Here Are 5 Benefits To Giving Up Porn
What are the benefits of quitting porn?
Your brain gets healthier first. Porn carves neurological pathways that become automatic, but new pathways can be built, and as your brain clears you regain confidence, concentration, optimism, and attention. Your relationships change too, because shame kept you isolated and now your wife and family get you back. You also reclaim dozens of hours a month. None of this is instant. Recovery takes time.
You have been seriously thinking about giving up porn. You’ve likely heard about all the devastating impacts it has on your life. You’re tired of dealing with the shame and guilt. Are you ready to quit porn for good and start focusing on a porn-free future?
To help get you started, let’s look at five reasons how your new life will be much better. There are many more reasons to quit, but these five are pretty strong motivators.
First, understand that these are not instant results. You will not turn off your computer one night and wake up the next morning feeling totally free and renewed. Your recovery will take time and effort, and it will be painful along the way. But it will all be so worth it.
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5 Benefits Of Giving Up Porn
1. Healthier Brain
Your porn use has trained your mind to crave it. Each time you repeat a thought or action, you create neurological pathways in your brain, causing these patterns of thought to become subconscious and programmed in your mind.
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Fortunately, new pathways can be developed, basically ‘re-wiring’ your brain.
As your brain begins to clear from its obsession with porn, you will start to notice that you regain your confidence, your concentration, your optimism, and your attention.
In general, your brain will become much more efficient and work at an increased capacity as you feel like expanding your activities and open up to new and exciting adventures.
Christian Post contributor J.S. Park said,
“I once calculated the time I lost during my fifteen-year porn addiction. If I count on the low end of the average, I lost about two whole years. I could’ve learned a third language, or the piano, or fully qualified to become a NASA astronaut. When you quit porn, you suddenly have a few dozen hours free every month. The self-indulgent hours are now open for something better.”
2. Healthier Relationships
Your porn use has likely caused you to live a large part of your life in isolation. The shame has caused you to feel that nobody would love or accept you if they knew about your porn use. Your relationships with your wife, family, and friends have been strained and damaged as you kept them at a distance.
Related Article: How Viewing Porn Is Wounding Your Wife & Hurting Your Family
But when your porn use is gone, you will begin to interact more with people and become more sociable and involved in their lives. Your wife will once again be the focus of your love and affection instead of some pixels on a screen. You will have more time to spend with your family and to share their interests and hobbies with them.
“Porn destroyed every relationship I had,” said T. Bennet, who has been free from porn for five years. “I didn’t want sex or love or kindness. But once I quit I found what I was missing. Caring about someone else. Their thoughts, how they smelt, how they laughed. Just spending time together, being in each other’s company, enjoying life, being a part of someone else…I will never replace what I have now with porn. I’m through it and life is wonderful.”
Related Article: How These Men Are Getting Over Porn
3. Increased Self-Esteem
Your pornography usage most likely was rooted in your past when you were abused, ridiculed or neglected by people close to you. You turned to porn to help self-medicate your pain.
When you quit porn, you will realize that whatever negative labels were stuck on you no longer define you. The shame will fade away as your self-respect blossoms. Your renewed or brand-new relationships with your family and friends will prove that you are indeed worthy of being loved.
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Related Article: How Toxic Shame Keeps You Trapped In The Destructive Cycle of Porn
Author, Marnia Robinson, explained that people quitting porn notice increased self-esteem.
”Their desire to connect with others surges. So does their confidence, their ability to look others in the eye, their sense of humor, their perception of their ‘manliness,’ their concentration, charisma, their optimism, their judgment, their attractiveness to potential mates, and so forth.”
Since you will have experienced the pain of feeling unworthy of acceptance, you will also have a higher value on other people. You will understand that every person should be cherished as the unique creation they are.
4. Healthier Lifestyle
Since you won’t be spending time at your computer, you can focus on developing a healthier lifestyle to replace your old chair-bound routines.
Eat a healthier diet and start activities like swimming, running, biking, golfing, or anything that you might enjoy.
Researcher and author, Tim Simon, wrote,
“When you’re feeling good about yourself you are more likely to want to seek out company and engage in sociable positive activities. Many men who are giving up porn claim that exercise helped them by giving them energy and the confidence to get out from behind the computer screen and engage with people and real women.”
5. Closer To God
Perhaps the greatest benefit of overcoming porn is building a stronger relationship with God. It’s great that you are working on renewing your mental and physical health. But it is God who has always loved you, and it is His mercy and grace that has brought you through your struggle with porn.
Related Article: How Meditating On God Changes Your Identity
Spend time daily growing your intimacy with God. Read the Bible and pray. Connect with other Christians who can encourage and support you through your recovery.
God has never thought of you as unworthy of love, especially His love. You are of unimaginable value to Him, and He wants to see you free of porn and living your life to its fullest. Make sure He is the centerpiece of all the rest of your life.
Dr. Tim Chester, a pastor of Grace Church in Boroughbridge, North Yorkshire, UK, said,
“A life-with-porn versus a life-without-porn is a poor choice. A life-with versus a life-without. If you set it up in these terms then you won’t produce lasting change. We need to set it up (as it truly is) as a choice between life-with-porn versus life-with-God. We need to show how God always offers more than porn.”
Finding Freedom
You can start your journey to a life free from porn as millions of men around the world have done. The Conquer Series is a 10-week cinematic resource that uses powerful testimonies, solid Biblical teaching, insightful scientific information, and military action scenes.
There is also an interactive study guide, online journal, and daily devotional available. They will keep you focused on the main principles of the videos and provide daily reading and writing exercises that will help you avoid relapse.
Conley Nichols wrote, “Great Series, the best I have ever seen. It has changed my life.”
Related Article: 5 Steps To START Your Journey To Freedom
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If you’re ready to give up porn, you can start the journey today at SoulRefiner.com.
Writing at the intersection of faith and neuroscience to help men and women break destructive cycles and walk in lasting freedom.
More articles by Jeremy Wiles →Frequently Asked Questions
Why does quitting porn raise your self esteem?
Because the labels finally come off. Porn use is usually rooted in a past where you were abused, ridiculed or neglected, and the habit became the medication for that pain. When it goes, you start to see that those negative labels never defined you. Shame fades, self respect grows, and men report their desire to connect, their confidence, humor, concentration and optimism all rising together.
How long does recovery from porn take?
Longer than one decision, and that is worth accepting up front. These are not instant results. You will not turn off your computer one night and wake up the next morning feeling totally free and renewed. Recovery takes real time and effort and it will be painful in places. The men who make it are the ones who expected the cost and kept going anyway, because the outcome is worth it.
What do I do with all the free time after quitting porn?
Fill it deliberately. Men who quit often find a few dozen free hours every month, and that time can go toward a language, an instrument, a skill or a person. Since you are no longer stuck at a screen, build a healthier lifestyle in its place: better food, and swimming, running, biking, golf or anything you enjoy. Exercise gives you the energy and confidence to engage real people again.
Will quitting porn repair my marriage?
It removes the wedge, which is where repair begins. Porn pushes a man into isolation because shame convinces him nobody would love him if they knew. As that lifts, you interact more, you become present again, and your wife becomes the focus of your love and affection instead of pixels on a screen. Repair still takes honesty and time, but your family finally gets you back.
How does quitting porn affect my relationship with God?
This is the greatest benefit of the five. Mental and physical health matter, but it is God who has always loved you and whose mercy and grace carries you through the struggle. Spend time daily growing that intimacy through Scripture and prayer, and connect with other believers who can encourage you. The real choice was never a life with porn against a life without it, but a life with porn against a life with God.
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