6 THINGS YOU CAN DO RIGHT NOW:
1. Recognize that the specifics of your porn search reveal something about what you are attempting to reverse or repeat in your life. Watch this preview episode to learn more.
2. Watch this short video from Dan Siegel, a clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine. Siegel offers a simple and eloquent phrase for people who find themselves in distress: “name it to tame it.” When we identify and name our concerns, our emotional life is soothed.
3. Download an app like Headspace to learn how to pay attention to the ‘traffic’ going on inside your mind. It will help you practice new ways of finding calm as the anxiety intensifies both within and outside of you.
4. Stop and think about how porn influences you to feel afterward. Consider if you really want to intensify your futility, shame, and loneliness.
5. Pursue activities that engage the senses. Cooking a new recipe, playing an instrument, or writing a haiku will all allow you to experience far more life-giving experiences of pleasure and power.
6. Talk to a trusted guide (therapist or mentor) or an ally about some of the anxiety you’re harboring. Many therapists are now offering sessions online. Go to psychologytoday.com to see therapists in your area who can work with your insurance (if you have it).
ADDITIONAL OPPORTUNITIES FOR LONGER TERM SUPPORT
The Journey Course. This guided journey will help you outgrow your use of pornography. Through a cutting-edge sexual behavior self-assessment and 18 episodes, you’ll learn to identify and transform the key drivers of pornography in your life.
Unwanted: How Sexual Brokenness Reveals Our Way to Healing. Unwanted is based on research I completed on nearly 4,000 men and women. The premise is that our unwanted sexual behaviors (use of porn, infidelity, hookups) are not random and therefore have a great deal to teach us.
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This piece originally appeared at jay-stringer.com, published with permission.
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Sources
[i] Berridge, K. C., & Robinson, T. E. (2016). Liking, Wanting, and the Incentive-Sensitization Theory of Addiction. American Psychologist, 71(8), 670-679. doi:10.1037/amp0000059; Berridge, K.C., & Kringelbach, M. L. (2015). Pleasure Systems in the Brain. Neuron, 86, 646-664. doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2015.02.018; Hilton, D. L. (2013). Pornography Addiction—A supranormal stimulus considered in the context of neuroplasticity. Socioaffective Neuroscience & Psychology 3:20767. doi:10.3402/snp.v3i0.20767; Pitchers, K. K., et al. (2013). Natural and Drug Rewards Act on Common Neural Plasticity Mechanisms with DeltaFosB as a Key Mediator. Journal of Neuroscience, 33(8), 3434-3442. doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4881-12.2013; Doidge, N. (2007). The Brain That Changes Itself. New York: Penguin Books.
[ii] Bridges, A. J. (2010). Pornography’s Effect on Interpersonal Relationships. In J. Stoner and D. Hughes (Eds.) The Social Costs of Pornography: A Collection of Papers (pp. 89-110). Princeton, NJ: Witherspoon Institute; Paul, P. (2007). Pornified: How Pornography Is Transforming Our Lives, Our Relationships, and Our Families. New York: Henry Hold and Co., 153; Zillmann, D. (2004). Pornografie. In R. Mangold, P. Vorderer, and G. Bente (Eds.) Lehrbuch der Medienpsychologie (pp.565–85). Gottingen, Germany: Hogrefe Verlag;
[iii] Bridges AJ, Wosnitzer R, Scharrer E, Sun C, Liberman R. Aggression and sexual behavior in best-selling pornography videos: a content analysis update. Violence Against Women. 2010 Oct;16(10):1065-85. doi: 10.1177/1077801210382866.PMID: 20980228
