The physical and psychological harm of watching Porn

[affanpervez]

Watching pornography damages men's brains


Regularly viewing sexually explicit videos causes the brain the shrink and work less effectively

Research has shown that watching pornography may shrink the brain and dull responses to sexual stimulation Photo: ALAMY

Watching pornography may shrink the brain and dull responses to sexual stimulation, researchers have suggested.

Scientists have found for the first time that regularly viewing sexual images could be physically harmful.

Researchers from the Max Planck Institute in Berlin found that a part of the brain which activates when people feel motivated or rewarded, shrinks and works less efficiently.

So people who watch a lot of porn are likely to need increasingly graphic material to achieve the same sexual stimulation.

The scientists also believe that people who already have a smaller striatum the reward part of the brain may be more likely to use pornography.

It's not clear, for example, whether watching porn leads to brain changes or whether people born with certain brain types watch more porn, said Dr Simone Khn.

We found that the volume of the so-called striatum, a brain region that has been associated with reward processing and motivated behavior was smaller the more pornography consumption the participants reported.
Moreover we found that another brain region, that is also part of the striatum that is active when people see sexual stimuli, shows less activation the more pornography participants consumed.
For the study, Dr Kuhn and her colleague Jurgen Gallinat from Charite University, also in Berlin, recruited 64 healthy men between the ages of 21 and 45 years and asked them questions about their porn-watching habits.
They also took images of the mens brains to measure volume and to see how their brains reacted to pornographic pictures.
They found noticeable differences in the men who abstained compared with those who regularly accessed sexual videos or images.
However other researchers claimed that pornography in moderation was probably not damaging.
Everything is going to be bad in excess and its probably not terrible in moderation, Dr Gregory Tau of the Columbia University
Dr Tau, who was not involved with the study, agreed that more research should be done in this area and that longer studies would be need to find out if porn leads to brain changes.
It is possible that there are individuals with a certain kind of brain that are more susceptible to these kinds of behaviors, he said.
Or, its possible its the excessive use (of porn) thats perpetuating itself to causing brain changes. Or, it could be both.
The study was published in JAMA Psychiatry.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/...Watching-pornography-damages-mens-brains.html

[TUNEDOTPK]2253778[/TUNEDOTPK]

 

[great30]

So that is the reason of CTBT's small brain?

 

[affanpervez]

There is always a reason behind the things which Allah has made Haram. Often we are not able to foresee them but ultimately great benefit can be gained by acting according to the commandments of the almighty.

What fascinates me about science is that often it helps us to uncover those reasons and helping us to make our faith stronger than before.

May Allah guide us all and help us to stay at the right path Ameen

 

[azrana]

mentaly healthy people avoide it anyway,

 

[affanpervez]

The Science of Pornography Addiction (SFW)

"Because the human brain is the biological anchor of our psychological experience, it is helpful to understand how it operates." says William M. Struthers, associate professor of psychology at Wheaton College. "Knowing how it is wired together and where it is sensitive can help us understand why pornography affects people the way it does." Here are 9 things you should know about pornography affects the brain.
1. Sexually explicit material triggers mirror neurons in the male brain. These neurons, which are involved with the process for how to mimic a behavior, contain a motor system that correlates to the planning out of a behavior. In the case of pornography, this mirror neuron system triggers the arousal, which leads to sexual tension and a need for an outlet. "The unfortunate reality is that when he acts out (often by masturbating), this leads to hormonal and neurological consequences, which are designed to bind him to the object he is focusing on," says Struthers. "In God's plan, this would be his wife, but for many men it is an image on a screen. Pornography thus enslaves the viewer to an image, hijacking the biological response intended to bond a man to his wife and therefore inevitably loosening that bond."
2. In men, there are five primary chemicals involved in sexual arousal and response. The one that likely plays the most significant role in pornography addiction is dopamine. Dopamine plays a major role in the brain system that is responsible for reward-driven learning. Every type of reward that has been studied increases the level of dopamine transmission in the brain, and a variety of addictive drugs, including stimulants such as cocaine, amphetamine, and methamphetamine, act directly on the dopamine system. Dopamine surges when a person is exposed to novel stimuli, particularly if it is sexual, or when a stimuli is more arousing than anticipated. Because erotic imagery triggers more dopamine than sex with a familiar partner, exposure to pornography leads to "arousal addiction" and teaches the brain to prefer the image and become less satisfied with real-life sexual partners.
3. Why do men seek out a variety of new explicit sexual images rather than being satisfied with the same ones? The reason is attributed to the Coolidge effect, a phenomenon seen in mammalian species whereby males (and to a lesser extent females) exhibit renewed sexual interest if introduced to new receptive sexual partners, even after refusing sex from prior but still available sexual partners. This neurological mechanism is one of the primary reasons for the abundance and addictiveness of Internet pornography.
4. Overstimulation of the reward circuitry—such as occurs with repeated dopamine spikes related to viewing pornography—creates desensitization. As Gary Wilson explains, "When dopamine receptors drop after too much stimulation, the brain doesn't respond as much, and we feel less reward from pleasure. That drives us to search even harder for feelings of satisfaction—for example, by seeking out more extreme sexual stimuli, longer porn sessions, or more frequent porn viewing—thus further numbing the brain.
5. "The psychological, behavioral, and emotional habits that form our sexual character will be based on the decisions we make," says Struthers. "Whenever the sequence of arousal and response is activated, it forms a neurological memory that will influence future processing and response to sexual cues. As this pathway becomes activated and traveled, it becomes a preferred route—a mental journey—that is regularly trod. The consequences of this are far-reaching."
6. What makes Internet porn unique? Wilson identifies a number of reasons, including: (1) Internet porn offers extreme novelty; (2) Unlike food and drugs, there are almost no physical limitations to Internet porn consumption; (3) With Internet porn one can escalate both with more novel "partners" and by viewing new and unusual genres; (4) Unlike drugs and food, Internet porn doesn't eventually activate the brain's natural aversion system; and (5) The age users start watching porn. A teen's brain is at its peak of dopamine production and neuroplasticity, making it highly vulnerable to addiction and rewiring.

7. Men's exposure to sexually explicit material is correlated with social anxiety,depression, low motivation, erectile dysfunction, concentration problems, andnegative self-perceptions in terms of physical appearance and sexual functioning.

8. The following video offers a brief overview of the affect of pornography on the brain.

http://thegospelcoalition.org/article/9-things-you-should-know-about-pornography-and-the-brain/

 

[affanpervez]