Sober October (In November)

Hey what’s up all!

So just thought I’d post in here incase someone was motivated to do something similar to what I’m doing!

After many days wondering why I find it hard to find satisfaction in the small things anymore I realised I have a big problem with overstimulation In my day to day life. From the moment I wake up my day is loaded with overstimulation. Whether it’s binging on fast food till I feel sick, spending 3-4 hours on social media a day, drinking 15-20 alcoholic drinks a night (every day for the last 3 months) smoking weed, cigarettes, porn, or doing multiple of these things at once I realised, how am I suppose to be stimulated by day to do day things when I flood my body with stimulation all day every day.

So I made a list of all the ways I stimulate my body in unhealthy ways and have decided to do a 30 day challenge where I will replace all the bad habits Alcohol, drugs, porn, excess tv, excess caffeine, excess time on social media or food overconsumption with healthy ones, these include exercise, reading, small amounts of meditation a day, mindful minutes, a 30 day eating plan and exercise plan to follow.

I’ve created a spreadsheet where I will log how I feel on a scale from 0-10 in 10 different categories that include, energy, withdrawal symptoms, sleep, exercise, eating, how good I was with my finances, stress levels, libido, and mood. I will grade them all everyday for 30 days to see if removing negative stimulations has an effect on me and to see if there’s any links between them. For example, on days I am higher in stress do I eat more? Or when I don’t sleep well am I less likely to exercise etc. A long side this I will be taking one progress photo everyday to see the physical differences in my body to match up with the data above.

So my data tracker is set up, my plans are ready and I’ve done my best to remove temptations, there’s no alcohol in my house, I’ve deleted social media apps etc and I’ve posted here and notified my friends of what I’m doing so I’m more likely to hold myself accountable.

I’m looking forward to logging my results and with any luck someone on this forum might find motivation from my findings to help them in their lives. We are all here to support and be supported so I’m trying to do my bit!

Wish me luck brothers, this next 30 days is going to get real weird and interesting


Thanks for reading on ya’ll!

 

Hey bro!

Thanks for the reply and congrats on the sober October. As you mentioned quitting all of them at once will make it quite a lot more difficult but I’m embracing the challenge. I’ll definitely shoot you a message if I have any questions. I’m sure I’ll have plenty in the coming weeks

Also for anyone wanting to use the same data tracker just shoot me a message and I’ll find a way to share the template via google docs!


Thanks again!

 

Thanks bro! Definitely has been a weird experience so far. I’m at day 11 now and I’ll be doing a quick update at the half way mark. Have had some up and down days but it’s amazing how fast you can adapt when your mindset is right!

looking forward to updating you all soon!

 

That’s awesome bro! I am doing this month but I think it would be a whole different ball game to quit completely so kudos to you! Hopefully I can get on your level I appreciate the reply and good luck with your challenge!

 

Good stuff bro! Feel free to message me if you’re looking for support! Cheers to a better version of ourselves

 

Just a quick update guys. I did some research on zinc deficiencies and their link to overall sexual health and erection quality and the link seems to be very strong! So I started taking a magnesium and zinc supplement before bed every night and say what you will, my sleep has been better than it has all year, my energy through the day is noticeably better and both yesterday and today I had the two best natural elections ive had all year! Usually if I’m just messing around with my girlfriend nothing happens but over the last few days my dick gets super hard! I’ll keen you all posted with it over the month before I recommend it but I looked at the recommended zinc intake versus what my intake is and I’m way below what it should be, with the supplement it puts me right where I should be and I’m already seeing a difference. Holy shit of this is the cause of my issues I may really be onto something!

 

Well gentleman my challenge has come to a close and what a weird month it was! I managed to get through the month without consuming any alcohol or weed. I had maybe 5-6 ‘cheat meals’ if you will with everything else being on a strict eating plan. I had zero minutes clocked on my PlayStation. I broke a couple of times and checked Instagram but besides that was off social media for the month. There were a lot of positives during this time with the main and most noticeable change being my mood. On the previous few months my mood was so erratic. I would experience extreme levels of happiness and deep consuming darkness as well. In the same day I might be elated and also have suicidal thoughts. Now at the end of my 30 day abstinence my mood routinely sits at a 7/10 and doesn’t really fluctuate very much. During this time I lost 7kg by eliminating calories from alcohol (big cider and beer drinker) as well as exercise and healthy eating. I paid way more attention to my body and what I was doing with it. Consuming clean, healthy foods and doing some form of exercise almost everyday (weights, walking the dog, stretching etc) made me so much more in tune with my body and my energy levels went through the roof because of this. Previously it was such a taxing struggle physically and mentally to get through work and now I breeze through it without a hitch. I spend more time with my girlfriend and just appreciate the small moments. A lot of this was due to the mindful minutes I would take every day. If I found myself stressing about something present, past or future I would take 60 seconds to breath slowly and only concentrate on the exact moment I was experiencing and that made the world of difference. I feel like not using social media also helped a lot with making me focus on myself and my ‘now’. We all fall victim to making comparisons between ourselves and others and I found I was doing that significantly less while off social media. Also worth mentioning (given this is Nofap after all) I did notice changes in my sexual health during this time. I actually had sex naturally without medicated help for the first time in around 6 months. My erection wasn’t great but it was definitely good enough to have sex with for around 5 minutes and I was super happy with that! I also noticed Significantly stronger erections when things first started getting hot and heavy with my girlfriend. Previous to this challenge I’d have no election or at best my dick would have been slightly more erect. I found that good nutrition, exercising, getting better sleep, doing a daily kegel exercise routine (an app I do while I drive to work) and minimising stress definitely had a direct effect on my libido and erection quality. I also has the two best and most intense orgasms I can ever remember having in my life this week. Now not to say everything is perfect, far from it, but that was never the point of my 30 day challenge. It was a reboot to take the first step to changing my life and I feel like I have done that. Thanks to those who have shown support during this. I hope this motivates at least one person to try the same and potentially reap the benefits. Thanks lads!