Hypofrontality isn’t a word you see every day—but it might hold the secret to why you keep looking at porn.
Neuroscience now knows that willpower is a function of the prefrontal lobes of the brain. Scientific studies have also confirmed that using porn over and over actually reshapes these areas of the brain, literally eroding our willpower and our moral compass.
Neuroscientists call this hypofrontality. Hypofrontality is a state in which there is decreased blood flow to the prefrontal lobes of the brain. Hypofrontality is observed in schizophrenia patients and is also observed in all manner of addictions.
What Is Hypofrontality?
In his ebook, The Porn Circuit, Sam Black explains what hypofrontality is for the porn viewer.
“Compulsiveness is a good descriptor of hypofrontality. Many porn users feel focused on getting to porn and masturbating even when a big part of them is saying, ‘Don’t do this.’ Even when negative consequences seem imminent, impulse control is too weak to battle the cravings.”
Compulsiveness is one way to describe hypofrontality. The porn-addicted brain has trouble thinking logically. When impulses and desires come from the midbrain, instead of being moderated, the brain feels these desires as compelling needs. The prefrontal region is supposed to be able to weigh consequences and situations and judiciously shut down cravings, but hypofrontality means the addict’s ability to do this is impaired.
To the addict, when the craving for porn surfaces, their whole body gears up for action. As unhindered hormones are released and neurotransmitters fire, the craving consumes them. The heart begins to race, blood pressure rises, and the addict is consumed by a single thought: “Just one more time.”
Another way to put is simply “lack of willpower.”
What Causes Hypofrontality?
Compared to other creatures, humans have a very well-developed prefrontal region. When our prefrontal lobes are working properly, we have “executive control” of the processes in our brains. It is where we do our abstract thinking, make goals, solve problems, regulate behavior, and where we suppress emotions, impulses, and urges.
But the more one masturbates to porn, the more dopamine is released in the brain. Eventually dopamine receptors and signals in the brain fatigue, leaving the viewer wanting more but unable to reach a level of satisfaction. The viewer becomes numb to things once considered pleasurable. “To escape this desensitization, people, and men especially, expand their pornographic tastes to more novel stimuli,” Black writes. This leads, again, to more fatigue.
Desensitization impacts the prefrontal cortex. As dopamine receptors decline in the brain, so do the amount of neural cells in the prefrontal lobes.
How Do You Regain Your Willpower?
To bring the prefrontal lobes back into working order, a two-pronged attack is needed: (1) the old neural pathways must be starved, and (2) new neural pathways must be built and fed, increasing dopamine levels in a way that builds up the prefrontal cortex.
1. Starve: Stop All Pornography and Fantasy
Don’t give in to the urge to look at porn. As the prefrontal lobes are given plenty of time to rest, executive control will be strengthened over time.
This advice feels to many like a catch-22. “You tell me I’ve killed my willpower by looking at porn. So now the way to increase my willpower is by willing myself not to look at porn. How does that work?” Isn’t that like telling the alcoholic to “just stop it”?
The big difference between “just stop it” and a conscious effort to rewire your brain is this: The man being told to “just stop it” has no hope that the cravings will ever be different. When he hears “just stop it,” he hears, “Live with these intense cravings the rest of your life and never give into them.” To the addict, porn is life. Telling him to stop is like telling him to die.
However, informed by the process of how our brains can change, the addict can avoid porn and fantasy knowing that real change is possible. Hypofrontality can be cured. Change is built into the very fabric of our brains. Change is exactly what our brains are designed to do. When this person abstains from porn, he thinks, “Okay, this really stinks for now. I feel terrible. But I will not always feel this way. In fact, I aim to reclaim my brain so I can experience real, lasting pleasure again.”
You can learn more about brain chemicals and porn addiction. Here are some helpful tips for avoiding pornography:
Redirection
When you feel the urge, get into the habit of distracting yourself with another activity that you can start immediately. This can be as simple as a breathing exercise or journaling your thoughts. It can be as involved as making a meal or going for a jog. It will be difficult to do, but each time you choose to redirect, your brain will build new neural circuits.
Avoid All External Triggers
Remember, you’ve carved a grand-canyon-sized gorge of neural circuits in your mind. It is easy for everyday experiences to become triggers. If the trigger is a specific channel on TV, refuse to visit that channel. If the trigger is a type of person you see walking down the street, choose to bounce your eyes away from that person. Learn what your triggers are and for the first several weeks or months, completely avoid them—no exceptions.
