Quitting porn is commonly associated with improvements in focus, mood, relationships, sexual function, and overall well-being. Many people report reduced anxiety, better sleep, stronger attraction to real partners, and increased motivation after stopping or reducing porn use.
There isn’t a man alive who regrets quitting porn. Every area of your life benefits when you stop wasting hours looking up the perfect scene to watch that only gives you a few minutes of fun.
Your self-confidence and self-esteem go through the roof as you stop feeling like a social outcast and a pervert. You no longer stay up late, so you get deeper sleep, which is excellent for your physical health.
The improvements to your mental health are huge. A lot of guys don’t realize how depressed and anxious they are because they’ve been watching porn since before puberty—but once you get that monkey off your back, you really start to enjoy life.
And then there are the productivity benefits. With your dopamine system working properly, your sleep dialed in, and your time back to focus on projects and tasks that will move the needle on your quality of life, it’s amazing who you can become if you’re finally able to quit porn.
In this article, I’m going to give you a deep dive into the benefits I’ve personally experienced, what others have gotten, and what you can expect if you can finally quit porn.
After reading these 10 benefits you get from quitting porn, you’ll be fired up to finally step away from the digital dungeon of smut for good and reclaim your life.
The top 10 Benefits of Quitting Porn
I can tell you my story, and I can give you all of the research-backed benefits, but I also collected some of the best stories from Fight the New Drug and r/AskMen, where guys are telling their stories about the benefits they got from quitting porn.
You’ll get your time back
When you stop watching porn, you get back so much time that you didn’t even know you were losing. See, whenever you compulsively watch porn, it becomes part of your daily routine. So much so that you just make time for it, even if you don’t actually have the time.
For example, you know that you need to get to sleep, but you’ll stay up late looking for scenes. You know that you need to get to work, school, or some other important appointment, but you manage to find the time to jerk off. There are things you need to do so that you can get more out of life, but because porn has taken over such an important place in your life, you never get around to doing them, and you always feel pressed for time.
It should be obvious that you don’t actually have time for porn. You’re neglecting everything else so that you can find the time to watch porn. And when you stop watching porn, it’s amazing what you can actually get done in your life.
And to put this into perspective, consider that the average person spends almost 10 minutes on a porn site (Statista Research Department). A lot of that time is spent looking for the perfect scene or getting set up. From a survey of 3,000+ men who watch porn:
10% watch daily
5% watch multiple times a day (Bőthe et al., 2018)
If you’re one of those 5% of men who watch porn multiple times a day, you can easily burn an hour a day watching porn. And that might not seem like much, but each time you interrupt a task to watch porn, you have to get into the zone again. Being 10 minutes late somewhere is the difference between catching the bus and being forced to reschedule an appointment.
You can lose a lot of time watching porn. When you stop watching porn, you get that time back to improve your life.
During my boxing career, I was in school for physics and serving in the military. Those things, along with my relationship, were my priorities. And funny enough, that’s also when I stopped using porn. If I were still trying to use porn, I’d never have the time to do physics homework, train at the gym, serve my country, and be a decent boyfriend.
What other men say about getting their time back from porn
“I simply have more time on my hands.”
— Fight the New Drug — Positive Side-Effects of Not Watching Porn
“Instead of wasting time looking for the perfect video, I’m now spending that time sleeping.”
— r/AskMen Reddit
“I got a job, started college, and rebuilt my life.” — Fight the New Drug — Positive Side-Effects of Not Watching Porn
You learn to delay gratification
The Marshmallow Test is a famous experiment that demonstrated the power of delayed gratification. Children were offered one marshmallow immediately, or two if they could wait 15 minutes. Many couldn’t wait.
Researchers followed these kids for years, and those who delayed gratification went on to have better outcomes across nearly every major life domain—education, income, relationships, and health.
At first glance, this might seem unrelated to something like porn. After all, marshmallows and sex aren’t the same thing. But neither were marshmallows and future income. The common thread wasn’t the reward. It was the ability to tolerate desire without acting on it immediately.
Porn trains the opposite skill.
You feel a sexual urge, and within seconds, you can satisfy it completely, with no effort, no uncertainty, and no resistance. Over time, your brain learns a simple rule: when desire shows up, it must be resolved immediately. That lesson doesn’t stay confined to sex. It spills into patience, effort, relationships, and long-term goals.
