nofap - your brain on porn (some of the excerpts are taken from my review on amazon)

Humans have evolved from animals.. We humans have been here for more than 100,000 years and we have been living in civilizations since 10,000 years.. And all that time, we have tried to accomplish only one thing, HOW NOT TO BE ANIMALS..

We still have the same mind that our ancestors had 10,000 years ago.. Our brain was not built for all the extreme porn that we can see at just one click.. Human brain WAS complicated subject until the dawn of 21st century, NOT ANYMORE.. We know more about our brain in just 5 years, than we ever knew in 200 years.. Our brain is like an intricate network of highways, the more we use it, the stronger it gets.. That is how habits are developed.. Any new habit takes 66+ days to develop(more and more neuron paths in our brain work together to form a habit).. Habit is mild form of addiction.. we can change habits with some efforts but addictions are tough to break (actually, we can never break addictions).. I talked about highways in brain, we can make highways, but we cannot break highways.. Though, it is up to us if we don't want to use the highways.. In that case, after some months(or a year), that highway will get so dirty that we will feel tough to go through it again..

Porn is like any other habit viz. running, waking up early, etc. But what makes it addictive like smoking and cocaine is its effect on our brain.. It is easy to stop smoking but tough to leave porn.. Habits and addiction have a simple difference - addiction joins the habit with our basic "risk and reward" system..
Humans have two very basic motivation(even animals have it) - SEX(for survival of species) and FOOD(for survival of body).. porn exploits our most basic motivation SEX by tricking our brain into thinking that we are having sex when we are actually NOT..

Porn has been proved to effect human brain in the most subtle yet devastating way. But there is very less research available in this area. Reason? people are ashamed to talk about it, magazines say that masturbation is normal. Porn is a 100 Billion dollar industry, people think that it is normal and natural.. And who said that all natural things are normal?
I am here to tell you that porn is not normal and masturbation is not normal either..

Lets talk about logical fallacies(mistakes in thought process) that stops us from making correct decisions..

1. Bandwagon Effect - Though we're often unconscious of it, we love to go with the flow of the crowd. people say porn is normal, we accept it and feel good about watching porn.
2. Observational Selection Bias - when we buy red colored car, we see red cars everywhere. our brain tricks us into ignoring all the ill effects of porn because it likes porn.
3. Media Bias - when popular media says something, we accept it.. that magazine , online article , tv news said that masturbation is good - so it is good.(media is built with people who don't give two shit about you and me, they just care about their TRP)
4. self bias - when people assume that they are special and bad things can't happen to them.. others maybe addicted to porn, not me - i just watch porn once a week.(try leaving porn and masturbation for one month and you will know)
5. Ingroup Bias - everyone is falling in the well, i should fall too.. everyone in my friend group is watching porn, and nothing happened to them - it is normal - i should watch too.

What does it mean for you?
It is not simple by any means but rewards are amazing. Porn is just like any other habit and you can put it behind you through some simple exercises and being cautious. porn makes you numb and emotionally unavailable. for some emotional people, it causes them to feel ashamed all the time.

Here is a testimony from one of the ex-addict -
"During the heights of my porn addiction, I never looked forward to much of anything: dreaded going to work, and never saw socializing with friends and family as all that great, especially in comparison to my porn rituals, which gave me more pleasure and stimulation than anything else. With the addiction gone, little things make me really happy. I find myself laughing often, smiling for no real reason, and just being in good spirits all around."

I have read about the methods and techniques to apply this in my life, do comment and let me know if you like these kinds of articles or you want to read an in-depth article about it.