Avoid Internal Triggers
External triggers are things you experience in the world. Internal triggers are emotions or states of mind. For some, when they feel lonely, this has become a trigger for porn. Porn has become their release valve to make themselves feel good. Identify what your internal triggers are (loneliness, boredom, exhaustion, anger, etc.), and create an escape plan when these emotions pop up. Call a friend. Journal your thoughts. Do something creative.
Avoid SUDs
“Seemingly Unimportant Decisions.” These are the rationalizations you say to yourself to get you one step closer to porn. “I’m just going to see what’s on TV.” “I’m just going to check my e-mail.” “I’m just going to get on Facebook.” Get honest with yourself and learn what your SUDs are. Be ruthless against these rationalizations.
Avoid Inactivity
Fill up your social calendar to the brim. Refuse to give yourself an open window. Check out our post on 50 Things to Do Instead of Watching Porn for help!
Finish the Fantasy
When the thought of looking at porn enters your mind, immediately finish the fantasy: imagine yourself having just orgasmed and the feeling of regret or shame that normally follows. Vividly experience the emotions.
Destroy Fantasies
As a fantasy or thought enters your mind, picture the image being eliminated. Draw a red X over it. Smash it with a hammer. Put it through the shredder. Flush it down the nastiest-looking toilet you’ve ever seen.
Make Yourself Accountable
Pornography thrives in secret. When you’re not only honest with yourself, but also with a trusted ally, you’ll find your willpower is much stronger than it ever was in isolation.
2. Feed: Build Up Your Brain
Much like a muscle, the more you exercise the prefrontal cortex, the stronger it becomes. The goal is to engage in new habits that will increase your dopamine and dopamine receptors.
Meditation
Making a habit of meditation has been shown to increase dopamine release by up to 65%.1 Even after only 11 hours of meditation spread over a month, changes are observable.2 (See here for a Christian approach to meditation).
Exercise
Aerobic exercise has been shown to increase dopamine receptors3 and decrease cravings4 for those bound in addiction.
Socializing
Porn-watching is a very anti-social habit. By reforging connections to real people, and spending pleasurable time together, you will establish new neural pathways of pleasure.
Accountability
Accountability isn’t just about starving your brain from porn. It also helps you build deep and meaningful relationships that fill the void in your life you used to fill with pornography.
Change Is Gradual, But It Will Come
Summarizing these above two points, Sam Black writes in The Porn Circuit:
Whatever rewarding activity is pursued, it needs to be an activity that is reoccurring. Building new rewarding neural pathways requires time and ongoing repetition…
Neurons that fire together wire together. Repeating a pleasurable activity instead of the compulsive activity, such as porn use, forms a new circuit that is gradually reinforced instead of the compulsion.
Neurons that fire apart wire apart. When a person refuses to act on a compulsion, like porn and masturbation, it weakens the link between the activity and the idea that it will provide relief.
The prefrontal cortex is one of the things that makes us unique from other creatures on Earth. By reclaiming it we are reclaiming more than our willpower. We are reclaiming our humanity.
1http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0926641001001069
2http://www.news-medical.net/news/20120614/IBMT-linked-with-positive-structural-changes-in-brain-connectivity.aspx
3http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2959886
4http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17949827
I keep finding the most perverted, immoral stuff on his computer and phone. I told him it hurts me so he promised me he won’t look at it anymore and tried to justify things saying if I didn’t go so long not having sex with him, he wouldn’t have looked at it. Then says he doesn’t consider it cheating.
This absolutely is cheating…he is devoting an obsessive amount of time to pursue it, trying to hide it but doesn’t really succeed, lies to me, makes promises in words and repeats his destructive behaviors and I’m almost ready to leave him, even when I told him I wasn’t going anywhere. That’s because the pain I feel from this is unbearable. He can’t achieve erections with me, blames it on weight gain, I know he fantasizes about the crap from porn and because we’ve had this talk before so many times, he always yells at me, blames me, threatens divorce, yet I wonder where is my best friend from years ago. He has become more bitter, swears alot, yells, rarely patient. Not like the loving and supportive husband he used to be. He knows I abhor porn and this is destroying our bond. Why doesn’t he see that?
I’m sick and tired of him obsessing about porn where he’s always with his phone in the bathroom, on his computer looking it up and can’t wait to look more up the moment he has the chance, even if I’m in the same room. He hates being scrutinized but yet he deserves to. He should be because he blew the trust. I’m afraid to bring it up again.
Help me please, pray for us because it’s hurting so incredibly much.
Hey there.
