24m here, fapping for about ~ the last 10 years. I’ve tried and failed this challenge multiple times over the past two years, but today I am happy to say I am achieving real progress!
First thing you should know, is I have been suffering from visual snow for the last year and a half, which is described nicely here: www.eyeonvision.org/visual-snow.html
Basically I see static in my vision, I don’t what caused it, and doctors don’t know either. I’ve been doing a lot of reading online and found that surprisingly, there was anecdotal evidence between doing nofap and visual snow symptoms disappearing: www.google.co.uk/search?q=nofap%20visual%20snow
I started this challenge immediately, but like many of you couldn’t stop relapsing. So I decided that I would keep going on to 30 days, whilst logging the following things:
- Any possible triggers, like alcohol/smoking
- Healthy habits, such as exercise and supplements
- Benefits, to my visual snow/skin
In total I’ve relapsed 8 days in the previous 30 days, but each time I’ve got back on to nofap as soon as I could. This is the important part; I’m not going to break a 10 year addiction on my first try. Instead you have to keep the pressure up, especially after you relapse.
Here is a screenshot of my log: www.i.imgur.com/KLMAZNT.png
A quick rundown of the columns:
M: Masturbating. Relapse frequency is recorded here.
Ur: Urges frequency.
Mag: Magnesium Supplement.
ZB12: Zinc+B12 Supplement.
GTea: Green Tea amount.
Alc: Estimate of alcohol units consumed.
SmC: Cigarettes smoked.
SmW: Weed smoked.
M&Ms: I always crave chocolate M&Ms. So by recording eating them, I hope to curb this habit.
Rowing: Minutes on the rowing machine.
Dots: How bad the visual snow is in the day (0 gone - 10 bad)
AI: After images (0 none - 10 bad)
Night: How bad visual snow is at night (0 gone - 10 bad)
Mental Ability: 1-10 rating of how alert I feel and how much work I get done in the day.
Sleep: Hours of sleep from the previous night
Skin face: 1-10 rating of skin on my face
Skin body: 1-10 rating of skin on my body
IF: Intermittent fasting (only eat between 12pm-8pm).
FF: Frownies worn in the morning and at night. Using in an attempt to smooth out my forehead.
Takeways from the log:
- Around day 3-4, my urges shoot way up, but strangely only max out at 7. Then from day 10 they are low again. I attribute this to my body adjusting since the porn source was closed off.
- Too much alcohol, or weed, are my triggers! By objectively identifying these, I have now severely reduced them, resulting in my longest streak yet!
- My snow is getting better. It’s too early to tell yet for sure though. Also it could be down to nofap, the supplements, or exercise. Or a combination.
- Before nofap I know I had brain fog, I could feel it (sluggish thoughts). Once on nofap everyday I got a bit better, until all my brain fog was gone. Then something cool happened, I got even smarter! Brain fog I didn’t even know about was presumably lifted, as now when I am doing my work I work some things out lightening fast which completely takes me off guard.
- My sleep used to be 10-12 hours, then on nofap it went down to 9-10 hours. Now with intermittent fasting too its gone down to 6-8 hours! I wake up feeling refreshed too, and literally can’t go back to sleep. This has completely destroyed my notion of their being ‘morning people’, and I never thought I’d become one of them.
- Self improvement. In the last couple of days I have started intermittent fasting, which I soon mean to develop into /r/leangains. Additionally I started wearing frownies on my head to curb my deep wrinkles I have from unconsciously frowning a lot! Before nofap I knew of these things, but would have no motivation to go through with them. On nofap, the path seems obvious. Strange how the mind works!
Tips to others on nofap:
- Keep a log. I think this post has made it clear how useful they are. And it’s great for me to look back on it and see how far I’ve come.
- Do exercise. For me it’s 20mins of rowing in the morning most days. Without this physical exertion I’m not sure I could make it. Also the endorphin release makes you feel calm for hours afterwards.
- Don’t let relapsing get you down. I used to PMO twice a day, which would be 30×2 = 60 times a month. Now from my log I can see I PMO’d 20 times, a reduction of 2/3’s! I can also say I’ve abstained more days than I haven’t. I have watched P a couple of times in weak moments, but without the MO my brain quickly loses interest.
After a difficult start, I now feel like I have things under control, and will be able to keep this streak going for a long time. Thanks all for reading, and here’s to another 30 days that are even cleaner.
Link –
by d_axe
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