(Find the last part at the bottom half of this page)

Want to know how to repair the brain after watching too much porn?

Well if so, you've come to the right place because in this video series we talk about how porn changes the brain, but more importantly, how you can change it back.

In Part 1 / Part 2 we learned about how masturbating affects the brain, the negative effects of porn and about the four fundamental brain changes that takes place in porn addiction. 

This page consists of Part 3 / Part 4 where we will focus more on how to repair the brain after porn addiction.

Let's begin...

How To Repair Your Brain After Watching Porn

Welcome to part 3 in the video series about what porn does to your brain. If you just stumbled upon this video I urge you to go and watch part 1 and part 2 first and then come back to this one, because otherwise you won’t have a clue about what we're talking about here.

In the last video we talked about sensitization and hypofrontality and you learned that sensitization is a brain change that never really goes away even if you quit using whatever you are addicted to. 

Even if porn sensitization never goes away it's possible to live a good life after porn addiction...

But here it’s important to point out that even though the sensitized pathways remain, it is still possible to have a wonderful life after your addiction.

And, again, it’s not like you are doomed to a lifelong struggle with super powerful cravings either as the sensitization does become weaker, but it is true that you will probably always be a bit careful with triggers in order to not relapse back to your old behaviors. 

It's just means you are going to have to keep your eyes open...

I like the way Noah Church puts it...

Think back how it was trying to learn how to ride a bike. In the beginning it was very difficult, right? 

But once you mastered the skill it became easy. But even after you become very skillful at it, you still have to keep your eyes open in order to not crash into something. Well, it’s a bit like that with the sensitized pathway. 

Even though you get skillful at handling your trigger, you still have to keep your eyes open and take it seriously in order not to crash. That’s a pretty good analogy right there, so thank you Noah for that.

A hyperactive stress system in porn addiction...

Alright so the last brain change is a malfunctioning stress system

If you have developed real addiction related brain changes, in other words if you have a real addiction to something, you are going to be more sensitive to stress.

You are going to get stress out more easily than others and on top of that when you are getting stressed, you are also much more vulnerable to relapses.  

This is just one reason why people who watch a lot of porn often struggle with anxiety issues...

This brain change is yet another reason for why people who watch a lot of porn can develop anxiety problems  and a disrupted dopamine system, like we talked about in the post how fapping to porn changes your brain, can also cause anxiety problems. So here too we have another one of these nasty double whammies.

Your brain thinks that porn is vital for survival...

When you develop an addiction that addiction is going to hijack your dopamine system and because of that  your brain is going to believe that your addiction is vital for survival. 

This is also why people can get real withdrawal symptoms when they give up the porn, because the stress system can start protesting violently because your brain thinks that what you are doing is a threat to your survival.

When quitting porn you need to be prepared for the fact that it can get worse before it gets better due to withdrawals...

So, even though many porn addicts are struggling with stress and anxiety while they are addicted you need to know that it can get even worse for a period of time after quitting, before it calms down and you finally start to feel much, much better. A whole lot better than when you were using the porn.

It’s different for everyone, but this often takes about a month or two before the strongest withdrawals calm down. For some they go away quicker than that and for others they can last a bit longer.

The key thing to remember here is that after quitting it often gets worse before it gets better. 

Quitting porn and "The Flatline"...

And this includes your libido and erection problems, if porn made you struggle with that.

You can get a complete drop in libido, for a few weeks after quitting.

This period is called The Flatline in the porn addiction community, but just like with the withdrawal symptoms it’s important to know that this is just a temporary phase and that once you get out of it, the anxiety will go away and your libido will come back.

One the other side of the porn flatline lies energy and drive...

Not only will the withdrawal symptoms go away, but you will start to feel so much better than you did back when you were using the porn. 

And your libido will come back in a good way so that you  once again get to enjoy having a strong and healthy libido for real life people. 

Alright so now that we talked about the 4 addiction related brain changes to really drive home the point in a fun and educational way, like the great Gary Wilson said, this is what the four brain changes would say if they could speak…

**See video at the top for what the brain changes say**

The brain changes form a nasty package...

Yes, so when you combine all of this you really have a nasty package that works against your good intentions and for those of you who’ve been trying to quit for a while, now you also understand why it’s so easy to relapse back to using again. 

But you have to understand that it is fully possible to quit using porn. If I could do it, you can do it. And hundreds of thousands of others have done it as well.

You should be excited about discovering this...

And if you been struggling with a lot of the negative things I mentioned in part, and if porn is the cause of those negative things for you, then you should be excited about finding out about this. Because that means you can also get rid of them AND that you can’t even comprehend how good you can start feeling when you do so.

Every single day we hear this from guys who have given up the porn. Not just guys, but from more and more people, men and women, every single day.

Here’s just what one of those guys have to say…

**See video at the top for the quote**

Isn’t that beautiful?

Everyone is different...

