researchers found. Instead, the brain seems to shunt blood — and therefore energy — elsewhere, perhaps to regions of the brain responsible for sexual arousal.

Turns out, the brain may not need to take in all the visual details of a sex scene, said study researcher Gert Holstege, a uroneurologist at the University of Groningen Medical Center in the Netherlands.

"If you look, for example, at your computer and you have to write something or whatever, then you have to look specifically and carefully at what you're doing because if you don't, it means you make mistakes," Holstege told LiveScience. "But the moment you are watching explicit sexual movies, that's not necessary, because you know exactly what's going on. It's not important that the door is green or yellow."

Anxiety vs. arousal

The brain can either be anxious or aroused (or neither), Holstege said, but not both. During orgasm, he has found, activity in brain regions associated with anxiety plummets. This phenomenon may explain why women with low levels of sexual desire often have high levels of anxiety, Holstege said. It makes sense; if you're looking around, focusing on visual details, scanning for danger, it may not be so easy to focus on arousal, he said. [The Sex Quiz: Myths, Taboos and Bizarre Facts]

"If you yourself are in a very dangerous situation, whatever the reason, you don't have sexual feelings, because you have to survive for yourself, not survive for the species," Holstege said.

Brain-scan research had previously turned up hints that explicit sexual images might quiet a brain area called Brodmann's area 17, also called the primary visual cortex, a region that does the first processing of incoming visual information in the brain. The data was spotty, however, and no one had looked into the question in women's brains.

http://www.livescience.com/19755-porn-shut-visual-brain.html

Watching Porn Linked To Less Gray Matter In The Brain

To answer that question, German researchers recruited 64 men between the ages of 21 and 45 who watched an average of four hours of pornography per week. The researchers did MRI scans of men’s brains while showing them a mixture of sexually explicit images and non-sexual imagery. Their research was published May 28 in the journal JAMA Psychiatry.

"Our findings indicated that gray matter volume of the right caudate of the striatum is smaller with higher pornography use," the researchers wrote in the journal article, referring to an area of the brain associated with reward processing and motivation. Men who watched more porn also showed less activity in another area of the striatum, called the left putamen, which usually lights up in response to sexual images.

Heavy porn consumers also had a weaker connection between the striatum and the prefrontal cortex, an area of the brain associated with decision-making.

"Dysfunction of this circuitry has been related to inappropriate behavioral choices, such as drug seeking, regardless of the potential negative outcome," the researchers wrote in the article.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/02/porn-less-gray-matter-brain_n_5418607.html

Pea brain: watching porn online will wear out your brain and make it shrivel

http://www.dw.com/en/pea-brain-watching-porn-online-will-wear-out-your-brain-and-make-it-shrivel/a-17681654

For most of you, you can keep fapping. Just don't fucking watch porn. Ever.

How porn is rewiring our brains

Along with a great number of porn users, they had rewired the arousal pathways in their brains. “Pornography,” writes Doidge, “satisfies every one of the prerequisites for neuroplastic change,” – that is, the brain’s ability to form new neural circuitry. The most important condition is the release of dopamine, the neurotransmitter that gives us a feeling of exciting pleasure, which porn triggers. The more often you watch porn and get the dopamine hit it delivers, the more the activity and the sensation become entwined in your brain.

Doidge puts it like this: “since neurons that fire together wire together, these men got massive amounts of practice wiring these images into the pleasure centres of the brain.” And, “because plasticity is competitive, the brain maps for new, exciting images increased at the expense of what had previously attracted them.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/thinking-man/10441027/How-porn-is-rewiring-our-brains.html

Can porn shrink the brain?

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The brains of men who watch lots of pornography tend to be smaller in certain key areas and have fewer connections than those of other men, a new study has found.

The differences appeared in a brain region called the striatum, which is associated with reward and motivation.

"Since the striatum is part of the brain network that is known to respond to sexual cues, one can assume that this reflects a blunting of the reaction to erotic stimuli," study co-author Simone Kühn, a psychologist at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Germany, wrote in an email to Live Science.

But although the findings are suggestive, it's not clear that watching porn actually causes men's brains to shrink. Perhaps men who watch a lot of porn are different in some underlying way from those who don't, and that could explain the smaller size, experts said.

Sexual disorder?

With the rise of the Internet, people can now anonymously access pornography at all hours of the day with just the click of a mouse. [Hot Stuff! 10 Unusual Sexual Fixations]

"This has fostered the pervasiveness of pornography use and raises the question of whether it has any effects on brain structure and function," Kühn said.

