What does the post-porn emotional rebound look like?
Guys who give up porn often report unexpected changes, such as improved sexual performance and satisfaction, increased confidence and desire to socialize, better concentration, more satisfying romantic relationships and so forth. Yet they also frequently remark on another change: They feel more emotion. This is often both welcome and unnerving at first. Here are some self-reports from guys experimenting with giving up porn:
Guy: “I never even thought about things like grief until I started this experiment. These emotions and feelings surfacing from stopping porn have shown me that I am a much more coherent and emotional person than I thought. It has been crucial to come across these feelings.”
The change can be both disconcerting and challenging:
Another guy: “From unexplainable happiness to crippling sorrow, I now experience emotions like never before. Masturbation to porn had numbed these extremes, leaving me dull and complacent.”
Another guy: “What most people don’t seem to be acknowledging, is that you will encounter emotions you haven’t felt for years, maybe never. Girls that didn’t matter to you before will all of a sudden be the centerpiece to your f—-king life. That test you failed? You don’t blow it off; you worry about your grade; you worry about the final coming up in two weeks. And this is good; hell it’s great. This is the suffering that you learn from, that grows you as a person. But it will hurt. At points you’ll feel sad, confused maybe even depressed. But don’t fall into that trap. Emotions pass, memories fade, and you will come out stronger for it. Remember, you have years of emotional growth and maturity to come into. It might not be easy, you may not feel comfortable, but it is worth it.”
This change doesn’t happen overnight, as this guy discovered:
“I used to be a very emotional and loving person before I started porn. For 3 years, until last month, I had been beating my meat to porn for 2 to 3 hours on average. It has made me insensitive to love and emotions. I feel like a zombie with no emotions! I have gone for maximum of 20 days without masturbation to porn. Now, quite a few girls are approaching me. But my biggest worry is that I can’t feel love (butterflies in the stomach) for them. Hence, I myself have to back off, as I feel that I wouldn’t be able to give them love. When will I start feeling love again? Please someone help me on this!!! I still can’t feel anything.”
What’s going on?
One guy explained:
“Porn, at its core, is much like any other addictive substance or behavior. It DOES numb your pain, but therein lies the problem. You see, you can’t selectively numb an emotion or feeling without numbing every other emotion and feeling. So even though these things dull the sting of vulnerability, loneliness, sadness, disappointment and fear, they also dull the positive range of emotions like happiness, hope, joy and love.”
Precisely how does it numb your emotions? Our brains evolved to strive for homeostasis. If we’re bombarded with intense stimulation they adjust. For example, they mute neural signals by changing nerve cell receptor levels for key neurotransmitters. Chronic overstimulation can thus lead to numbness.
By the same token, removing the overstimulation feels rotten at first (because daily life seems even more dull and meaningless), but gradually the numbness reverses itself. Colors return and enthusiasm increases.
Doug Lisle explains this brilliantly in his TEDx talk: The Pleasure Trap. He gives examples of how overeaters can reverse food cravings with periods of fasting or juice-only. The same principle of increasing sensitivity by avoiding overstimulation applies to all natural rewards, including masturbation to Internet porn. (Giving up masturbation to porn to experience this improvement is often called “rebooting.”)
An excellent website, which thoroughly explains the principles and techniques behind “changing your set point” in order to feel more balance and satisfaction, is Todd Becker’s www.gettingstronger.org. Listen to a radio interview with Todd.
Depression research also sheds light on this phenomenon of numbed emotions caused by overconsumption of stimulation, and we’ll look at this in more depth in a future post. For now, we’ll just point out that research reveals that dopamine supplies the motivation to respond to all salient stimuli, so when it’s low, less negative and positive emotional reactions are to be expected—because nothing feels worth bothering about.
Research sometimes misses the mark
Researchers have already turned up evidence of “desensitization” (numbed activation of the brain’s reward circuitry) in Internet addicts, food addicts and gambling addicts. In fact, all behavioral addictions share the same fundamental brain changes, of which desensitization is only one.
However, ignoring those findings entirely, SPAN Lab, headed by a sexologist, tested problematic porn users via self-reports of emotional responses to both a 3-minute sexual film and another film. Unsurprisingly, subjects without problems controlling porn use reported a wider range of simultaneous emotions than those with difficulty controlling porn use. Curiously, the researchers offered no explanation for the difference. Instead they argued that porn addicts should have shown a wider “co-activation” of emotions (without much theoretical basis for this hypothesis), and implied their decreased emotional range was proof that porn users were not addicts. (Huh?)
