What Happens When You Stop Watching Porn? | How to Quit it.
“What happens when you stop watching porn?” Most of us are curious to know the answer.
In a single sentence, you will achieve your dreams, build wealth, improve your physique, become successful, and live a happy and satisfying life.
But how?
Ofcourse, if I only stopped watching porn, all those things would not happen. Right?
I mean, how will I become rich if I stop watching porn?
How will I achieve my dreams if I quit porn?
Or How will I get the desired person I love?
This doesn’t make any sense.
These few questions pop up in our heads when we think about what happens if we stop watching porn.
After reading this article, these questions will disappear.
Let’s begin.
1. Building a solid character by stop watching internet pornography
Habits are powerful because habits define our actions. Actions define our character.
Once you develop a bad habit like watching porn, it becomes very difficult to break because it is a huge source of short-term pleasure.
Again, if you realize porn is bad and want to quit but fail multiple times, which most of us do, it only implies the signs of porn addiction.
We feel weak from within and start to develop self-loathing because we depend on something else for our happiness.
Once people depend on external factors for happiness, like alcohol, drugs, validation, and acceptance from others, we lose our freedom.
We feel caged. A caged person can never be happy.
Since we are caged, it starts affecting other areas of our life, like chasing our dreams, goals, health, the person we love, and more.
We start believing that we are unlucky and not good enough and that god doesn’t love us.
Once you stop your porn habit, you start building a solid character.
You may ask, “how?”
Your personal character develops when you perform actions and do the right things despite the emotions you feel.
The harder the things are to do, the greater love you will develop for yourself.
Trying to stop watching porn may be easy for a few people, but I am here to say it is one of the most difficult things to do
Here are some of the reasons why it is difficult to stop watching porn:
A. Huge source of temporary pleasure
Watching porn is a huge source of temporary pleasure because it relates to sex and novelty.
Once something is related to sex and novelty, it becomes of great importance to our brain because our brain knows sex is related to survival.
In any activity related to survival, the brain releases happy hormones to build habits quickly so that we can perform them repeatedly.
This is why we like fast food, which is packed with high calories.
We like playing video games, which gives a false sense of achievement and watching porn, where our fantasy comes true.
B. It’s free and easily available
Porn sites are easily available to us with the help of the fast internet. According to research, most teens, fourteen or fifteen, view porn sites on their phones and computers.
The authorities try to block these contents using porn blockers or banning sites. Still, these over-enthusiastic people find ways to watch them.
People who try to quit cannot easily do so because of its availability. It’s all there on the tip of your finger.
C. Ignorance and shame
Most of the time, people don’t even know why their sex life is degrading, why there is sexual dysfunctioning, and why they have mental health issues.
Moreover, the people who know about it don’t want to discuss this with anyone because they feel shame.
Once you fight the compulsive urge to watch porn and become successful in every fight, you start developing your character.
You feel proud of yourself, and you start to believe that you are better than who you think you are.
You are always better than who you think you are.
If you fail, it’s ok. Get up and start your journey again. It may take weeks, months, years, or even a couple of years, but you will become something else through the journey.
2. Improve mental health and self-confidence
Accomplishment improves your self-confidence.
I am not talking about the final achievements like quitting porn for good or having that dream job you have been after for so long.
No, I am talking about the struggles with porn.
Every time you do what is right, rather than surrendering to the urge to do something you don’t want to do, you start building self-confidence and better mental health.
When you are in nofap, you try to control your urge to watch porn, and most of the time, you fail, and the compulsive urges win.
You feel low and curse yourself for being weak.
But that’s not how it is.
The more you fail, the more you can prepare yourself for the upcoming battle.
It is a good thing that there is something to fight for because that’s how you can become mentally strong.
You will find better ways to stop pornography addiction that suits you.
3. Better sex life and better relationships
People have noticed a significant improvement in their relationships and moods after they stop watching porn.
Their compulsive sexual behaviors come under control, and they start finding joy while spending time with their life partners.
They don’t visualize women as objects anymore, their erectile dysfunction disappears, and they find happiness in the relationship.
Why does this happen?
Is it only because of semen retention, or is it because of psychological improvement?
The answer is both.
Porn rewires our brains regarding sex. We start to see women as objects of desire, and often consciously or unconsciously, we try to live in our fantasy world created by pornography.
The dopamine hit in the world of fantasy porn is much greater than the real sex.
The viewer starts losing interest in their daily sex life; they detach themselves from real life and only find satisfaction in porn.
4. Higher productivity once you quit porn
Your productivity improves once you start quitting porn.
This happens because of your semen retention and your improved image of yourself.
Once you push yourself beyond your beliefs and limits, you find freedom.
The limiting beliefs you have regarding yourself start to break because you are moving forward according to your will. No one is forcing you.
