HOW I QUIT PORN - THE POWER OF HABIT BY CHARLES DUHIGG - BOOK SUMMARY

HOW I QUIT PORN - THE POWER OF HABIT BY CHARLES DUHIGG - BOOK SUMMARY

Hey guys , today i'll be sharing with you some lessons I’ve learned through my porn recovery journey and hopefully get some value out of it . let's start by understanding this bad habit Charles Duhigg explains that a habit consists of three main components:

1)Trigger

2)Routine

3) and finally the reward.

The Habit Loop.

The Habit loop for porn users the triggers are pretty obvious it's a time of the day , someday in the weekend or when you're experiencing a general feeling of boredom and stress . The routine is the habit itself you see the trigger and BAM! Your brain goes on autopilot anticipating a reward which is orgasm .. Now this is the cycle that you want to break free from right? Charles says that To change a habit you have to Keep the routine and the triggers the same Only change the routine.. Now this is possible for most habits but for porn users it's not that practical, if I were to change the routine to reading books for example is not going to get orgasm out of that (laughs). i was tracking down several triggers to find out where do these urges actually come from I discovered that the problem was not only the habit itself The problem is in the habits that are interwoven with it .. Like to call these 'Micro Habits' these micro habits are executed unconsciously and triggered Because Of a lack in basic human needs like socializing or more importantly.

A lack of feminine energy in your life here's an example for 'micro habits’: so I’d be surfing the internet calmly Then i began to feel lonely and bored(trigger).. I go on Facebook (routine) i get my (reward) which is : a relief from stress . This is a micro habit. The question is: how does this relate to porn? Well your intention was to go chat for a little bit right ? But let's be honest here (laughs) as a former Porn user myself when they i a hot model's picture on Facebook my craving brain will make me react automatically by clicking on it . Of course you can still argue that this doesn't count as Porn! But what you're not aware of.. is that your brain is producing little shots of dopamine Here and there from these micro habits and that's how you get cravings for porn . i describe 'micro habits' as : passive consumption you're not actually exposed to porn directly but you're getting little shots of dopamine from these bikini thumbnails on YouTube , or even a simple kissing scene in your favorite movie . 

Here's what happens from there: visualization kicks in. You start fantasizing.. This is why you go on Facebook and ten minutes later you find yourself on a porn site. Now I want to point out that I am NOT against using any social media platform! You’re free to do whatever you want, I'm just sharing out my personal experience here. 

We arrived at the interesting part now the solution. The solution is pretty simple if we cannot change the macro habit we'll try to replace the micro habits. this is not a quick fix or a magic pill but rather things i've tried personally 

So here's what I did it : i took the routine for every single micro habits and replaced it , with flow state activities , why? because the only thing that could produce huge amounts of dopamine like orgasm is a flow state so I replaced the old routines with flow state activities And with time , i got addicted on flow rather than watching junk porn on my computer By doing what i did you will not only reduce your exposure to porn you're going to be building a lot of will Power :)