Made a video about supernormal stimuli...could you guys check it out and help me

[Maximus76]

I have a YouTube channel about anxiety and depression and I just made a video about, some of the reasons, why some people are not getting better even if they try a lot of tools for their anxiety?

... in that video I try to explain how ?supernormal stimuli?, like for example porn, can mess with our brain?s reward system. I don?t know if I managed to explain it well enough, since I?m not as good as Gary Wilson with presenting the science but I hope that the people who are not familiar with the negative effects of porn will understand it?

... and I hope I did a somewhat good job. Could you guys take a look and see if the video explains it well enough for ?non rebooters?, that have not heard about rebooting, will understand it?

The video is not so much about sexuality, but more about why supernormal stimuli can be bad for our brain for depression and anxiety. (since my channel focuses mostly on those two subjects)

I know many people will react negatively when I start talking trash about porn, but I tried to make it as educational as I could.

I hope Gary Wilson don?t that I may have borrowed a few phrases that he uses in some of his phenomenal presentations?

...honestly I?m a bit nervous about posting it on YouTube?

Anyways, here is the link: https://youtu.be/MyhG6ewwSaM

Thanks so much in advance.

Stay Strong guys!

P.S. If you happen to like the video I would love for you guys to support me by subscribing to my channel =)

-Bob-

P.S, I hope you can understand my scandinavian accent  :

 

[Psyc Ops]

I watched the video.  I liked it.  I think porn addiction must be understood, as you recognize, in terms of two things:  evolution, and the human brain response to our environment. 

Our environment, now, is much different than our environment was when the current version of the human brain evolved.  Back then, in Africa, the human brain, in its current form, was constantly stimulated.  You talk about the "cave man", but you are really just talking about the first of us, us being homo sapiens.  We don't live in caves, anymore, so to speak.  Our brains have not changed so much as our environment has.  When we think of anxiety, now, we think of it in terms of a negative feeling, and it is, anxiety sucks.  But, for the first homo sapiens, anxiety was a successful survival trait; it helped us live in a challenging and dangerous environment.  A cave man who was anxious was more likely to survive that challenging and dangerous environment than one who was blithely unaware of his or her surroundings, and, for instance, did not really care if there were crocodiles in the water; they wanted to sunbath and swim, regardless.  Point being that today we think of anxiety as a negative trait, and for most it is, but back then it was a successful survival trait.  Context is a lot. 

As we existed, when our current brain evolved, we were swimming in stimulation.  You might even say we were swimming in super stimulation.  We were busy running down prey, figuring out how to predate, and running for our lives as other predators predated upon us.  We were, and are, very good predators.  Yet, today, very few of us do predate.  The dopamine rush our brains experienced when the brain got to its current form is no longer experienced, for most of us, for the reasons it was experienced 20 to 40 thousand years ago.  We do not think of that void in terms of missing it, but, as a species, we miss it, and we have found a lot of things to fill up that void, to replace it. 

Don't get me wrong.  There are a lot of places and environments where a lot of that primitive super stimulation can still be found.  Hunting, to an extent.  War, to an extent.  Sex, to an extent.  Eating, to an extent.  But look at western culture.  Look at our entertainments and our distractions.  Violence and sex permeates our culture, on television and in the movies.  It is (mostly) fake violence and fake sex, but just look at the biggest television series and movies playing, and many, maybe most, are in large part an homage to sex and or violence. 

One of my favorite television series is Fear the Walking Dead.  In it the protagonists deal with an environment that is lethal, or, perhaps I should say an environment that has returned to lethal.  the new, lethal, environment in the show is not the first time the human brain has experienced a lethal environment, just the first time the species has experienced such a widespread lethal environment in a long time.  I propose the environment that our current brains evolved in was also lethal.  It is not that we liked it being lethal, but, only that it was, and our current brain evolved to make us most successful in dealing with it.  Consequently, we became lethal as well.  In an interesting twist on addiction, the writers of Fear the Walking Dead created the character of Nick Clark.  At the beginning of the series he exists in our environment, the one we inhabit currently, and he is hopeless addicted to heroin.  By the end of season one, his environment having become lethal, he is no longer addicted to heroin.  In a sense his brain has, by that time, been dropped back into an environment somewhat similar to the environment our current brains evolved in.  He no longer craves external stimulation or super stimulation, because the environment is sufficiently stimulating that external stimulation is a distraction that could lead to death.

The cave man in your video is not, really, a cave man; he is just early homo sapiens who existed in a lethal environment we had not yet tamed.  He did not need super stimulation because he lived with it daily.  We miss that, which is one of the reasons we fill that void with stimulation in the form of those you have mentioned, including porn. 

This explains our desire for stimulation.  We desire it because at the time our brains evolved, we had it constantly, it being stimulation and dopamine response.  Gary Wilson's vid explains perfectly why artificial sexual stimulation can become addictive, but underlying the explanation of addiction, we must understand the human brain evolved in a lethal environment of super stimulation, which is the underlying reason why we crave, or expect as normal, stimulations that trigger a dopamine reaction.  That reaction was present when the current version of the human brain evolved; it is not that it became possible only with the invention of High Speed Internet Porn. 

Thank you for the video, and the insight.  Enjoyed it. 

 

[Maximus76]

A lot of great stuff you wrote there Psyc Ops. I think it's fascinating with evolution and also evolutionary psychology. Learning more about that helps us understand why we do what we do, and also, why we react the way we do and have the feelings we have. I wonder how humans will evolve within the next thousand years...and what part technology will have in that...

 

[HumbleRich]

Great video Maximus!  I like the art and your voice. 

Rich