Nothing is there to stop you; pornography cannot stop you or any other addiction.
You will notice the change within a week of nofap.
5. Focus and concentration improves as your mental health improves.
Many of you will not agree with this point because you may experience stress and brain fog after quitting porn.
But these are just withdrawal symptoms.
Your brain always tries to protect whatever it thinks is important.
It doesn’t differentiate between good and bad activity; it only knows which activity gives pleasure and pain.
It avoids pain and tries to attract pleasure. I am talking about the subconscious mind.
The conscious mind knows the difference.
Therefore, once you start quitting pornography, it tries all its tricks to bring you back to your older self.
You will experience brain fog in nofap, where you can’t think clearly, and cannot focus and concentrate, which is one of the effects of porn.
You will feel stressed, and the brain will remind you that porn can relieve stress.
It will say to watch just one time, and you can continue again from tomorrow.
But, it is that point in time where you must continue. It is that situation or circumstance that matters the most.
Once you don’t give in to porn, you become strong. You repeat this, and you become stronger.
A rough timeline is given below after quitting porn for 90 days
- Day 1 to 7, your motivation and productivity will go up. You will feel good within and enjoy the little things in life.
- Day 8-21, your productivity and mood will improve even more. There will be dark and stressful days, but overall it will be good.
- Day 22-40, you may experience your nofap flatline. In this period, you will lose interest and motivation in most things.
- Day 40-60, you may suffer from brain fog. Perhaps, you will read a sentence over and over again to understand. It may affect your memory loss.
- Day 60-90, your emotions will start to balance. Sometimes, you will be overjoyed, and sometimes you will experience deep sadness that will make you cry.
Remember, the timeline will not be the same for everyone. It also depends on your viewing hours.
If you have watched porn for over a decade, it will take more than a year to bring your dopamine level back to normal.
How to quit Porn?
You cannot quit porn with a porn blocker or other external sources.
You will find a way to go back to it.
The way to quit watching porn is through your character development.
1. Start with your health
One of the best ways to quit a bad habit is to develop a new one that gives you satisfaction.
In my case, I work out and feel good about myself.
The more I feel good about myself, the stronger I become in controlling my urges to watch porn.
Your body is a representation of your lifestyle.
You can see a person, and by his appearance, you can understand a lot about them.
Is he a disciplined person? Does he make his bed in the morning, fulfill his responsibilities, etc.?
You don’t need to force yourself to do these every day.
Once you start improving your life in one area, it will also affect other areas.
2. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
In this ACT therapy, a person learns to accept their deeper emotions.
They don’t need to stop, fight back or avoid their thoughts or deep feelings. Instead, they accept it and move forward with their life.
Once they have this understanding, a person accepts their emotions and thoughts and makes necessary changes despite the negative feeling they experience.
They understand that running away from the problem is not the solution; facing and solving the problem is.
So, they will still go to their reunion where everyone is successful, and they are not; they will hit the gym no matter how much they don’t feel like doing it, and they will ask for help no matter how uncomfortable it will make them feel.
Consult a psychologist for a better understanding of this therapy.
3. Do it for a day
You don’t need to quit porn for your whole life. You need to quit only for today.
Just do it for a day.
Once you have this mindset, you can move forward despite urges to watch porn.
In good times, when you feel motivated and sound, it is easy to stay away from porn.
Once the motivation wears off and urges return, it becomes challenging to control yourself.
Remember, it is this moment that counts the most for your character development.
Go and sleep, go outside and eat good food, play games, talk to somebody and do whatever you feel like doing, but you stop yourself from watching porn for only that moment.
Because you only need to do it for a day. Only for today.
Once you identify these ‘moments’ when you are about to stray away from your plans, you become aware of your actions and can control yourself.
This will take time because developing good habits and changing one’s life is an intentional life.
You cannot quit porn and develop a healthy habit by accident.
You need to live a highly intentional life.
4. Do the basics
One of the most important things to improve one’s character is to focus not only on priorities but also on their basics.
You cannot become disciplined in only one area of your life.
You cannot go to the gym and take cold showers every day when you don’t make your bed in the morning, keep your room clean, or wash your clothes.
Don’t expect to quit porn if you are watching Netflix all day and avoiding the tasks that must be completed on time.
You cannot have a dual character.
Also Read – Again no motivation to work? You should read this.
Summary
The side effects of porn can be dangerous.
Starting with erectile dysfunction to losing interest in your spouse and work are the alarming effects of pornography.
A decade ago, no one was aware of this effect. Now, it is growing, and people are sharing their stories in nofap forums.
Ofcourse, some people don’t believe in it, and it’s absolutely fine.
But, if you are experiencing the same as mentioned above, you can start quitting porn and see the changes yourself.
I hope this article helps a little.
Best
Ahbab