The reality is that numbed brains have less reaction to stimuli—unless, of course, those stimuli are precise cues for the viewer’s particular addiction (known by addiction neuroscientists as sensitization). Also, mood can actually affect how accurately someone perceives certain colors, and this is believed to be related to the brain’s dopamine regulation.
What does it mean to be human? To be male?
Surely individual humans naturally express many different levels of sensitivity. However, it’s also evident from the word’s great art that human males apparently evolved to have a fairly wide emotional range.
Is our current conception of “normal male emotional health” distorted by the fact that heavy use of Internet porn is the norm among many men? Might today’s guys be showing us something less than their innate range of emotions simply because their brains have “down-regulated” in response to today’s hyper-erotic online smörgåsbords? (Women are beginning to report the same issues, by the way.)
Another guy: “Suddenly I’m 24, living alone, relatively but not insanely unhappy, not a failure but definitely not a success either. My life was outrageously comfortable—and totally empty. Nothing phased me. When thoughts would start nagging me about writing that novel I had brewing in the back of my mind, about running that marathon I’ve always wanted to run, about all the books I wanted to read, people to meet, in short, life to live—I would fap. “I’ll start tomorrow; for now I’ll fap.” You all know how it goes. It’s such a short, sweet, and easy way to fill that empty cup inside of you…. felt almost nothing. I lived in a huge, young, exciting city—and didn’t really give a f—k. Occasionally I would feel anxiety or outright fear (when my fapping started contributing to my not getting work done), and occasionally a sort of elation. But I had become a lump. Everything bored me in comparison with fapping. Terrifyingly, sex sometimes was inferior to fapping.”
Here are comments from several recovered guys:
First guy: “Excessive porn viewing and masturbation dampened my ability to feel emotions to their fullest. I had my first good cry in several years after about ten days into one of my early streaks. Since then, I’ve cried many times – while listening to music, reading a story, thinking about people in my life, even beautiful ideas can make me emotional. This wasn’t the case before. For as long as I can remember, I had been melancholy and generally unaffected by the world around me. Certain things were powerful enough to cut through the haze I lived in, but mostly I floated. I was uncomfortably numb. The reversal of this has been one of the more profound changes I’ve seen since quitting, and has been particularly rewarding. Emotional sensitivity has given rise to increasingly frequent bursts of creativity. Being moved by something you’ve created is truly rewarding, and incredibly reinforcing. I’ve written more music that I’m actually proud of in the last few months than I have in the previous four years.”
Second guy: “Among the many things that have improved in my life since quitting porn has been an unexpected increase in my empathy for others. As a general rule, I care about other people but I nevertheless don’t have much empathy or ability to understand or share what other people are feeling. When something bad happens to someone else, I can logically accept that they might be feeling bad about it but I don’t really feel bad myself. Over the past few months, though, I’ve actually found myself to be much more sensitive about other peoples’ struggles and I’ve actually “felt their pain” in a way that I never really have before. I have found myself grieving with others a little bit, and I’ve even been able to express my concern in ways that I never would have before.”
Third guy: “When I was watching porn, I was a very ineffective member of society. I did not give 2 hoots about the following: Work, Family, Debt, Women’s feelings, The prospect of child-rearing (it just seemed ridiculous to me – why would anyone have kids?). The dangers of addictive drugs, Voting & politics, My local community, Patriotism. I mean, I would be able to write long Reddit posts on why something was right or wrong, and philosophize endlessly. But when it came to action, I was a dead agent. If any reasonable proportion of guys are anything like I was, then we, as a civilization, are in pretty big trouble. There is a historical myth that the Roman Empire fell due to the subtle effects of lead poisoning – a side effect of their impressive new lead plumbing technology. Whether this is true or not is not relevant to the point. What is relevant is the analogy to today’s computer monitors, which have plumbed their way into every home and every bedroom, pumping the Internet into brains.”
Fourth guy: “Rebooting (quitting porn) brings us into better ‘alignment’ in more ways than just being able to sport an impressive boner. It reconnects humanity at a deeper level, and I’ll even go so far as to say that as the whole rebooting thing gathers momentum, there’s going to be quite a shift in global consciousness happening because of it.”
In short, if individuals are inadvertently numbing their emotions simply by overstimulating their brains, wouldn’t it be good for this to be common knowledge? It would permit more informed choices, and perhaps encourage some timely experimentation. One might choose to, say, give up Internet porn for a few months just to see how life looks at a different neural “set point.”
The results of such an experiment surprised this guy:
“What I felt before and after quitting:
- Life is dull, nowhere to go and life’s a waste.
- Porn is my world, girls are just sex toys.
- There nothing called Love; there’s one universal truth i.e., LUST.
- All relations and bondings are false.
