Age 39 – Over 20 years of addiction: How has this changed my life so far?

Few months ago, it was unthinkable (over 20 years of Addiction) for me to imagine being NoFap for a week but today having passed 90th Day mark, any change looks extremely possible and the limit is only in our mind and commitment.

How has this changed my life so far?

01. At work, I am much more confident in expressing my ideas, in the meetings rooms or board room. I have no hesitation in expressing my ideas and I do not care much about what others think about me. This does not mean I do not respect them. In fact I respect everyone and listen to all of them much more than before. But simply I am much more assertive and confident. And I’m trying to improve on this continuously now.

02. I am not feeling the tiredness nowadays. I do not sleep middays even at weekends; I spend more time planning, learning and brainstorming to better my life. These are not exaggerations. I did try these before when I was using porn but never done anything properly always felt guilty or down. So being on this challenge has definitely improved my self-esteem, testosterone level and over all energy level.

03. My mind cannot trick me into fantasizing or masturbation anymore. Before I used to masturbate every night on bed just to get sleep. My mind was tricked to think that I have to get up tomorrow and go to work, not sleeping long hours will make it difficult for me to get to work. So, I will be awake for a while, this thinking would kick in, I would masturbate, release it and sleep. But I observed how I get to this sort of thinking and found out that because every time I masturbated to get sleep, flow of the dopamine and the pleasure rewired my neural network and created a belief that I can only sleep by masturbating. After I started on NoFap challenge, I did have nights where I was awake but forced my mind to think that I am not going to be tricked by this un-real wiring. As each day passed, the previous days I slept without masturbation became affirmation that I can sleep without masturbation. And it also proved to me that our brain actually works based on a rewarding system. Before the reward for releasing the dopamine through masturbation now I have changed the rewarding system to feel happy and reward if I am not masturbating. Its really magic how things changed. Its because I am not masturbating to get sleep anymore, I do not feel tired anymore the next day. How cool is that?

04. One of the key think that I always kept in my mind that past 90 days is that I SHOULD TRY MY BEST TO AVOID BEING ALONE AT HOME. In my opinion being alone its being alone is that critical factor that forced me to indulge in PMO in the past. I know its not possible to completely avoid being alone. So whenever I knew that I am going to be alone, I pro-actively push my self to go to gym or complete a course online or some other activity to keep me busy interested and not bored. This has actually worked for me. Not sure this will work for everyone but it worked for met. It was difficult initially but its fun now.

05. One of the benefits of being on this challenge for me is that I do not get annoyed or angry as much as I used to before I started this challenge. I am not perfect now, I still get annoyed or angry some time but the point is it’s not that frequent anymore. So this gives me the confidence that I am much less impulsive now and more reliable in terms of my behaviors.

One quick tip, I found that checking in every day on my journal before I go to bed to say I have completed the day successfully, have actually worked magic. I think two main things happened in this regard. One is I did not want to give up on the guys and accountability partners who help and motivate me on the site and my thread and I did not want to lie to them and post fake accomplishments. So I had to be honest. This helped. And the other thing is checking in everyday before bed time, acts as a reminder, affirmation and acts as a great motivator.

So, for these reasons and for many other reasons that I did not get time write here, I want to continue my challenge to hit the 365 days’ mark. I know I took up a large challenge and initially it was not easy. I am almost ¼ way through so I can trust myself in this journey much more than ever before.

LINK – Its 90th Day and Why I want to continue my journey towards 365th Day

by wholenewlife