How does nofap influence depression?

Hi @Swagnation. When we PMO for extended periods of time, what happens is our dopamine receptors become flooded with excessive amounts of dopamine. So much so that they can't handle it all. Because of this, some of the receptors temporarily shut down. The effect of this is that you are walking around on a daily basis with a less than normal amount of dopamine receptors. So when you see a beautiful sunset or listen to a great song and your brain creates dopamine as a response so that you can feel joy, you have less receptors to actually receive that dopamine and chemically process it into joy. Also because some of your dopamine receptors are temporarily closed down, when you PMO you need more stimulus, longer sessions, deeper novelty, more extreme shock value, etc... from the porn you are watching in order to receive the same amount of "high". This is a vicious cycle because adding more porn stimulus overloads the remaining dopamine receptors and some of them temporarily shut down. Rinse, wash, repeat. Over and over and soon you are walking around unable to feel any joy from anything, any empathy, any true sadness, any sincere emotion. You feel hollow and empty inside.

The great news is that when you abstain from PMO and arousing Psubs for an extended period of time (length of time is different for everyone), those dopamine receptors that were overloaded and shut down will begin to reopen for business. You may notice yourself feeling very emotional, tearing up at a cute FB video or soaring with joy at seeing an old lady planting flowers. This is your brain getting in touch with the full range of emotions again that you've been missing for awhile. Eventually things even out and you'll reach an equilibrium in your brain.

Flatlines are normal, being emotional is normal. This stuff is to be expected during recovery/reboot.

Great job coming here and asking an important question. Best of luck in your continued progress.

 

Yes, nofap absolutely helps. Your reward system is completely jacked from fapping to porn. The result is that you are numbed emotionally with everything in life, and feel depressed. I was suffering from this severely 4 years ago. I felt very depressed and didn't know it was a result from fapping all the time for years, every single morning upon waking up. I thought I was just stressed from work, but it wasn't really that. You can read about it all on yourbrainonporn.com.

The severely addicted will take more time to recover than people who are not as severe.

 

What happens when you ejaculate too much?

excerpt:

Overriding sexual satiety may produce a spectrum of symptoms
Our satiety mechanisms aren't foolproof. After all, if they worked perfectly (from our perspective), no one would be fat. We can, and often do, exceed them for "high-value" temptations. This makes supernormal stimuli different from everyday pleasures—even those we very much enjoy.

It is these modern goodies that have the unique ability to lead to overconsumption by urging us to override our natural "I'm done" signals. When we do, and our overconsumption becomes chronic, we risk longer-lasting brain changes.

Keep in mind that addictive drugs only cause addiction because they magnify or inhibit mechanisms already in place for natural rewards, such as sexual arousal. This is no doubt why scientists have proposed that the reward circuit is the final common pathway for understanding masculine mating behavior.

Might using the Internet to override sexual satiety produce low-level addiction-related changes in some users (e.g., accumulation of DeltaFosB)? As we've seen, the brains of sexually exhausted rats evidence low dopamine and blunted anti-anxiety effects when they override their natural sexual satiety rhythms.

Are men who constantly fertilize today's cyber "mates" risking a perpetual hangover when they ejaculate too frequently? Are they firing on fewer than all cylinders as a consequence? Ominously, many heavy Internet porn users report symptoms that suggest the answer is yes. Consider this guy's comments:

Masturbated 5 times today and all the old depressive feelings came back. I could clearly see that the depression was NOT because I felt bad about relapsing, because I didn't. It was all about my brain. It got depressed, paranoid and very anxious 30 minutes after my binge. I finally understand it now, not just in the abstract, but as a matter of experience. I recognized the feelings that often made me depressed and socially awkward. My solution was all the time the problem. I never suspected binging had this BIG an impact on my whole life.

Some men can easily reverse the effects:

I remember real vividly the early days of the interwebz, when teh Pr0n industry was first raking in credit card subscription fees (I used to have one) and when most of the "actresses" sported "glorious natural pelts" and did not have tattoos or belly piercings. ... In the first few years of being married, I regularly looked at teh Pr0n several times a week. I hid my credit card statements that showed the billing company info. I consumed it in secret. It was a forbidden thrill.

Then one day, I was ruminating while lying in bed, in a post-coital haze after consummating marital relations, and I realized something: Teh pr0n was ruining my enjoyment of the real thing. No matter what sex act or novelty we tried, it wasn't enough...more...More....MORE. When I used to look at girly mags or watch videotapes, I never had any problems or sense of dissatisfaction with my real life carnal experiences at all. I had a flash of insight: Teh Pr0n was insidious. [Friggin'] evil.

Soon thereafter I quit cold turkey. I cancelled my subscription and stopped visiting the then just-emerging free sites. Within a week or so, my attitude and satisfaction with marital relations improved dramatically.

In others, the plastic brain changes are pervasive enough to extinguish normal sexual performance:

I started looking into quitting porn after 6 months of sustained erectile dysfunction. I'm gay, and I would have boys that looked like 18-yo porn stars naked before me, and be completely unable to maintain an erection for sex, resorting to excuses of "I'm tired" or "it must be the alcohol." I have definitely noticed that if I go without all forms of porn/masturbation/orgasm for 2 weeks, I spring back to amazing capabilities.