I am so, so sorry for the pain you’re going through. It sounds to me like your husband says a few things to keep you engaged in the relationship, like promising not to look any more, then goes on to verbally and emotionally abuse you in blaming you for his choices, and his behaviors do not change over time. In fact, it sounds like he’s becoming more abusive as time goes on.
Given the reality of the situation, what would healthy boundaries look like for you? I think that is the way forward: how can you make healthy choices for yourself? Here, here, and here are some articles on boundaries to help you think that through.
You might want to find a counselor, join a group, and check out the online resources at Bloom for Women to provide support as you make these changes.
You know already that you can’t make your husband make healthy choices. But whatever he chooses, YOU can choose to be healthy.
Peace to you,
Kay
what a load of crap
Nice article…tremendously helpful… Keep up the good work… May Nature bless you!!
Thank you for this wonderful reading. I have been exposed to masturbating at a very young age around 5-6 yrs old and was exposed to porn at age 12. Ever since then it seemed that masterbating was accepted as ‘ok’ basing from how my family and friends reacted to this. It seemed to me that this issue was taken lightly and accepted as a normal thing to do (Except in Church). I am now 21 and still an undergraduate. Masterbating had huge bad effects in my life and I will tell you the story.
I grew up in a Christian family and I have ‘claimed’ to know Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior at age 9. I can say that in my first years of being a saved young man, I still had the fire in me but as I started to be influenced again by my school friends and media, it gradually left me. I had my ups and downs regarding this bad habit. I can say that the guilt never left me everytime i did it. In fact, I was ready to accept the consequences of my bad action as long as the sin won’t get exposed. For example, I was willing to fail an exam or don’t pass a paper just because I did the bad habit. But I never learned because I still end up passing the course for some strange reason or most likely because of a bad school system. This further led me to do the bad habit even more because I know I can get away with it. After everytime I did it, I go on thoughts of low self-esteem and sadness- even crying to my own. But after I have rested, the next day, if something triggered me, I do it again. This became a cycle and I hope this will not lead into losing my mind.
I have even decided to stop masterbating before – doing all the necessary actions like telling a friend about this bad habit, searching for similar articles like this, and having regular exercises but as time pass by, I still did it.
What triggers me were the times I procrastinate, particularly for school. Because of the stress(anxiety?) I feel, I tend to spend my time searching for ‘good’ porn which suits my taste thus, wasting a huge chunk of my time and not being able to work on my duties regreting afterwards.
I am living a double-standard life acting as if everything is okay when Im around Church, school and my family. Sometimes when I read the Bible in the morning, I still end up at night doing it. I’m a disgrace. I’m getting tired of this lifestyle. and I want change that is why I am planning to open up with my parents about this problem later when I get home.
My salvation at age 9 was not true. I’m needing of your prayers. This article is really of great help to me. I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
I completely agree with everything written here! Willpower is a finite resource and all of that fapping really does damage on your frontal cortex! That’s where the money is. There’s an animated video on the matter: https://youtu.be/FZePzpOPW00
Why does following a link to CCEF mentioned here :
2. Feed: Build Up Your Brain
Much like a muscle, the more you exercise the prefrontal cortex, the stronger it becomes. The goal is to engage in new habits that will increase your dopamine and dopamine receptors.
Meditation – Making a habit of meditation has been shown to increase dopamine release up to 65%. Even after only 11 hours of meditation spread over a month, changes are observable. (For a Christian approach to meditation, visit CCEF.org or biblicalcounselingcoalition.org.)
Cause a blocked site to appear? Please help
Hello, Douglas – I’m not sure without specifically looking through the sites you’re referring to. Can you contact our Customer Service Team at 1-877-479-1119 for assistance? They are excellent and can help.
Peace, Chris
Thankyou so much!! this really helps me. :D
Thank you Chris. I would like to share the following website warning for those who have seriously and dangerously fallen. It doesn’t talk about brain science, but it talks about repentance and what men must do to repent, and what might happen to men as a result of their behavior.
Hi, was there a link that you wanted to include?
Dear Luke and Chris,
Where can we find out more details about how our cells and neurons and frontal lobes can improve over time? How long does it usually take for cells to regenerate?
Anonymous
Hi, Anonymous – the brain is complex and unique in each individual. My personal experience with rewiring my brain through training and new habits is going to be different from the next person. Have you read anything by Dr. William Struthers? He also has some talks on YouTube. If YouTube isn’t a trigger for any temptations, then I would suggest watching some of his talks because he’s brilliant with explaining the brain science.
Peace, Chris
It seems as though my comment was either deleted or not approved?
Hello, I don’t see any deleted comments on the post. I’m sorry if that happened.