Watching porn is a fine and healthy activity when done appropriately and in moderation, but it can be a problem if it’s affecting other aspects of your life. Fortunately, there are ways to quit porn. You can install a porn blocker, join a 12-step group, implement distractions, and prioritize your values. How you view yourself may be the strongest tool you have to quit for good.
When Does Watching Porn Become a Problem?
When a person feels shame and is unable to fulfill primary roles and responsibilities due to porn use, then it is safe to say it is having a negative impact. Even though it is a normal behavior, watching porn can become a problem if it begins taking over other aspects of your life.
Your porn watching habits may be problematic if you:1
- Use it as a coping skill for underlying anxiety or depression
- Experience a decrease in relationship and sexual satisfaction
- Avoid physical and emotional intimacy with your partner
- Continue to watch pornography despite adverse consequences (relationship discord, potential ending of a relationship)
- Disengage from social activities due to prioritizing porn use
- Watch it during work hours despite the risks involved (i.e. giving into the urges so it interferes with other parts of life)
- Prioritizing pornography over sex with a partner
When Is Watching Porn Not Problematic?
Like most things, moderation seems to be key in the debate of whether or not porn use is problematic. If it does not get in the way of daily functioning, watching porn can help to relieve stress, enhance a couple’s sex life, and provide a temporary distraction when feeling overwhelmed.3
Drs. John and Julie Gottman, world-renowned researchers and clinical psychologists have found pornography can help couples discuss sex more openly and improve their sex lives, but when used in excess, it may be required in order to become sexually aroused or achieve orgasm.3
The Negative Impact of Porn
Identifying the negative aspects of porn is a key component in change. Porn can impact your sex drive, relationships (especially if your partner considers porn a form of cheating), work, and self-esteem. Knowing the negative impacts and weighing them against positive outcomes can help you decide whether it’s time to quit porn.
The negative impacts of watching porn include:2
- Porn addiction and masturbation addiction
- Decrease in sexual arousal and increase in erectile dysfunction
- Sexual performance anxiety
- Decrease in desire for sex which can negatively impact intimacy in relationships
- An increase in tolerance—needing more to get the same feeling porn initially produced
- Preoccupation and an increased need to give into urges to watch porn; potentially interfering with work and other important activities and relationships
- Decreased self-esteem—due to not living according to one’s deeper values
- Decreased interest in once pleasurable activities
- Reduced quality and quantity of sex in a committed relationship
- Pornography becoming a “supernormal stimulus,” i.e. needing more porn to achieve the same excitement as normal sex becomes less interesting
10 Tips for How to Quit Porn
Luckily, there are many techniques to stop looking at porn. Whether you believe you have an addiction or have identified reasons that your pornography use is getting in the way of who you want to be, there are ways to quit. Prioritizing values, reframing self-talk, accepting the difficulty of change, addressing underlying stressors, joining a support group, creating an environment conducive to change as well as having a backup plan when obstacles arise can all help you maintain a porn-free lifestyle.
Here are 10 tips for limiting or quitting porn use:
1. Plan Ahead
Like most things, failing to plan is planning to fail when it comes to quitting porn. Planning ahead will allow you to play the part of your “ideal self,” even when faced with the urge to watch. Yes, the urge will come but remember an urge is not a relapse. We are hardwired to crave comfort so urges are your body’s way of steering you back into your safe zone.
Study yourself and identify your triggers. Just because you decided to quit porn does not mean that triggers, urges, and self-doubt won’t come up. This is exactly why it’s essential to have a back-up plan.
2. Try Meditation
Meditation teaches you how to disengage from your thoughts and emotions. It is a tool that is accessible to everyone and can be very beneficial during the early stages of quitting porn when emotions tend to fluctuate the most.
Redirecting intrusive thoughts to focus on the breath allows a person to see that thoughts can come but don’t need to be acted on (and will usually leave quicker when in a more relaxed state).