Some psychologists argue that porn-watching is harmless, while others claim porn is bad for mental health and can spiral into sex addiction. (The most recent version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the DSM-5, doesn't include sex addiction as a separate disorder.) [Top 10 Controversial Psychiatric Disorders]

A 2013 study in the journal Socioaffective Neuroscience and Psychology, found that people who reported problems controlling their urge to view sexual images did not display brain patterns that are characteristic of people with addictions.

But even behavior that doesn’t rise to the level of an addiction or disorder can still be problematic, said William Struthers, a neuroscientist at Wheaton College in Illinois, who was not involved in the new study.

"We now need to acknowledge that this fits somewhere on a pathological spectrum," with some people affected relatively little by porn, while others may have their relationships and life compromised, he said.

Brain scans

To assess the effect of pervasive porn watching on the brain, Kühn and her colleague, Jürgen Gallinat, a researcher at the Clinic for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy in Germany, placed 64 healthy men in a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner, and measured the men's responses to sexual and neutral images. On average, outside of the lab, the men watched about four hours of pornography a week, with some of the respondents watching nearly 20 hours a week and others watching none at all.

The avid porn watchers showed lower activation of reward circuitry in the brain (as suggested by lower blood flow to certain brain regions) in response to the sexual images.

When their brains were at rest, they also had smaller grey matter volume in areas of the brain, such as the striatum, associated with reward processing and motivation, compared with men who watched less porn.

Past research, detailed in 2012 in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, suggested watching porn can quiet a brain region that processes visual stimuli called the primary visual cortex.

http://www.livescience.com/46006-can-porn-shrink-brain.html

The symptoms of pornography addiction withdrawal are similar to withdrawal addiction symptoms from substances like alcohol, cocaine and heroin.

Many porn users in Utah and across the United States can find comfort knowing that other people are experiencing similar symptoms as they go through the withdrawal process. In general, some porn users have few symptoms, but others report severe symptoms.

The symptoms of pornography addiction withdrawal are similar to withdrawal addiction symptoms from substances like alcohol, cocaine and heroin.

Utah residents experience pornography addictions, just like individuals in other states. Porn addiction is different from drug addiction, but the withdrawal symptoms are similar because all addictions share certain neurochemical and cellular changes, which influence specific regions of the brain. The brain releases more dopamine for a new mate than a familiar one. It’s logical that porn triggers a neurochemical roller coaster in many brains because it’s like the individual is experiencing new partners.

Pornography addiction often causes highs to feel great and lows to feel really dark. This up and down is a withdrawal symptom many addicts experience. Furthermore, this symptom is not just physical; it’s emotional, too. Changing emotions can take over your thoughts and change your perception of the world. However, there is hope. Many men who suffer from these deep lows report seeing large improvements after being without porn for a while.

Pornography addiction withdrawal symptoms include anxiety, restlessness, irritability, insomnia, fatigue, headaches, poor concentration, depression, social isolation and loss of libido. These symptoms can take days to occur, but might last for months to years.

Pornography addiction causes a chemical imbalance in the brain, which is much more than a moral weakness. The brain and body can heal, but it’s just like any addiction. Similar to other dependencies, a small dose here and there — even if infrequent — often renews the cycle.

Porn users in Utah and across the nation can be startled by the severity of their withdrawal symptoms when they stop using porn. These symptoms serve a purpose and help individuals understand the physical addictiveness of this type of dependency. It may take months to fully recover, but it’s important not to compare progress with anyone else.

If you or anyone you know is suffering with or recovering from a pornography addiction, consider working with one of Utah’s trained specialists that can help you or a loved one receive the proper care.

https://medium.com/@Fusion_360/3-things-you-should-know-about-pornography-addiction-withdrawal-1be95da89eff#.5wpti01km

Internet pornography by the numbers; a significant threat to society

Teenagers with frequent exposure to sexual content on TV have a substantially greater likelihood of teenage pregnancy; and the likelihood of teen pregnancy was twice as high when the quantity of sexual content exposure within the viewing episodes was highviii.