- Everyone faps so what’s the problem if I do too?!
- Porn is SEX EDUCATION (LOL this was actually told to me when I saw my first porn clip).
After:
- Life is not only colorful but those colours are brighter than an HD screen; all directions are yours, just take a step; life was actually wasted when fapping 😛
- Porn is a world for those who never want to be part of “real” world and girls are those beautiful creatures who can brighten your world.
- There’s only one universal truth…LOVE, LOVE AND JUST LOVE.
- Relations and bondings separate humans from most animals.
- LOL again, if porn is really sex education I should have earned a doctorate by now.
Trust me guys, these 90 days had many ups and downs, but I never, ever thought there could be such amazing and wonderful days in my life.”
Given the ubiquity of heavy Internet porn use, the untapped potential for more satisfying intimate relationships and fuller lives could be enormous. See what you think as you read through these last self-reports:
Another guy: “[Day 36] I definitely feel emotions I have not felt in ages. It was like porn had sucked a lot of passion out of my life. I started feeling fresh feelings again. My erections got a lot harder…. I feel a lot more natural when talking to people, and I have fewer mood swings. I appreciate girls a lot more, and I feel a need to talk to them for more than just sex. The thing that made me change was that watching porn can hinder me from getting laid in real life. It can make me antisocial. It rewards antisocial behavior.”
Another guy: “[Day 36] I definitely feel emotions I have not felt in ages. It was like porn had sucked a lot of passion out of my life. I started feeling fresh feelings again. My erections got a lot harder…. I feel a lot more natural when talking to people, and I have fewer mood swings. I appreciate girls a lot more, and I feel a need to talk to them for more than just sex. The thing that made me change was that watching porn can hinder me from getting laid in real life. It can make me antisocial. It rewards antisocial behavior.”Another guy: “[Age 17] I started masturbating when I was 13 years old and never looked back. I would say I fapped at least once a day over the past 4 years. It has robbed me of feeling love, patience, happiness, and a whole slew of emotions. I can now talk to girls with ease and I’m obsessed with females in general. It is finally making sense how the whole relationship thing works, being that I never before had a desire to have a SO.”
This is the best benefit of NF, when your mind is shifting from the conditioned state to a more natural state, even if it’s for a week, or a day. When you open the door to the world, you want everything to be real; you don’t want pictures or videos, you want real skin, real interactions. You don’t want instant self-gratification, your addicted brain wants that, but beneath the voice of this selfish asshole you want more, and you are more than that. LINK
Great thread on how much better eye contact is when unhooked from porn: It’s in the eyes
I was on my first date since I started my new streak. It was a first date. I could feel like my eyes were connecting in to her soul. It was as if I could communicate with here through the eyes. She said to me “shit your eyes” I said what “it’s like they can penetrate in to me” she just smiled. It’s like both felt this eye interaction. It’s like there is some magic. I have had this reaction before but only when on longer streaks. Why would I want life to be as shitty when I can have this. It would be interesting if someone could do an eye related study regarding nofap. I’m living now.. before I was a zombie ..
Another guy: “When you fap for a long time, you don’t quite feel empathetic about anything really, or let me say it this way: There is only this black/white scheme of emotions. You are just normal or really sad. At least this was the case for me. Also, I numbed down on emotions in general. It really hit me like a ton of bricks when all these feelings came back into my life! Quick example: Sometimes I would just stand there in the middle of the walkway and would look upwards in the sky and smile like a madman, and on other occasions I just sat in my room and cried like a bitch because I heard a sad song.”
Another guy: “I’m more emotional: Before, whenever I used porn I would be emotionally numb. I’ve never felt more emotional than in this week. I felt anger, pain, love, relief, happiness. I cried a lot and I smiled a lot. I felt how a human being is supposed to feel.”
Another guy: “(Day 90) I’m 45, with a 15-year PMO habit … Among the main reasons for my separation were persistent ED on my part, extreme difficulty in having and expressing feelings, and self-esteem and confidence issues. Around day 35 I had a sexual reunion with my ex, just the one night, and was able to verify that my ED problem was a lot better, and that I was much more emotional than before during sex. All my emotional states [have become] more fluid, and I [feel] a direct benefit in communicating with people because I get in touch with my feelings and put them into words so easily. Of course, the only reason it worked in the first place was that [quitting] moved me out of the state of emotional numbness in which I’d been years. At day 75, I met a woman at a friend’s birthday party – she was very attractive, and also a recent divorcee. I didn’t feel exceptionally confident, but neither did I suffer from any lack of self-esteem as before. I just felt good to be in my skin. I also felt capable of talking about my feelings, both in relation to my situation and in relation to her.”