Dopamine doesn’t directly create self-control, but it does play a critical supporting role. Dopamine is involved in motivation and reward anticipation—it helps your brain decide what’s worth pursuing and how much effort to invest.
When you repeatedly flood your reward system with high-intensity, low-effort stimulation like porn, everyday challenges start to feel less compelling by comparison. Tasks that require patience, uncertainty, or sustained effort feel harder—not because you’ve lost discipline, but because your brain has learned to expect faster payoffs.
When you quit porn, many people notice something subtle but important: it becomes easier to wait. To stay focused. To do things that don’t pay off immediately. That matters because the most meaningful rewards in life—fitness, mastery, trust, intimacy, career progress—are all delayed rewards.
This shows up clearly in dating. If you’re used to instant gratification, waiting to build attraction and connection can feel unbearable. I ruined more than a few potential relationships because I couldn’t slow down. I needed results now.
A lot of guys today are told that if a woman doesn’t sleep with you on the first date, she’s not interested. That belief becomes much easier to accept when your nervous system has been trained to expect immediate satisfaction. But it isn’t true—and learning to wait is often the difference between short-term validation and long-term connection.
Men swear that quitting porn improved their self-discipline
“Learned discipline, one of the keys to happiness and unlimited energy and control.”
— Fight the New Drug — Positive Side-Effects of Not Watching Porn
“I have more control over myself.”
— Fight the New Drug — Positive Side-Effects of Not Watching Porn
“Withdrawals are pretty intense from it, but once you’re through it, you realize how awful the porn industry is.”
— Fight the New Drug — Porn-Free Lives
“There is some frustration… but the frequency [of sex] has increased significantly. It’s totally worth the wait.”
— r/AskMen Reddit
You never have to worry about being embarrassed
I remember when I was 19, and I had to give a presentation in my Japanese class using my computer. I was ready, and I’d made sure that I didn’t have any sites up on my computer. However, I was worried that a random pop-up would happen in the middle of the presentation because back then, porn sites were notorious for leaving viruses on your computer. Well, that day, some porn popped up, and everyone acted like they didn’t see it, but I felt so embarrassed that I dropped the class and avoided everyone on campus for the rest of my time there.
I had the same problem at my job. I had started looking at porn on the work computer, and it got infected with a virus that would cause these random pop-ups to appear. The difference between school and work is that I needed work to survive, so I couldn’t just decide to not go to work if my co-workers saw pornographic material pop-up on my screen. In fact, I wouldn’t even have a choice—I’d just be fired.
Fortunately for me, that never happened. I had some good luck, and pop-ups never happened around my co-workers or my boss, but there were a few close calls. You might think you’d never do something like look up porn on a work computer, but when you’re addicted, you aren’t in your right mind.
So when you stop using porn, you never have to worry about slipping up and opening explicit material on a work computer or a window being opened when you give a presentation, because it’s no longer something you do.
See how other men explain the feeling of being shame-free after quitting porn
“No more shame, hiding, less insecurity, more stability in all areas.”
— Fight the New Drug — Positive Side-Effects of Not Watching Porn
“I no longer live under guilt and shame. It’s like I’m breathing for the first time.”
— Fight the New Drug — Positive Side-Effects of Not Watching Porn
“I can look at my wife and daughter without shame. That’s all I need.”
— r/AskMen Reddit
“No more feelings of hypocrisy weighing on my shoulders.”
— Fight the New Drug — Positive Side-Effects of Not Watching Porn
Reduced anxiety
Many men report that quitting porn leads to a noticeable reduction in social anxiety, and this observation is more than anecdotal.
In a poll of over 2,500 indivixduals who reduced or eliminated their porn use and masturbation, 53% said they “absolutely” felt less anxious in social situations, with another 30% saying they likely experienced less anxiety. While polls are not clinical trials, the consistency of this pattern aligns closely with what we know from psychology and neuroscience.
Heavy pornography is strongly associated with higher baseline anxiety, emotional dysregulation, and social avoidance. These effects likely because bornography functions as a powerful, low-effort dopamine stimulus. Frequent exposure to porn can dysregulate the brain’s reward and stress systems.
When dopamine signaling is chronically overstimulated, the brain often compensates by increasing threat sensitivity, making everyday social interactions feel more stressful or risky than they objectively are.
Porn also acts as a behavioral avoidance tool. Instead of tolerating sexual tension, loneliness, or the discomfort of real-world interaction, the brain learns to seek instant relief through screens.