Now, I do have to say that guys started seeing the benefits a bit sooner than most people, but that just goes to show that we are all different, just like I already mentioned.

And when it comes to myself, and the problems I was struggling with back in my porn days, if any of you are wondering, yes I am 100% recovered today and everything works just as it’s supposed to work, if you know what I mean.

How to heal the brain after porn...

Now, in order to reverse these brain changes the number one most important thing you should be doing is of course remove the very thing that caused the brain changes in the first place. 

In other words, you have to stop using the porn. Now, there are other things you can do in addition to that to help speed things up, and I’ll talk more about that in just a moment, but you have to understand that the main thing for you to understand is that if you want to reverse these brain changes you need to 

• Stop using porn

You can still have sex if when trying to overcome a porn addiction...

Now, you can still have normal sex with real life people and you can still do porn free masturbation and still recover from a porn addiction just fine. 

However, with a small caveat here, for those of you who are struggling with porn induced ED you should know that even though masturbation in and of itself can not cause ED, many guys tend to recover from PIED faster if they also take a temporary break from masturbation.

And once they regain their ability to have strong libido / erections with real life people some of them start masturbating again, but without the porn. You don’t want to go back to porn of course, because porn was the thing that caused all of the problems in the first place. 

If you need some helpful tips on how to quit using porn, you can transform your life in 13 weeks or less by Downloading my FREE guide below...

Now, if you are wondering if you are addicted or not, and you might need some helpful tips on how to quit then download my FREE 90 Day No Porn Advice And Tool Guide right now, by using the link under the video. In the end of that guide there is also a link to a porn addiction test you can take to find out where you stand. 

As someone who has been involved in the porn addiction community for more than 11 years by now, I’m somewhat of an expert on this so you should really consider getting it. It’s totally free so go ahead and download that guide right below...

 How To Heal Your Brain After Porn Addiction (Part 4)

Let’s jump in right away…

• Desensitization
• Sensitization
• Hypofronatlity
• Malfunctioning stress system

So let's start with desensitization as it’s the biggest one and since it’s also the one we can be the most proactive with and have the most options with. 

The number one thing to fix desensitization is of course to stop using the porn.

How to reverse desensitization after porn addiction

• Stop using porn
• Give up other addictions 
• Avoid using too much ‘supernormal stimuli’
• Sunshine
• Intermittent fasting
• Physical exercise
• Socializing
• CDP-choline
• Myo-Inositole
• Dopamine fasting

And another important thing for people to know here is also that if you have any other addictions going on, besides porn addiction and you still are engaging in those then your desensitized reward system won’t heal if you just give up the porn.

And as you remember, in part 2 of this video series I mentioned that it is possible to knock out some of your dopamine receptors even if you’re not addicted. 

Be careful with supernormal stimuli...

This is why you have to be careful and moderate your use of other supernormal stimuli as well.

And if you’re wondering what a supernormal stimuli is, it is basically something that is more stimulating for your brain’s reward system than what can naturally be found in nature. 

Things like…

• Video games
• Social media
• Online gambling
• Junk food
• Alcohol

So, for example, even if you’re not addicted to alcohol, but if you drink quite a lot of it, you should know that that really hammers your poor dopamine receptors. 

The same goes if you spend a huge amount of time playing super stimulating video games or if you spend many hours a day mindlessly scrolling on social media. 

Now, listen up here, it’s not like you can't do things like that in moderation and never reverse your desensitization, because you certainly can, but you should know that all those activities are highly dopamine driven.

And if go hard with them, you are definitely slowing down the healing and if you go really hard with them you simply won’t be able to upregulate those dopamine receptors. 

Alright so those are the things you should remove or be careful with, let’s now look at things you can add.

Feeling stuck? You can transform your life in 13 weeks or less by Downloading my FREE guide below...

Things to add to your life that will help reverse desensitization after porn use...

Sunshine...

Sunshine has actually been shown to help upregulate your dopamine receptors. Kind of a bummer that the winter is here right now, but in general  being outside when the weather is good is beneficial for your dopamine system.

Intermittent fasting...

Intermittent fasting has also been shown to help increase the number of your dopamine receptors.

Physical exercise...

Physical exercise as well and especially high intensity interval training. Now since I know many of the guys out there are willing to do pretty much anything to recover I have to put a warning here, never take any of these to the extremes because you can hurt yourself if you do. That goes for all of them so education yourself on them and use your head here. 

Cold showers...

Cold showers have also been shown to increase both dopamine and your dopamine receptors and I seriously believe you can speed up the recovery of your desensitized dopamine system by regularly taking them.

Socializing...

Socializing could potentially also help a bit with your dopamine receptors, especially if you somehow manage to win some competition or win something else or somehow climb in status in that particular setting and group of people.

Biology has made it so that you will get a small reward by getting a few more of those small dopamine receptors. Remember, desensitization means you have less of those receptors, so getting more of them is exactly what we want.  

Supplements...

Some supplements that may help create a few more dopamine receptors are CDP-Choline and Myo-inositol.