Another guy: “[Day 18] After spending the last 12 years in an almost constant state of energy deprivation and anxiety, I am feeling more manly than most men I know. Energy levels are good, and I feel very full of life, and feel more solid like any real man should be. I am emotional, yet I am not a victim of my emotions. I am more of a solid thing to depend on.”
Another guy: “At the height of my porn use I was looking at other f——ed up sh-t on websites to do with fights, gore, death..basically all things f——ed up. I was watching 20 videos a day, wouldn’t even flinch if I saw a video of someone breaking a leg etc. I was basically desensitized. Since I stopped porn use and these videos, I saw an image of a basketball player with a broken leg and started feeling light headed and sick. It’s almost as if my brain is starting to get normal responses again. Looking back, my head must have been really f——ed up. Can anyone else relate to this in anyway?”
Second guy: “Yeah, I know what you mean. When I have been watching porn for a while, nothing seems too gross or too graphic for me. After a few weeks without porn, I just cannot look at [transgender] porn without having a stomachache. But after a few weeks under porn I can even eat while watching that, or other weird things that I shall not name.”
Third guy: “It’s funny you say that. When I was an avid porn user I used to watch horror films without flinching or thinking this and that was sick. But come to think of it, now I cringe in some parts…really weird.”
I’m on day 134 of hardmode so far. I feel so focused and in control right now. All the colors, sounds, smells, and emotions of the world are so vivid and beautiful. It feels like I am waking up from some deep, cloudy dream. The world is so beautiful!
Emotions are returning. I was numb, apathetic and bored most of the time, and didn’t find much enjoyment in anything. Yet a few days ago, I stumbled across a painting about an anecdotal historical tale that touched my soul and made tears well up in my eyes. What I would have considered mundane or cliche before now moves me deeply. I’m seeing results!
Another guy: “Another thing I noticed was a small emotional “freeing”. Being able to feel that throat and chest sensation when around a woman (even though it’s not as strong as I remember) put some of my emotions in line. I very much regret, and mourn, a past romance, and I had been confused for years as to why I wasn’t able to “feel” it right.”
Another guy: “[Day 63] I think that frequent porn use leads to losing contact with ones’ feelings. I feel certain about this as I have experienced it myself. I mean, it f–ks up your feelings and kills rapid emotional exchange with others. Now I connect with my feelings. This change is gradual and getting better every week. Is really like feeling alive again :).”
Another guy: “I was already an emotional dude when I was using porn, but somehow I’ve become very emotional now. Like, when I see kids happy, I get all warm inside. Also, I tend to feel people’s emotions a lot more.”
Another guy: “[Day 36] Emotions returning to life. This can be painful and sometimes they are out of proportion, but I feel alive. Someone wrote success is partly about living with discomfort. I’m beginning understand that. The alternative is to deaden an emotion (or never to realise you even have an emotion) with a five-hour wankfest. I feel better about myself and my life. My mum said yesterday that she thought I seemed happier than I had in a long time. Enjoy feeling horny and, if the situation allows, enjoy flirting in a relaxed, inventive way. People like that and respond. Even walking down the street is an erotic adventure at the moment.”
Another guy: “I’m more in tune with my emotions. I don’t have to hide my sensitive side anymore. I can open up about my problems and let people in. Vulnerability was a big issue for me, especially with everything I was hiding. Now that I’ve put it out in the open, I have no problem talking to friends or those close to me about what is on my mind or what I’m going through. I also recognize what emotional state I’m in, and realize that it is something that can be controlled. Pissed off at the guy that cut you off? Take a deep breath and appreciate the good in your life. I am a lot more open about showing emotion as well. Really happy? Let it out. Laugh like there’s no tomorrow; make everyone else feel good. I used to get really happy about something and feel like I had to hide it. I felt vulnerable if I was genuinely happy. Why? I have no idea. Being happy with others is one of the best feelings you can have. Where I used to reject affection, I now crave it. I don’t want to push people away anymore. I want to bring them closer.”
Another guy: “I find that my emotions can be easily aroused by sentimental things I see in life or in films. I’m more in touch with emotions.”
I’m on a 24 day streak and since day 6 I’ve been getting really vivid dreams every night for the first time in like 10 years. For the first time in 10 years I don’t feel any sleepy during the day and I wake up feeling really refreshed every morning. This benefit kicked in at the same time my social anxiety, anhedonia, lack of focus, brain fog etc reduced. Before this, I would only have random things flowing around my head in the night and I would never feel rested even after 8-9 hours of uninterrupted sleep.
