Porn Increases Social Anxiety
Social anxiety is a brain-based challenge. When the brain struggles with anxiety, it creates a significant amount of fast, high energy called high beta. When the brain is already struggling in general, social situations can spike this speed even more making it seem impossible to communicate or interact with others in public.
How Social Anxiety Is Linked To Porn
When someone develops a porn habit in childhood, it delays development of the brain. Continued porn use will eventually knock the frontal lobe out structurally and functionally. This damage can cause a delay in learning, socializing, and development.
When the brain is delayed, it can make social situations more difficult and can cause a distortion of reality. Since the real world becomes unappealing and uncomfortable, you’ll begin to isolate and and use porn to self-soothe. This not only makes the problem worse, but you never learn how to socialize.
What To Do About It?
In order to improve social anxiety, porn needs to go. There will be no real way to improve if your brain is stuck in an extra fast speed. You’ll also need to strengthen your socializing skills. Next time you are at a gathering, come up with a strategy. Going into one unprepared can cause to get overwhelmed and shut down.
Your plan needs to include baby steps. It’s called scaffolding. You can’t just march into a social situation and have unrealistic expectations. The better plan is to dip your toe in and take baby steps towards success. One strategy you can do is to plan your own gathering. Plan it with your friends, the safe people in your world, and then invite one or two new people to practice those socialization skills with. Plan ahead. Plan what you are going to talk about and what you’re going to do. This way you can slowly work up to bigger interactions without jumping in all at once.
Then, after enough practice you take it up a notch. If you’re going to go to a social event, immediately, but slowly work the entire event and introduce yourself to everyone and ask them a question about themselves. Most of the time, you won’t have to do any of the talking. You’ll just need to listen talk about themselves. Continue asking them questions and practice active listening. When you’re done with that, go find your friends and stay in your safe zone for the rest of the night.
