How Porn Affects Dopamine: A Digital Drug
Dopamine is a chemical released in the brain that makes you feel good. It acts as an integral part of your brain’s natural reward system. Anything that gives you pleasure will trigger a release of dopamine within your brain. Dopamine builds reward pathways in your brain, leading you to want to do these activities more.
Unhealthy stimulants such as drugs or porn can spike your dopamine to unnaturally high levels which can lead to problems like addiction.
Healthy dopamine production comes from activities such as:
Going on a run
Cooking a nice meal
Or going to a fun social event
Sex with your spouse
Healthy dopamine comes from activities that require effort. This is called “delayed gratification”. Think about what it takes to make a nice meal.
Find a recipe
Write a grocery list
Travel to the grocery store
Find and pay for the groceries
Travel home
Unload your groceries
Prepare the food
Cook the food
Plate the meal
Eat the meal
That is a lot of steps to eat the meal you were thinking about finally. This is a good thing! You worked hard for it and you will be rewarded with a healthy sense of pleasure and satisfaction.
Porn and Dopamine: A Deadly “Relationship”
The unhealthy side of dopamine can destroy your brain. When you partake in supernormal stimulants, like cocaine or heroin, dopamine skyrockets above normal ranges.
Spiked levels of dopamine are often followed by sudden crashes and cravings for more thrills. Indulging repeatedly may lead to tolerance, addiction, and, ultimately, anxiety and depression.
Pornography is a supernormal stimulus or an exaggerated version of a stimulus with an existing response tendency.
Think back to the example I gave about cooking a meal. And now let’s look at an example of building a traditional romantic relationship.
You must first build the courage to ask a girl out on a date. Plan out the date. Attend the date. Build a connection with good social skills. Ask for a second date if it's going well. Repeat. Over time you’ll start spending more time with one another and giving more of your time and effort to the relationship. The reward here is connection. Which triggers dopamine.
The Easy Road: Porn
Watching porn takes little to no effort. This is what it takes.
Type a website into your browser.
Immediately access an unlimited number of sexual partners (no effort needed)
It doesn’t take a genius to look at this and understand that something is wrong.
When you watch porn you experience a MAJOR spike in dopamine that no natural sexual experience can compete with. This high can last for a very long time if you continue to watch porn for lengthy sessions.
Furthermore, this is happening through the observation of sex, not the engagement in it.
Dr. Andrew Huberman says,
“Extreme pornography…extreme experiences (like bungy jumping) those set a threshold for dopamine release… The higher the dopamine peak, the bigger the drop afterward…and it’s not that you drop to baseline, you drop below baseline.”
What Happens To Your Brain If You Take A Break From Porn? - Andrew Huberman
In Dr. Trish Leigh’s video (below), she speaks about how initial exposure to pornography often leads to a substantial dopamine rush, reconfiguring the brain's expectation for pleasure levels, especially if the exposure happens at a young age.
This can lead to dopamine depletion. The constant exposure to pornography creates a 'neo-homeostasis' in the brain, expecting high dopamine levels that are unnatural and unsustainable. This recalibration can hijack the brain's reward system, leading to a growing desire for the 'easy' dopamine hit provided by pornography.
Then, real-world activities and pleasures begin to not feel as pleasurable as they once did. This is because you have become desensitized to normal levels of dopamine and require abnormal spikes or“hits” to feel that same amount of pleasure.
Addiction
Addiction happens because the viewer of porn receives a spike in dopamine to a high peak that feels good. Your body desires this “reward” because your system now understands you can get a highly pleasurable feeling in a very short amount of time with no effort.
After the spike in dopamine into your frontal cortex, your dopamine drops below baseline. This triggers the desire for another peak to feel good again. This is how addiction begins.
Your body now desires something that it can get nowhere else.
Your brain now links porn and masturbation to a high amount of pleasure that you cannot get anywhere else. This makes it difficult to stop.
How porn affects your life
Reduced Sensitivity to Natural Rewards: Overstimulation of dopamine receptors can make everyday pleasures and rewards less satisfying. This is because the brain adapts to high levels of dopamine by reducing its receptors, which diminishes the impact of natural sources of dopamine, such as social interactions, hobbies, and food.
Increased Tolerance and Dependence: As the brain becomes accustomed to the high levels of dopamine produced by porn, it requires more of the same to achieve the same level of pleasure or relief, leading to increased consumption or engagement in the addictive behavior.
Withdrawal Symptoms: When the addictive behavior is stopped or the substance is no longer used, dopamine levels can drop significantly, leading to withdrawal symptoms. These can include depression, irritability, fatigue, and a lack of pleasure in daily activities.
Impaired Decision-Making and Self-Control: The prefrontal cortex, which is involved in decision-making and impulse control, can also be affected by addiction. This can result in difficulty making decisions, and managing impulses, and may lead to engaging in risky behaviors.
Mood Disorders: There's a strong link between addiction and mood disorders like depression and anxiety. Changes in the dopamine system, as well as other parts of the brain affected by addiction, can exacerbate these conditions.
Social and Relationship Problems: Addiction can lead to a breakdown in social relationships, as the addictive behavior takes precedence over social obligations and interpersonal connections.
Conclusion
Porn is a supernormal stimulus that increases your dopamine to abnormal levels. This can ruin your reward system because you no longer have a healthy baseline level of dopamine. This often leads to addiction because the user's desires spike over and over again.
Disclaimer: I am not a scientist. I study the science and the data around pornography because I believe it is a dangerous behavior destroying the lives of men around the world.
