I’ve been reading a bunch of peoples posts and commenting some on this r/nofap for 3 weeks now. Lately, I feel, posts come from a more negative perspective which really bugs me. I would like to change that in the form of this post. Also, I would like to give our new members, of which there are about 2000 more then when I joined 3 weeks ago, a few weapons to use in their fight/challenge. These are meant to be performed in a step-by-step manner.
Before beginning:
- Educate yourself, read YBOP, /r/nofap, watch the TEDx and YBOP videos.
- Decide why you want to stop fapping, give yourself 3 or more reasons why this will be a positive change in your life, I suggest writing the reasons down for future reference.
- Try to find out your triggers, what makes fap or want to fap, again writing these down will help.
- Design some activities that you will do when urges arise, make a list of at least 5 different things that can be done around the clock.
Now you are ready to begin the nofap journey. The following can not be done in a step-by-step manner because the nofap journey is unpredictable because it is affected by various variables outside of our direct control. It is this lack of control that makes the first 4 steps crucial to success. The first 4 steps take the guess work out of resisting temptation and give us a framework to work off of.
NoFap:
- Upkeep: Keep educating yourself, and revising/strengthening your reasons to continue on this journey. Also, keep noting your triggers and experiment with different ways to keep yourself occupied when temptations do arise.
- Resist: When the urges do come, and trust me, they will, remind yourself of your reasons to quit and then get your activity list out and do something off of it.
- Work around triggers: If you know something triggers your masturbation habit try to avoid it. If you can’t avoid the trigger then you have to acknowledge the situation and work through it by reminding yourself of the reasons you are doing this.
- Eliminate stress: This is probably the most important part, as it will allow you to focus on your goals. Eat well, work-out, do your work ahead of time, have a consistent sleep schedule, pay your bills on time, etc. This is probably the hardest thing to do as it takes work to get there, but like all things, gets easier with practice. Be wary though, changing too much will stress you out even more so take 1 additional thing on every 3-4 weeks.
Now you have done your 30/90/120/180 days of nofap, or whatever your goal was. Congrats! And you are ready to conquer other parts of life.
Some important considerations:
- If you are like me, addicted to PMO, there is no return to moderate PMO.
- The only way to fail this is to quit all together. Resetting is not a failure, it is debugging. Go back to step 1 and revise your lists and start again.
- Get the thought out of your head that this is hard. That is just an excuse to give in. I like to think of this as a necessity and as such I can not give in to something that isn’t a necessity.
- Focus on one thing at a time. If you are just starting the NoFap journey, then don’t try to change 3 other things in your life. We only have so much freewill and everything we do that is not a habit drains that freewill.
Thanks for reading! I hope I can help some of you. As I was writing this, I kept thinking to myself “I’m only 21 days in, who am I to give advice about quitting for 90 days?” and I realized it is because I am addicted to junk food and tobacco which I have tried to quit but always come back to using but PMO I have been able to give up and overcome my urges easily.
Good post.
Other things that help, at least with me anyway are:
- Writing down the days you don’t fap and keep track of them. Whether it be crossing off days you don’t fap on a calendar, or writing down tally points, physically seeing how far you’ve come in this journey can be really inspiring and keep you on your goal.
- Meditation has been a big help thus far. Clearing my mind and focusing on my breathing. I do two sets of 20 minutes a day and feel really centered. You can meditate for how ever long you want, but should be no less than 5 minutes.
- Exercise, I run/walk 5-6 times a week anywhere between 5-8 miles a day. It gets me out of the house and away from my computer. I also expunge a lot of energy, which makes it harder for me to get an erection and fap. I would also recommend yoga or any other sports as well. I’d be careful about weightlifting, because it can increase your testosterone production and make the urges to fap that much greater.
- Staying sober. For me there is nothing greater than getting bombed one night and waking up the next day hungover and fapping 2-3 times. Something about being hungover and fapping just goes hand and hand for me like peanut butter and jelly. Alcohol is a depressant and can fuck with your logic and throw you off your path. If you want to make things easier on yourself stay away from the booze. I don’t know about marijuana and other drugs, so I can’t say if they’ll be counter productive or not. I can’t imagine them helping during no fap though.
- Get out of the house. Sounds simple, but us humans are creatures of habit and like to stay in our “safe zone.” The more you get out of the house, the less tempted you’ll be to fap. Go out with friends, eat a meal out, whatever you want. Just try not to stay at home while not doing anything productive.
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