Pornography viewing by teens disorients them during the developmental phase when they have to learn how to handle their sexuality and when they are most vulnerable to uncertainty about their sexual beliefs and moral valuesix

A significant relationship also exists among teens between frequent pornography use and feelings of loneliness, including major depressionx

Adolescents exposed to high levels of pornography have lower levels of sexual self-esteem

http://www.webroot.com/us/en/home/resources/tips/digital-family-life/internet-pornography-by-the-numbers

The growing epidemic of children addicted to Internet porn

Kids as young as 8 years old have become addicted to pornography.

Pornography has been the bane of many American communities for decades. With the advent of the Internet the problem has become exacerbated. Most parents are aware of the dangers of pedophiles, but other dangers lurk online that are just as potentially damaging to children–especially children between the ages of 8 to 12 years old.

Internet pornography has destroyed careers, broken up marriages and led to financial ruin … and those are just the downsides for adults who became addicted. Now a growing trend has emerged of addicted children–kids as young as 8 years old–who have become exposed and addicted to pornography.

Although the trend only surfaced a handful of years ago, research has already been done that draws very ominous conclusions. What has become apparent is the fact that if this new addiction among children is not addressed and quickly halted it can not only destroy the child's life, but destroy the American culture and society as well.

This article will present a very brief synopsis of the efforts of some of the people leading the charge to counteract this trend towards self-abasement, destruction and ruined lives. From learned psychologists and family counselors to esteemed neurologists and the clergy, the lines have been drawn and the battle is beginning for the hearts an minds of America's children–not to mention their souls.

Addictions are an insidious thing and often involve an insidious process. Neurological studies of children who have become addicted to Internet porn (including brain scans) has revealed that the physiological changes in the brain of a porn addict almost exactly match those who are addicted to alcohol and drugs.

Addictions change the physiology of the brain. An addiction especially has a deep impact on those brains between the ages of 8 to 12 that are still developing. This is the latest demographic group now becoming exposed and immersed to "sexting" (sexual flirting via text messages), user group "orgies" and triple X-rated pornography sites on the Web.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-growing-epidemic-of-ch-by-Terrence-Aym-101023-680.html

PORN ADDICTION AT CRISIS LEVEL

More than 50 percent of men now look at pornography regularly, thanks to easy access and constant bombardment of images on the Internet. Men cannot go online without seeing air-brushed provocative women inviting them to click. Twenty-five percent of Internet searches are related to pornography, and one-third of all who look at porn on the Internet are women.

Looking at pornography frequently is an addiction. Yet society looks the other way at pornography, dismissing it as harmless “men’s entertainment.” The pornography industry renamed itself the “adult entertainment industry” to create the perception that it’s just entertainment. The reality is that porn is extremely addictive, and along with the addiction comes life-destroying side effects. It puts the addict into a creepy bondage that affects the lives of those around him or her. It is not a victimless crime. It has become a chilling epidemic that is ruining the minds, families and jobs of possibly half the men in the country.

Although porn eroticizes male supremacy and degrades women, it is ironically women who are responsible for instituting this laissez-faire attitude toward porn. Feminists in the 1960s ushered in a sexual revolution of anything goes, free love, free sex. Sexologist Alfred Kinsey also played a major role normalizing porn. He performed research on subjects that included a high percentage of pedophiles, inmates, sex offenders, pimps and prostitutes. He claimed his results proved that men need deviant sexual behavior and that it is normal. His findings were widely adopted in schools and universities and by psychologists, even though it became well-known later that he was a deviant himself who welcomed the sexualization of children. Culture theorist and author Jackson Katz explains what is wrong with normalizing pornography: “It normalizes the men’s pleasure-taking as it sexualizes the woman’s degradation.”

http://www.wnd.com/2012/10/porn-addiction-at-crisis-level

Internet Pornography Addiction is it a social epidemic or something more

Pornography is the most popular type of content available online. Every single second, 372 internet users type pornographic search terms into various search engines.

With the internet being so prevalent and widely available all over the world, it has made viewing pornography much easier than in the past.

About 12% of the internet is pornographic websites and about 42% of internet users view porn. The largest sections of people that view these pornographic sites are men in the ages 35 to 49.

Perhaps nothing in the mental health world has been more hotly contested than the extent of pornography’s addictiveness. Addiction is a term often bandied about rather carelessly, as we often label too much of anything an addiction.

Medically, a substance is addictive if and only if an addict experiences both physical and psychological withdrawal symptoms when the substance is no longer available.