When you experience relief through makes you feel less anxious in the moment, but it makes you feel worse over time. Decades of research on anxiety disorders show that avoidance prevents the brain from learning that social situations are safe, reinforcing anxious responses.
When porn use is removed, this avoidance loop is broken. You learn to socially engage. It might be uncomfortable at first, but eventually you get used to life. Over time, many men experience a calmer baseline, greater ease in conversation, and increased social confidence.
What men say about their anxiety after giving up porn
“A positive side-effect of not watching porn is that the stress and anxiety that used to be persistent in my life are basically gone.”
— Fight the New Drug — Positive Side-Effects of Not Watching Porn
“Really happy and calm.”
— Fight the New Drug — Positive Side-Effects of Not Watching Porn
“Focused, cool, calm, secure, collected, and emotionally stable.”
— Fight the New Drug — Positive Side-Effects of Not Watching Porn
“No longer depressed, not anxious around girls my age.”
— Fight the New Drug — Positive Side-Effects of Not Watching Porn
You’ll be motivated to meet women
The Nature and Dynamics of Internet and Pornography Exposure for Youth reports that 48% of men are exposed to internet porn before age 14. This report shows that almost half of men started watching porn so early that they never got a chance to properly learn how to meet and talk to women.
When you’re constantly watching porn, you might want to touch a physical woman, but it’s just easier to fire up your favorite streaming site than to deal with the awkward hard work of talking to a girl and potentially being rejected.
But when you stop watching porn, you are far more motivated to interact with girls and put yourself into situations where you could meet them. Regular women start to look enticing again, even if they’re not wearing low-cut shirts and mini-skirts. If you’re constantly hyper-stimulated by porn, even that won’t excite you. But once you stop wasting your sexual desire on digital women, you’ll be more motivated to talk to them and try to start a sexual relationship with them.
Quitting porn restores the brain’s ability to respond powerfully to a real, flesh-and-blood woman. Porn hijacks the brain’s reward circuitry by offering infinite novelty with zero effort, which is something real sex can never compete with.
Over time, this trains the brain to associate arousal with screens rather than presence, pixels rather than connection. When porn is removed, the brain gradually relearns that attraction is tied to eye contact, scent, touch, emotional attunement, and mutual desire—not extreme visuals or scripted fantasy.
And that’s what every man wants. It doesn’t matter if his goals are to date casually or pursue a wife. The problem is that pornography gets in the way by offering you a fake digital substitute that makes the real thing look like too much work.
Men’s thoughts on meeting women once they stop using porn
“I’m much more comfortable around women now.”
— Fight the New Drug — Porn-Free Lives
“I’ve been able to really desire relationships with a more positive and romantic mindset.”
— Fight the New Drug — Positive Side-Effects of Not Watching Porn
“I was so unhappy with my life, not being able to find someone… since quitting, I’m actually interested in finding something special instead of just sex.”
— Fight the New Drug — Porn-Free Lives
No more Pornography-Induced Erectile Dysfunction
Porn doesn’t just change what you think about sex. It changes how your body and brain respond to it.
One of the most commonly reported benefits of quitting porn is stronger, more reliable erections.
While erectile dysfunction was once associated mainly with age or vascular health, clinicians now recognize a growing phenomenon often called porn-induced erectile dysfunction (PIED)—where otherwise healthy men struggle to get or maintain erections with a real partner but have no trouble responding to porn.
The issue isn’t physical damage or age. It’s neurological conditioning and reprogramming. When arousal is repeatedly paired with hyper-stimulating novelty, extreme scenarios, and endless sexual variety, your brain becomes less responsive to normal, real-world cues. Removing porn allows the dopamine system to resensitize, restoring a more natural arousal response.
There is nothing more diminishing to your sense of masculinity than having a beautiful woman in front of you who desires you, but you can’t get it up because you just watched porn. Your wife or girlfriend will wonder what’s wrong with you, and you’ll have to come up with all kinds of excuses, but the truth is that you’ve been watching porn, so you’ve got nothing left for her. That will not only ruin your self-esteem, but it will also ruin hers and strain the relationship.
What other men have to say about being free of porn-induced erectile dysfunction
“I can actually have sex with my girlfriend. I suffered from erectile dysfunction as a 22-year-old due to my addiction.”
— Fight the New Drug — Positive Side-Effects of Not Watching Porn
“My dick works now, feels like I’m going through puberty once again.”
