For adults 18+. This page is general information, not medical advice or a diagnosis.

What happens when you stop watching porn

Last reviewed November 12, 2026. About 5 min to read. How these pages are written.

A lot of pages promise superpowers. This one does not. Below is what people who quit describe, and what research has and has not confirmed.

What people describe after they quit porn

The most detailed source is a study of 104 journals that men aged 18 to 63 kept on a recovery forum while they tried to stay off porn. Most of them were avoiding masturbation as well ^[1].

Why they started:

• 73 wanted to get over what they felt was an addiction.
• 44 wanted to fix sexual difficulties they put down to porn, mostly erection problems (39) and, for a few, low desire for sex with a partner (8).
• 31 wanted to undo other effects on their lives that they put down to porn.
• Moral objection was rare as a stated reason: 4 men.

What it was like:

• Staying off was hard mainly because of habit, and because cravings were set off by many everyday cues: screens most of all, being alone in the bedroom, and bad moods.
• More than half (55) reported at least one lapse.
• Some felt worse for a while, and close to one third reported a drop in sex drive. See porn withdrawal symptoms and the flatline.
• People who kept it up described it as rewarding.

What students remembered from trying to quit

In a survey of 6,463 Polish university students, about half of the current porn users had tried to give it up at least once. Of those, 72.2% recalled at least one effect during the attempt. The most common were erotic dreams (53.5%), irritability (26.4%), trouble paying attention (26.0%) and a sense of loneliness (22.2%). These are memories, and most of the students were women ^[6].

Benefits of quitting porn: what is claimed and what is shown

What the men in those journals reported ^[1]:

• A sense of being back in control, of their porn use or of their lives.
• Better day-to-day functioning. This was the most common: mood, energy, mental clarity, focus, confidence, motivation, productivity.
• Feeling less numb, and feeling emotions more strongly.
• Being more sociable and feeling more connected to other people.
• More desire for sex with a partner.
• Of 42 men who started with erection difficulties, 21 reported at least some improvement.

How far that goes:

• These are the men's own reports. The authors say the study cannot show that removing porn caused them; that would take studies that follow people over time or run an experiment.
• The journals probably over-represent men who found quitting helpful, because those men were more likely to keep writing.
• The study was better at catching good effects than bad ones.
• No study has established a week-by-week timeline of benefits.

Two specific claims:

• Testosterone: two small studies come up. One, of 10 men, found higher testosterone after 3 weeks without any sexual activity ^[3]. The other, of 28 men, reported a peak on day 7 of abstaining from ejaculation; the journal retracted it in 2021 ^[4]. Neither studied quitting porn, and we did not find one that did.
• Feeling worse at first: in a 7-day controlled trial with 176 students who used porn at least three times a week (about two thirds of them women), those who abstained did not report more withdrawal symptoms, craving or low mood than those who did not ^[2]. Most of those students did not want to quit, so it says little about someone who does.

What happens to your brain when you stop watching porn?

Nobody has shown this directly. One brain-imaging study of 64 men found that more hours of porn per week went with less grey matter in one reward-related area. Each man was scanned once, so the study cannot show what changes after someone stops, and its authors say the difference could have been there before the porn use ^[5]. A 2026 review of the research says the field still has no comprehensive account of the brain side, and that several studies found no broad problems with self-control or decision-making in men with compulsive sexual behaviour ^[8].

Clearstretch is also building a step-by-step plan for this. What it covers and what it costs.

What you can expect

• Urges, especially at the times and places you used to watch.
• Seeing clearly what you were using porn for: boredom, stress, loneliness, getting to sleep.
• More time. What you do with it is up to you.
• Problems that porn was covering do not go away. They become easier to see.

A relapse does not erase what you have learned.

What porn was doing for you

Researchers read 100 posts by 40 members of two quit-porn forums on Reddit, r/NoFap and r/pornfree, in which the members told how their problem began ^[7]. This is the researchers' reading of a small, selected set of stories, not a measurement.

• Use typically began in early or middle adolescence.
• Porn was described as an escape from a painful reality and a way to feel better about oneself through fantasy.
• 16 of the 40 wrote about being intimidated by others or fearing for their safety around them.
• For 26 of the 40, erection problems were the main topic. An erection problem was often the event that first made a man think his porn use was the cause.
• Some came to feel that the idea of porn addiction did not explain their distress.

If quitting leaves the pain or the loneliness in place, that is the part that needs attention next.

Counting days can cut both ways

In the same forum posts, recovery was described in glowing terms and a relapse with overwhelming emotion and a sense of failure. The researchers' view is that putting too much weight on recovery and relapse seems to deepen despair and so keep the problem going ^[7]. That is an interpretation, not a tested result.

What people say makes it stick

• A plan for the moment an urge hits, decided in advance.
• Something to do with the time you get back.
• Dealing with what you were using porn to avoid.
• Other people. In the journals, the forum itself was the support the men mentioned most, and some called honest sharing and accountability essential ^[1].
• Help, if you have tried many times and cannot stop. A therapist who works with compulsive sexual behavior is the right kind of help.

See also: How long recovery takes and porn addiction recovery: what helps

Sources

1. Fernandez, Kuss & Griffiths (2021), Archives of Sexual Behavior 50, 711–728: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7889567
2. Fernandez et al. (2023), Archives of Sexual Behavior: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9847461/
3. Exton et al. (2001), World Journal of Urology 19(5), 377–382: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11760788/
4. Jiang et al. (2003), Journal of Zhejiang University Science 4(2), 236–240, retracted 2021: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12659241/
5. Kühn & Gallinat (2014), JAMA Psychiatry 71(7), 827–834: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24871202/
6. Dwulit & Rzymski (2019), International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 16(10), 1861: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6571756/
7. Chasioti & Binnie (2021), Archives of Sexual Behavior 50(5), 2227–2243: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8275519/
8. Ince et al. (2026), Journal of Behavioral Addictions 15(1), 32–98: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC13132360/