Other guys appear to experience more lasting plastic brain changes, and even slip into addiction. When addicts give themselves a rest they face severe withdrawal symptoms and often a long "flatline" of sexual unresponsiveness. This guy self-identified as an addict and was trying to quit:

After 6 days of no porn/masturbation, I used it. Now, a day later, I feel a strong urge to use porn even though my penis is totally dead. It is NOT the penis needing the porn. No way. It is the brain. Here are my symptoms: Tired. Today I slept a lot. Bad flu-like symptoms. My throat aches like crazy. Depressive. I see everything in black. It's almost like the worst day of my life. Anxious, afraid. My voice is f-ed up. Had couple of really strange déjà vu experiences. Been thinking a lot about a few porn stars; can't get them out of my head. Can't work. I'm restless and disorganized.

It appears that some heavy porn users may be mistaking their persistent cravings for raging libido, when the cravings are actually addiction-related and arising from a sluggish dopamine response in their reward circuitry. Alas, when a man can ejaculate to porn, but not with his partner, he may misperceive porn's endless novelty as a "cure" for his sluggishness. By overriding his natural satiation signals with more stimulating visuals (more dopamine), he can cause further brain changes, which may erode his sexual performance for months.

 

excerpt; the benefits of quitting:

Many men who give up masturbating frequently to Internet porn report that they emerge from a sort of fog within weeks—even those who were not addicted. The benefits they recount sound almost miraculous. Perhaps they feel more assertive, productive and charismatic, find potential mates more attractive, or their motivation to accomplish their goals shoots up. Others report that they put on more muscle at the gym; their hair grows faster; their voices sound more confident and relaxed and even that stuttering stops. They become more responsive to non-synthetic sexual stimuli, and their sexual performance improves.

Are these men simply reversing the kinds of neuroendocrine changes seen in the sexually exhausted rats at the outset of this post? Are the men returning to normal?

This is a possibility worth considering and testing. Rats, after all, need 15 days to return to maximum virility. Men who have slipped into addiction are, of course, likely to need full recovery time, plus months for their brains to reverse longer-lasting changes. Some "flatline" for weeks or longer, after their cravings settle down.

It's worth mentioning that, quite apart from the effects of an underlying neuroendocrine cycle after sexual satiety, humans are not built for prolific ejaculation. Indeed, Promiscuity author Tim Birkhead points out that:


The rate of human sperm production is lower than that of any other mammal so far investigated. The numbers of sperm stored in the epididymis are also low.

Given the ease of connecting to today's Internet erotica drip, men who are experiencing unwanted symptoms owe it to themselves to consider whether they might be stuck in a perpetual neuroendocrine hangover of sorts—or even an addiction.

Is overriding natural satiety numbing frequent ejaculators to normal pleasure, making their partners less appealing, and decreasing relationship satisfaction? For example, might this factor account for the growing sex aversion in porn-friendly Japan? Or help explain why one in five Australian porn users prefers porn to sex?

In light of the wide range of benefits men report after they stop using Internet porn, these possibilities deserve careful investigation. At the moment, most guys today think of horniness as a trivial itch, which should be scratched whenever and however often it occurs—much like blowing a runny nose. Yet it looks like there's more to ejaculation than unloading manseed.

 

You just described me and my life. If my dopamine receptors were not fucked up i would be crying right now.

 

Fantastic reply. Appreciated.

 

I went through a period of my life where I was very anxious and depressed and one of the symptoms that manifested was toxic jealousy. I would walk down the street and if I saw a couple laughing I would think, "look at those two enjoying life, they are so confident. I wish I was confident." it was awful and made me ill. Get yourself out exercising, learning and meditating and you'll begin to feel better about yourself. Also you're going to need to change your thoughts. For example, I used to get very bitter when I saw a confident guy giving a talk, I would get jealous and hate him. Now I think, "good on him for pushing himself, one day I hope to be like him."

Changing your thoughts really does help. I still get jealous of course, like if a guy is seeing lots of hot girls I feel jealous. But I don't have that toxic horrible jealously.

Hope this helps.

 

NoFap often helps return your self-esteem to normal levels after PMO abuse has lowered it. So in that sense, NoFap can be of benefit for feelings of jealousy.

There are all types of great approaches to overcoming feelings of jealousy. You might try a google search "overcoming jealousy" and read a handful of articles. Here's a good example:
https://www.everydayhealth.com/emotional-health/overcoming-jealousy.aspx

 

And remember that during the sex/pornography/masturbation habit, we could simply have used google to find out how to make our lives better!

 

I think you're being sarcastic, but I actually found NoFap through a google search when I was hopelessely addicted. I haven't done PMO since, and that was August of 2016.

 

This will help !

 

No sarcasm. It's like when someone mentions something online, and then other people online don't look it up...online. They instead say 'what?'. I was guilty of this.
No idea if this relates tbh.

 

So...'how do I stop XYZ..?'. Google has the answer. They know your biggest secrets, but the answer is there. Nofap is for sure a winner.