Modern technology can be customized. With so many devices and apps available, you have more control over your life than ever before. As a result, you can live a healthier, wealthier, and happier life.
Technology is always changing and adapting to fit your needs but to make the best use of it, you also need to pay attention to how you use it. Sometimes, it does not serve you well, helping reinforce addictions like pornography.
Your brain, too, is a computer, a bio-computer. It can run various software programs that can improve or ruin the quality of your life.
Finding Your Delete Button
To make the best use of technology, you need to erase multimedia audiovisual presentations that stimulate addictions.
Your brain’s delete button is a real thing. It’s the part of your brain that decides what memories to keep by how meaningful they are, how emotional they are, and how often you think about them. All this information is stored in a region of your brain called the hippocampus, which essentially functions as a filing cabinet for memories.
Finding your biological delete button will help you get rid of recurring erotic images that keep you addicted to porn. To understand how this button works, you must first understand how your brain creates memories and forget them.
The Biology of Remembering
Activated neurons release chemicals that connect different parts of your brain together. This phenomenon is called “neuroplasticity,” and it helps to explain why people who learn new skills, such as playing an instrument, can train themselves to get increasingly better over time.
Here are two examples:
* Your brain produces dopamine when you eat delicious food to reward you for seeking it. Dopamine causes positive feelings, so your brain is designed to encourage you to continue consuming what you like.
* Your brain releases a chemical called oxytocin when you hold the hand of someone you love. Oxytocin reinforces human bonding.
The more you practice piano. or speaking a language, or juggling, the stronger neurons connected with those activities get. Practicing creates circuits to help your brain remember a sequence of activities.
Every time you think about something, you’re strengthening the associated neural circuit. This means that the more often you think about something, the stronger that circuit becomes. Consequently, practice makes perfect.
Neuroscientists have a catchphrase based on Hebbian Learning for this phenomenon: “Neurons that fire together wires together.” Simply put, the more we practice something, the stronger the connections get in our brains. Use this idea to learn things that will improve the quality of your life. For instance, if you learn and practice hatha yoga, you will improve the health of your internal organs.
The Biology of Forgetting
The opposite can happen too. Neurons can weaken and even break if not used for a certain period. Your brains not only build neural connections but erases them, too.
As you learn and grow, you create new neural connections to remember things like language and music. Since your brain is constantly adapting, you need to take care of it by exercising it in different ways. By challenging your brain with new ideas, you can enhance its abilities. This will lead both to a healthier brain and an increase in intelligence.
You will also forget things that are no longer relevant to you, such as the names of your elementary school teachers. Your brain will erase these neural connections. The technical term for this is “synaptic pruning.” Synapses are the connections between neurons that allow neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine to travel.
Building and Erasing Connections
The cells surrounding neurons are called glial cells. They have a variety of functions, and one of the most important is to speed up the signals between specific neurons. This enables your brain to process information quickly and efficiently.
There are also microglial cells that work like a “watchdog” for the brain. These cells monitor your brain for unused neurons and clean them up when they are detected. Microglial cells are prevalent in the hippocampus, where they can account for up to 50% of all cells in the area. These cells protect the brain and spinal cord by removing dead or damaged cells. They also prune your synaptic connections—the connections between neurons.
How does the subconscious mind know which neurons to reinforce and which to eliminate?
Synapses are the connections between neurons, and when they’re not being used, they get marked by C1q. This is a protein produced by the body’s immune cells that mark synapses without activity. This protein tells the synapse to quit firing. However, if you need these synapses to fire again, review the information that was forgotten, this marking will put them back in working order. For instance, if, as an adult, you forget the name of a classmate in high school, looking up your alumni book will refresh your memory.
In sum, your brain is a powerful organ that does a lot of work for you. This includes making room for new connections to form.
What Does All This Have to Do With Porn Addiction?
Viewing porn serves you up novel sexual images that give you pleasure. The more often you do it, the more neural connections you build. This then creates a tendency to daydream about porn and crave it. You want to watch it more frequently and for longer periods. If you don’t do follow these impulses, you’ll feel restless, perhaps anxious.
If you want to break the addiction, watch less porn. The longer you abstain, the more the urge to watch fades away. Since the neurons strengthened by the chemically-rewarding pornographic imagery begin to weaken, your interest in arousing images will fade away.
The brain is an incredible organ and it’s always changing. Neural pathways grow and shrink when you focus on different ideas long enough. You can decide how your brain changes simply by deciding where to place your attention.
Put Brain Science to Work for You
In a nutshell, synaptic pruning is your brain’s way of getting rid of unused connections. This is a good thing because it allows your brain to work more efficiently. As you age, your brain gets rid of unused connections. This makes room to build new connections.
It’s difficult to break any addiction, but it’s possible once you understand brain science. In particular, once you understand synaptic pruning, which is your brain’s way of getting rid of abandoned neurons.
Synaptic pruning is a good thing because it allows your brain to work more efficiently. It takes many attempts and failures to finally avoid porn altogether. But eventually, it will be worth it.
There are many benefits to abstaining from explicit sexual images and creating positive, life-enhancing interests. As you refrain from addiction, the pathways in your brain related to porn addiction collapse from disuse. You lose interest in it.
If you have been watching porn for many years, it will take some time for the effects of synaptic pruning to become noticeable. If you abstain long enough, the effects of porn on your brain and biochemistry will gradually fade away. If you now direct your brain to learn interesting subjects that can improve your life, you will improve your memory, attention, and problem-solving skills.
Your brain is designed to help you grow new connections and form new habits. It’s also designed to discontinue old connections and drop unproductive habits. Use this information to your benefit.