Another component of addiction is the desire for more and more of the substance to achieve the same “high.” While many users of pornography have experienced symptoms that would classify pornography as an addiction, there’s still no substantiated proof that porn addiction actual exists.

http://www.examiner.com/article/internet-pornography-addiction-is-it-a-social-epidemic-or-something-more

>>1163

The "addiction" part of noporn is easy if you fap. The porn withdrawals is the worst thing I have ever experienced in my life.

As for your question, your will is going to be strengthened when you start feeling the depression and it's unlikely that your dick will work after a certain point, putting you in forced nofap.

Nofap people tend to fuck up because they go on a rollercoaster of relapsing: nofap, pornfap, nofap, pornfap. It's insane. There's also no scientific or medical evidence to support nofap.

>>1164

I don't want to wait until my fucking dick stops working I want to quit NOW

>>1165

You can quit porn nigga. I'm just telling you that this is how you stop fapping.

>>1168

/pol/ go home. Porn was big in ancient Rome, and Greece.

>>1171

Made by jewish potters. Fuck off kike.

>>1171

There's no comparison between that and video/Internet porn.

>To bring the prefrontal lobes back into working order, a two-pronged attack is needed: (1) the old neural pathways must be starved, and (2) new neural pathways must be built and fed, increasing dopamine levels in a way that build up the prefrontal cortex.

So for the number one, don't fap or do fap but don't fap to porn? And for number 2? How do I build new neural pathways that give me dopamine in a way that builds up the prefrontal cortex?

>>1180

Shut up and drink your red bull, while posting on a Chan for 16 hours straight. Just not this Chan.

>>1168

That's actually a hilarious way to mess with the enemy. Broadcast pornography at them. That's hilarious, and actually a pretty harmless stunt. Have you watched Palestinian television? It's all kill all "blow yourself up" this and "the Jews and Christians" that. Porn is a clear improvement.

>>1197

>harmless

Maybe /nofap/ isn't for you.

Brain scans of porn addicts: what's wrong with this picture?

Teenagers' brains are especially plastic. Now, 24/7 access to internet porn is laying the foundation of their sexual tastes. In Beeban Kidron's InRealLife, a gripping film about the effects of the internet on teenagers, a 15-year-old boy of extraordinary honesty and courage articulates what is going on in the lives of millions of teen boys. He shows her the porn images that excite him and his friends, and describes how they have moulded their "real life" sexual activity. He says: "You'd try out a girl and get a perfect image of what you've watched on the internet … you'd want her to be exactly like the one you saw on the internet … I'm highly thankful to whoever made these websites, and that they're free, but in other senses it's ruined the whole sense of love. It hurts me because I find now it's so hard for me to actually find a connection to a girl."

The sexual tastes and the romantic longings of these boys have become dissociated from each other. Meanwhile, the girls have "downloaded" on to them the expectation that they play roles written by pornographers. Once, porn was used by teens to explore, prepare and relieve sexual tension, in anticipation of a real sexual relationship. Today, it supplants it.

In her book, Bunny Tales: Behind Closed Doors at the Playboy Mansion, Izabella St James, who was one of Hugh Hefner's former "official girlfriends", described sex with Hef. Hef, in his late 70s, would have sex twice a week, sometimes with four or more of his girlfriends at once, St James among them. He had novelty, variety, multiplicity and women willing to do what he pleased. At the end of the happy orgy, wrote St James, came "the grand finale: he masturbated while watching porn".

Here, the man who could actually live out the ultimate porn fantasy, with real porn stars, instead turned from their real flesh and touch, to the image on the screen. Now, I ask you, "what is wrong with this picture?".

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/26/brain-scans-porn-addicts-sexual-tastes

When you're getting off porn or gambling, you basically have to replace your addiction with another one. In other words, you need a healthy hobby.

Good video, required watching for /nofap/

>>1171

that was pre internet porn. jews and internet pornography are highly linked.

Speaking as a "sex addict" it was never about the sex. It was about the hunt. It's like gambling. I don't think your fapping addiction is all that related. You know what they call it when you have near daily sex with one partner? Well it's not called addiction.

>>1176

Between live sexual performances and video?

>>1145

Thank you for posting this, this was the kick in the ass I needed to drop that degenerate habit.

>>1145

Director Seymore Butts tells you the Truth about what really happens in Porn

http://www.menshealth.com/best-life/director-reveals-horrifying-truth-about-directing-porn

>>1267

Maybe it should be.

>all this withdrawl shit

I'm scared anons

>>1310

It's more scary when you don't do anything about it.