Excessive sexual thoughts

Welcome to the community.
You are in a place about now in recovery when your sensitivity has returned and your own brain is fighting you to get what you were feeding it before.
It will create it in your mind and try to get you to go back.
This in and of itself is not a reset but work and focus on recovery and other things to keep your mind busy so it doesn't lead you to reset.
Time brother, time.

 

You have no reference of what a normal quantity of sexual thoughts looks like. So don't automatically assume that you have too many just because you're on NoFap.

 

How can you tell? You can't compare yourself honestly to your older self. How would you be able to accurately remember the amount of sexual thoughts you had even 5 days ago?
Don't worry about it. Worry about your goals. Make goals. Once you have a goal, the world transforms itself into three categories: Things that help you achieve that goal, things that waste your time and things that stand in your way. So in what category is "having lots of sexual thoughts"? It's either in your way, which I doubt unless you can't even concentrate because you're so horny, in which case you should jerk off or fuck. But if you can concentrate and you simply notice your head playing sexy movies 24/7 I would say it's nothing more than a waste of time. And the answer to that isn't to worry about how you can reduce the sexual thoughts, because then you're treating it like an obstacle. Ignore it. Don't worry. Relax. Do your thing.

 

Well, maybe i can help you someway...Do not fight thoughts, they will become stronger and you will fall. I have been reading a book called "personal integration course" (its a brazilian book by the badass philosopher Mario Ferreira dos Santos) that you need to let these thoughts flow, but like a "viewer". Treat them with indifference, do not fight.
"In the struggle against impurity, those who flee will be victorious" (something like that...).

 

I don't think you've thought your question through buddy. First of all, nobody here can give you a definitive answer on that. Second, assume for a moment that sexual thoughts do trigger a dopamine response. What are you going to do about it? Stop your sexual thoughts? That's impossible. You can do your best to repress them and like a rubber band that is being stretched they will snap back at ya.

Also I'd highly recommend to not think about your recovery from a health perspective. Just change your habits, the rest will follow. You can't control the health of your brain, the various dopamine responses, that's all very abstract and useless to you. You can control the way you live. Healthy lifestyle, healthy brain.

 

Hey @Welloiledmachine !

Thought I would encourage you by saying the exact same thing happened to me around those days as well. I don't think you should worry at all, just try to make yourself busy and think of something else. Here is my post on day 17 of my journal:

"Day 17!

Still having random thoughts about sex which annoy me. Almost as if my brain defaults to that when I'm not trying to think about anything. Once I notice, I immediately try to snap out of it and think of something else. Tried to go to bed earlier last night but those thoughts kept me awake for a while."

On day 46 now and those thoughts are a lot less frequent. Just keep pushing through, your brain is rewiring so it will try to attack you with those thoughts. They will stop with time.

Hope this helps! Keep going, day 22 is good progress!

 

What day are you on now?