— r/AskMen Reddit
“Skyrocketed confidence, no more performance anxiety, and improved mental health since quitting porn.”
— Fight the New Drug — Positive Side-Effects of Not Watching Porn
“Better sensations during sex… more pleasure for each orgasm… increased stamina.”
— r/AskMen Reddit
Sex becomes more enjoyable
Another major benefit is that sex will simply be more enjoyable. Many men who quit porn report that touch feels more intense, orgasms feel stronger, and arousal builds more naturally. This isn’t mystical; it’s basic neuroplasticity. When you stop overloading your brain with digital images and frequent manual stimulation, your hunger for the real thing comes roaring back, and you get more out of it.
Not only that, but when you stop watching porn, you stop separating the physical and emotional aspects of sex. If you watch porn while you’re in a relationship, then the disconnect will be apparent. Sex is the activity that bonds a man and woman in a relationship, and it’s what makes it unique from every other relationship.
Beyond the physical effects, pornography subtly reshapes expectations. It teaches performance over connection, consumption over participation, and self-gratification over mutual experience. Guys start to think they need to have sex like a porn star, and if a girl isn’t acting like one in bed, then she’s not interested.
This often shows up in relationships as selfishness, emotional distance, frustration, and reduced intimacy. Sex becomes something you take rather than something you share.
Giving up porn allows your expectations to return to a healthier baseline. Sex stops feeling like a comparison against fantasy. It starts feeling like what it’s meant to be: a deeply human, shared experience that strengthens rather than undermines the bond between two people.
Other guys talk about how much better the sex is once you stop watching porn
“Better sex!!”
— Fight the New Drug — Positive Side-Effects of Not Watching Porn
“Sex is much more romantic and intimate.”
— Fight the New Drug — Positive Side-Effects of Not Watching Porn
“Better sensations during sex… more pleasure for each orgasm.”
— r/AskMen Reddit
“With her? I feel great. All the love, the utter eroticism of it all.”
— r/AskMen Reddit
Your romantic relationship will get better
Whenever I bring up relationships, guys automatically think to themselves, “If I could get into a relationship, I wouldn’t need to use porn.” That’s because they’re focusing on the sexual release they receive from porn, and their thinking was that if they had the ability to get a flesh-and-blood woman, they wouldn’t need to use porn. The problem is that these guys assume that when they get a girlfriend, they’ll stop watching porn. It rarely works that way.
What most guys don’t realize is that entering a relationship doesn’t magically “solve” their porn use. According to national data, a large proportion of men continue using pornography even after they start dating, get engaged, or get married (Carroll et al. 2017).
And women notice. Across relationship statuses, a substantial share of women say pornography has already caused conflict in their relationship (Carroll et al. 2016). Many also view pornography as unacceptable within a committed relationship and believe it objectifies and degrades in ways that undermine intimacy and trust. That perception doesn’t disappear just because a man thinks porn is “no big deal.”
So when a guy enters a relationship and keeps using porn, he isn’t just watching explicit videos—he’s creating a secret world his partner can’t access, doesn’t agree with, and often feels hurt by. Over time, this disconnect widens. He becomes sexually stimulated by pornographic novelty, while she becomes emotionally withdrawn from feeling replaced, compared, or excluded.
And even if your girl doesn’t see porn as cheating, she’s not going to feel good about it. Researchers note that when partners differ in how they use or feel about pornography, those discrepancies can threaten the sense of trustworthiness in the relationship (Butler and Seedall 2006).
Pornography encourages a detached, objectifying form of sexuality that erodes attachment trust and diminishes the expectation that one’s partner will remain emotionally faithful and invested in the relationship (Zitzman and Butler 2009).
She’s also going to feel like she’s being replaced. Porn makes your girl feel like your energy and attention is going somewhere else, which it is. This makes her less secure in the relationship.
When you’re in a relationship and you quit watching porn, your relationship quality will dramatically improve because you aren’t giving your sexual time and energy to something else. Now it’s going completely to her. She’ll feel more desired, you won’t feel like you’re cheating on her, and the relationship will flourish.
How other men (and women) have described their relationship once they quit porn
“I have an SO. Why do I need porn? My pursuit of her increased and so did her self-esteem.”
— r/AskMen Reddit
“Since my boyfriend has quit, I feel so much more loved and valued in our relationship.”
— Fight the New Drug — Positive Side-Effects of Not Watching Porn
“Higher sex drive, much better sex, much closer with my wife.”
