Why you flatline and why it's completely normal

I keep seeing questions about flatlining so I thought I'd answer this and provide a bit of science behind the answer. As you reboot some of you may notice some wild swings in terms of libido, morning wood, etc. One day it's there, the next it's gone. Some of these stretches may seem very long. The good news is that this is actually a sign of progress.

Supercompensation
In order to understand why these wild swings occur we must first address the idea of supercompensation. Supercompensation exists in all systems with feedback and biological systems are one.
Supercompensation is a model of biological adaptation where when a system is fatigued and then allowed sufficient recovery time the system will recover back to baseline and then overshoot, repeating until it eventually settles back to baseline. Some of you may have noticed in past that if you masturbated or had sex you'd have a short period of complete sexual exhaustion followed by a short period with very strong erections as in the single cycle diagram below.


The question for most people then is why they are experiencing long periods of flatlining. The answer is seen in the following diagram where a higher level of induced fatigue in a system causes further cycles of compensation over time.


We've fatigued our systems so much that it will go through several cycles before returning entirely to baseline. It is thrown so far to one side that it overshoots, then plunges back below baseline, slowly reducing the amount that it overshoots as time goes on.

I hope this helps a bit.

JonB

 

Either:
A) They're in a very long positive phase and will end up in a negative phase eventually
B) Haven't created enough fatigue in the system for the dips below baseline to be noticeable

As with all things biological there is great variation between individuals and in the case of sexual exhaustion case the degree and frequency to which the system has been stressed can be quite different.