Dopamine fasting...

And probably the number one most effective thing you can do to help speed up the recovery is implementing different dopamine fasting protocols from time to time. It's impossible to say just how much faster you can recover by doing this, but from all the things I’ve seen and experienced I’d say it’s probably quite significant.

Now, this video is already going to get very long so I won’t go into detail about exactly how to do this, but if you want to know more about this I do have a whole online course about all kinds of different ways of doing dopamine fasting, and the best of of doing different protocols.

You can find a link to that course by clicking here right now

How to reverse a malfunctioning stress system after porn addiction...

But I don’t want to prompt my stuff in this video series so I’ll just leave it at that and we will quickly move on toe’ the next one which is the malfunctional stress system.

Alright, so the stress system then...

Well, again the number one most important thing is to quit the porn.

• Stop using porn!
• Physical exercise

The second one is going to be physical exercise and with this brain change zone 2 cardio seems to be the most effective one for calming your anxiety down.

If you don’t know what zone two cardio is then you can easily google it.

Feeling stuck? You can transform your life in 13 weeks or less by Downloading my FREE guide below...

And I know what I’m about to say next is going to sound strange to some of you, but I’m being serious here. The third point is...

• Accept that it’s going to take some time for this one to reverse. 

The reason for why this is important is because when it comes to things like anxiety then if you resist that negative feeling, or even if you start asking yourself questions like, “why do I have to feel like this?” or “how long will this last?” then you should know that you are now making your situation twice as bad. 

It is like the Buddha said...*see video for quote*

So, what I mean by this is that if your porn addiction has caused  a malfunctioning stress system with anxiety as a result, then that’s the first arrow, but you can avoid the pain of the second arrow by not resisting and asking yourself these kinds of questions. 

So, other than this there’s not much more you can do about this brain change, than to let it take the time it needs. 

How to reverse hypofrontality after having watched too much porn...

And here two the number one things is of course to---

• Stop using porn
• Meditation
• Physical exercise
• Train your "no go muscle"

Meditation...

And the second most effective thing is meditation.

Yes, there are many studies out there showing how people who meditate regularly have a much better functioning prefrontal cortex and I fully believe you can help speed up this brain change by doing a lot of meditation.

Physical exercise...

And physical exercise is also going to help here. As you remember, hypofrontality means less blood flow to your PFC and physical exercise helps to increase blood flow to your brain. 

Train your "no go" muscle...

The third thing you can do here is to train your “No go muscle”. In other words, practice not doing something you have an urge to do. For example, you’re sitting at your kitchen table and you hear that you get a notification on your phone and you instantly get an urge to check what it is.

Well you can practice your “no go muscle” by making yourself wait for 10 minutes or so before you check it. This sounds simple, but it really works on building a stronger PFC.

Same thing when you’re doing physical exercise, for example. Let’s say you’re out running. It’s pretty painful and after a while you will, naturally, get an urge to just stop.

Well, if you ignore that urge and you keep on going a few more minutes then you are also training this part of your brain. 

Never take anything to the extremes...

Now, warning here, this doesn’t mean you should take physical exercise to the extremes because you can really hurt yourself by doing that, and also, if you start overtraining you are NOT going to do your brain any favor, but can always ignore that urge to stop running at least 3 or 4 times before you actually listen to it.

At least every second time you're out on the jogging track. 

The same thing goes if you’re taking a cold shower. If you override the first urge to turn off the water you are training this part of the brain.

Sensitization…

Again, the number one thing to do for you here is to stop using the porn.

And then, with this brain change unfortunately there’s not much else you can do about this, lifelong brain change, other than to

• Quit using porn
• Don’t  feed the addiction
• Avoid porn substitutes

So, for example, let’s say you are trying to go for porn use in moderation.

Watching porn in moderation is going to feed the sensitized porn pathways in your brain...

Well, if it really is the case that you have developed a real addiction to porn, then going for moderation is probably not going to work, because every time you’re using it, you are feeding these sensitized pathways, and by doing so you never allow them to become weaker and fall asleep.

Avoid porn substitutes...

And also avoid different kinds of porn substitutes, because they also feed the sensitized porn pathways in your brain and will prevent them from becoming weaker. And by porn substitutes I mean any form of digital activity you do in order to arouse yourself sexually.

So for example, let’s say you’re getting a bit turned on by these ASMR whispering videos, perhaps with a bit of dirty talk in them, well you should know that then using things like that for you is definitely going to keep those sensitized porn pathways alive and strong. Which is exactly what we want to avoid, if we want to overcome a porn addiction.

Whenever in doubt, consider this...

So when it comes to sexual things, whenever in doubt, say yes to real life people and no to artificial digital arousing stuff. 

This is Scandinavian Bob signing out for today, and as always I wish you all the best on your journey to become the strongest version of yourself.

Related posts...

• How does masturbation to porn affect the brain?
• How to heal your brain after pornography use