3. Engage in Physical Activity
Engaging in physical activity has been shown to positively impact the reward center of the brain which promotes overall well-being. Exercise is known to improve the physical and mental health of individuals by controlling the reward impulse, which may help explain its ability to mitigate internet addiction.4 5
4. Join a 12-Step Group
Since admitting an addiction to pornography often comes with judgment from others, 12-step groups can provide a safe forum for discussion in a judgment-free zone that many individuals find essential in overcoming addiction.6 Accountability and support are added benefits that help a person to feel more supported and less alone while taking the journey toward a porn-free lifestyle. An online directory can help you find a therapist that specializes in porn addiction for more individualized professional help.
5. Change your Surroundings
Don’t underestimate the role one’s environment plays in being triggered. Any activity done long enough becomes habitual and can be maintained on autopilot, requiring little to no thinking. The same would hold true for pornography–what might have begun as a coping skill may now be maintained out of habit. How can you change your environment so you can change the outcome?
6. Install a Porn Blocker
Installing a porn blocker on your digital devices can provide a bit of a barrier (or at least a few extra steps) during those moments of intense urges. It appears the best thing about a porn blocker is its potential to buy a little more time to reconsider cravings in order to choose to lean into values instead. This can facilitate taking committed action and help you achieve your goals of watching less, and eventually quitting porn.6
7. Try ACT Therapy
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a form of CBT that emphasizes acceptance of thoughts and urges while simultaneously committing to actions that are more consistent with important values.7 By learning to stop avoiding, denying and struggling with inner thoughts, emotions, and urges, people learn to have a better relationship with them, and are able to create space to move forward in their lives. ACT is one of the few research-supported treatments for problematic pornography viewing, and has been found to reduce porn use by over 90% after 12 sessions.8
8. Accept Yourself
What you resist, persists, and can magnify any struggle one faces. It takes full acceptance of who you are in the present and having a clear-cut picture of who you want to be in order to make long-lasting changes. Creating a new self-identity (and writing this down to revisit often) is essential for shortening this gap and making better choices during those tough moments.
9. Have a Plan B & a Plan C
Willpower alone is not an effective relapse prevention strategy. Replacements are essential for long-term success in creating a porn-free life. New hobbies, meetup groups, and pre-planned back-up strategies are important components on the journey to recovery. Volunteering is also a great strategy to occupy your time in a rewarding and productive way. Volunteermatch.org is an easy way to find a volunteer opportunity that fits your schedule.
10. Prioritize Your Values
Values play an important role in maintaining this new lifestyle long-term. Values have been shown to play a major role in maintaining positive change. This is because it takes more to live a porn-free lifestyle than just setting a goal to stop pornography. Instead of focusing on what you want to avoid, knowing what you want to turn toward is key. Once you choose the goal of a porn-free lifestyle, values determine how you show up in this new role.
Quitting porn for good is about choosing the longer-term image of who you want to be rather than giving into the automatic, habitual, and impulsive short-term cravings. It means choosing to slow down and really feel your emotions as opposed to running away from them. The key is to have back-up plans in place that are consistent with what’s important and meaningful to you. Reframe quitting as a chance to optimize personal growth, and practice self-compassion as part of the journey.
Final Thoughts on Quitting Porn
The longing to live a porn-free life is the ultimate destination for many. Yes, quitting porn is hard, but you are not alone on this mission. Making a commitment to change and having clarity on what your new porn-free life will look like is key. Remind yourself of where you are going daily. Accept the struggle and remember that you have it in you to take the action that’s needed to get you from where you are to where you want to be.
For Further Reading
- Sex Addicts Anonymous: If you are looking for the 12-Step Philosophy and Tradition to quit your pornography addiction, you can explore this site for local meetings or call 1-800-477-8191 to find out more.
- RebootNation.org: An online porn addiction and porn-induced sexual dysfunction recovery community.
- DailyStrength.org: An online forum to share your experience with pornography addiction and connect with those on the same path.
- NoFap.com: This website consists of forums, articles, and apps to help people overcome sexual/pornography addiction through “rebooting” or restoring neural pathways to healthier levels to lessen the struggle with sexuality.
- Online Therapist Directory: Sort therapists by specialty, cost, availability and more. Watch intro videos and see articles written by the therapists you’re considering working with. When you’ve found a good match, book an online therapy appointment with them directly.