— r/AskMen Reddit
You’ll feel better about yourself
I don’t care how much fun you have while you’re watching porn. No guy feels great about himself for resorting to it.
Guys feel worthless and unattractive because they have to resort to digital erotica for sexual gratification.
Guys feel ashamed because even though they know about the trauma and trafficking that gets many women into these films, they can’t stop watching.
Guys feel powerless because they’ve made every aspect of their focus around watching porn. Porn dictates when they go to sleep, if they go out, or if they get into a romantic relationship. And if they get into a relationship, then the worst feeling comes along with watching porn…
Many guys feel extremely guilty because they have this dirty secret that makes them feel unfaithful and not committed to their partners. Guys go through great lengths to hide their porn habit from their wives or girlfriends, out of guilt. And this only compounds if they have kids.
But when you stop watching porn—even if you only manage to make it 24 hours—you start to build confidence. You feel like if you held off the urge for this one time and for this long, next time you can go longer. You start to not only regain power over porn, but you regain power back over your own life.
I struggled with alcohol and pornography. While booze is clearly the more dangerous of the two, kicking porn felt like a real superpower. When you stop watching porn, you feel like Superman and that translates into every area of your life.
What men are saying about no longer feeling shameful and guilty after quitting porn
“I’m not ashamed of myself all the time. It feels like I’m finally myself.”
— Fight the New Drug
“I don’t feel guilty 24/7.”
— Fight the New Drug
“I can look at my wife and daughter without shame. That’s all I need.”
— r/AskMen
“Huge confidence boost. I’m free to be me with absolutely no shame.”
— Fight the New Drug
Summary of the major benefits you get for quitting porn
Watching pornography regularly has many negative side effects, but conversely, if you quit, you’ll experience some awesome benefits. From reducing anxiety and depression to increasing motivation, happiness, relationship connection, and sexual satisfaction, the decision to quit is filled with positive effects.
Quitting porn for good might seem distant, but it's achievable. The benefits of freedom far outweigh the cost.
References
Bőthe, B., Tóth-Király, I., Zsila, Á., Griffiths, M. D., Demetrovics, Z., & Orosz, G. (2018).
The development of the Problematic Pornography Consumption Scale (PPCS).
The Journal of Sex Research, 55(3), 395–406.
https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2017.1291798
Carroll, J. S., Busby, D. M., Willoughby, B. J., & Brown, C. C. (2017).
The porn gap: Differences in men’s and women’s pornography patterns in couple relationships.
Journal of Couple & Relationship Therapy, 16(2), 146–163.
https://doi.org/10.1080/15332691.2016.1238796
Willoughby, B. J., Carroll, J. S., Busby, D. M., & Brown, C. C. (2016).
Differing relationship structures of secure attachment: Implications for pornography use in romantic relationships.
Archives of Sexual Behavior.
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/facpub/5161/
Zitzman, S. T., & Butler, M. H. (2009).
Attachment, addiction, and sexuality: Implications for understanding compulsive pornography use.
Sexual Addiction & Compulsivity, 16(3), 210–240.
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/facpub/5161/
Butler, M. H., & Seedall, R. (2006).
Pornography and couples.
Journal of Sexual Addiction & Compulsivity.
Sabina, C., Wolak, J., & Finkelhor, D. (2008).
The nature and dynamics of Internet pornography exposure for youth under 18.
CyberPsychology & Behavior, 11(6).
https://www.unh.edu/ccrc/sites/default/files/media/2022-03/the-nature-and-dynamics-of-internet-pornography-exposure-for-youth-under-18.pdf
Statista Research Department. (2024). Average duration of visits to Pornhub in the United States in 2023, by state. Statista.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1446337/pornhub-visit-duration-us-by-state/
Fight the New Drug. (n.d.). Positive side-effects of not watching porn, according to 90 real people. Retrieved December 14, 2025, from https://fightthenewdrug.org/positive-side-effects-of-not-watching-porn/
Fight the New Drug. (n.d.). Inside look: The lives of guys living porn-free. Retrieved December 14, 2025, from https://fightthenewdrug.org/inside-look-lives-of-guys-living-porn-free/
AskMen Subreddit. (2023, March 8). Men who have quit porn, what benefits have you experienced? Reddit. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskMen/comments/1cc4pua/men_who_have_quit_porn_what_benefits_have_you/