Why is this particularly interesting? It might be so that a PMO-addict can’t get very good sleep because REM-sleep and vivid dreaming requires healthy dopaminergic activity. OMG! 100% proof NoFap works! A PMO addict can’t get any REM sleep!
Was walking back from the gym through a field of grass when something happened. It felt like someone in my brain flicked the “on” switch and elevated the level of my consciousness and for the first time in years I felt truly connected to the world. All the noise in my head just stopped, finally in years I was able to just observe the world and all it’s glory in absolute silence. I just stood there, listening to the sounds of nature and then I sat down to feel the blades of grass between my fingers. Some people looked at me but I didn’t care, this moment was just beautiful.
Have I just elevated to a new level of consciousness? Either way I think my brain is recovering from past addictions and delusions. I’m slowly beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. My God have I wasted so much time in my life deluded by the internet and in other such frivolous matters.
I have just deleted everything useless off my computer. Suspended my facebook account, deleted my twitter account, got rid of all the comments on my disqus account. Reality hit me like a 100 ton truck today and I now know how truly lost I was. Reality hit me like a truck
Another guy: “I could never understand why people used to talk about bad emotions, because I so rarely seemed to get them. But the truth is that I was getting NO emotions, because at the hint of an emotion, especially a negative one, I’d cheat the system by PMOing it away [masturbating to Internet porn]. No more though. It’s time to face, time to embrace the challenges. It’s really scary, and I’m only now beginning to acknowledge to myself that life isn’t all good emotions.”
Another guy: “[Day 104] For some reason, I have been much more in touch with my emotions than I had before, and I have been feeling things for the first time in such a long time.”
Another guy: “Reasons to quit: Start feeling these intense emotions all the time, instead of being numbed to the beautiful world around you. No more The Walking Dead.”
There was a man playing guitar and singing awfully. Rude of me to judge, I know, but you would have had to hear it. Anyway, I couldn’t hold it in any longer I had to step out of the pub and I starting howling with laughter, I mean I was crying with laughter it was intense. I can’t remember the last time I laughed like that it was absurd. My mates saw me laughing outside, then they started laughing, people starting turning heads in this small/quiet venue and they had to be asked to leave! It was funny, but what I’m trying to say is: I don’t remember feeling that deep of an emotion until this day for years. Emotions are flooding back to me
Another guy: “280 days – My sense of attraction to real women skyrocketed. I felt more in touch with my emotions and my emotions themselves felt richer.”
Another guy: “30-day report – You will feel things: I was using porn as a coping mechanism for all the stuff and feelings I did not want to deal with. Mostly stress, anxiety and feelings of inadequacy. Once you take porn out of the equation you will feel things that you were hiding from. In my case it was, and still is, a bit painful and uncomfortable. BUT THAT IS OK. You will grow strong because of it. I REALLY, REALLY, REALLY feel stronger and I am proud of myself for facing my fears (the battle is far from over).”
Another guy: “When I was on porn I never had a warm feeling in my stomach around girls. Now, I even got a semi-hard erection when I observed a cute girl dancing. I feel this hunger to go out and really get in touch with the girls, because I start to feel love and sexual tension for them again. Can’t wait to have a girlfriend again to live out love and passion.”
Another guy: I was on my first date since I started my new streak. It was a first date. I could feel like my eyes were connecting in to her soul. It was as if I could communicate with her through the eyes. She said to me, “shit! your eyes!” I said “what?” “it’s like they can penetrate in to me.” She just smiled. It’s like both of us felt this eye interaction. It’s like there is some magic. I have had this reaction before but only when on longer streaks. Why would I want life to be as shitty when I can have this? It would be interesting if someone could do an eye related study regarding nofap. I’m living now.. before I was a zombie. It’s in the eyes
Another guy: How nofap is making me an extrovert
My theory goes like this: ever since I started nofap I had increased my sensitivity to emotions. More importantly I’m expressing and sharing emotions with my parents and friends. I think same thing happens when I am around people that I like (friends of friends or just strangers). I attune to how I feel and because my emotions are stronger now I am able to express them without fear of judgement.
Example: I keep longer eye contact and smile at women because I like them. Before I would quickly look away think “shit, did she see me notice her?” Now my thoughts go, “I want her to see and know that I noticed her because I find her attractive”.
Another example is being out on a town. In a bar or walking around town, seeing women, I would say “hello” or complement them.
In both examples, my emotions fill up and reach a tipping point when I just have to express them. I don’t seek approval or hope that I can pick them up. I just want them to know how I feel. I do it for myself, because it feels liberating to express myself and not keep my feelings inside.
tl;dr extrovert = nofap because of: increased emotional state + drive to express my emotions
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