Is there a reboot magic? Don't think so

I think you had something to say and you said it. Good for you.

I honestly skimmed it and don't have any thoughts.

Well it looks like you are coming to your own realizations!

Way to man up!

 

You know what I really do like about this post, you talking about Yoda.

Gotta share this:

 

Think of it this way: Even if you don't believe in energy/sexual transmutation, your body has to use a whole host of nutrients to make semen. When you ejaculate, your body has to make all of that again. So you are losing all of those vitamins, minerals, proteins and that could have been used for your overall health instead. If nothing else, that's where the superpowers come from. Your body is no longer having to expend nutrients every single day to keep up with your fapping, it can go to you instead.

 

I am a skeptic and am a bit doubtful about 'sexual transmutation' having to do with conserving nutrients and so on. It seems that anyone in normal health will have plenty of nutrients to produce a ton of semen on a regular basis.

Personally, I have found the NoFap experiment I am doing to be amazingly productive. There has been a very marked improvement in mood, energy and ability to focus.

I have speculations that this might to do with the idea of 'mindfulness' as discussed in various psychological therapies, such as cognitive behavior therapy. In my case, I think it is also taking all of that time devoted to PMO-ing and spending it on other things which are more productive.

Otherwise, I am just not sure how to describe the 'superpowers' but for me, at least, they are very definitely real.

 

It's not that NoFap is magic. It's that masturbation/porn are toxic. Their use down-regulates androgen (masturbation to orgasm specifically) and D2 receptors (both masturbation and porn) in the brain, where testosterone and dopamine bind.

Testosterone and dopamine both play roles in: How much energy you have, how confident you feel, how easy it is to talk to others, how well you conduct yourself around women, how motivated you are, how much drive you have to accomplish your goals, how much strength you have in the gym, etc.

It's not that NoFap is giving you any benefits. It's that masturbation and porn were harming your dopaminergic and androgenic function. When you cease the harmful activities, they can return to the way they're supposed to work.

You're supposed to have energy, confidence, etc. You're supposed to feel like a natural around women. That's just the way things should be when those systems function correctly. By abusing a stimulus that damages those functions, you've put yourself in a place where that is no longer the case. Just like a drug addict's down-regulated receptors will slowly begin to up-regulate again restoring normal function over the months/years after they get clean, the same will happen for a porn addict.

 

It's a process

 

@JesusGreen.

Interesting. I see what you are saying.

I guess what you are saying is that the feelings of energy and so on are 'normal' and what I have been doing has been taking away from that.

I totally understand what you are saying 'intellectually' but I am still coming to grips with it on a deeper level. I have just spent soooooo long and so seriously in the PMO routine that it is taking time for me to realize that this is how things should be.

 

Think back to when you were a little kid and school was out for the summer. Think how long that summer felt, how carefree you felt, how easy things felt in comparison to now?

It's not that you lose that becoming an adult. That good feeling you had at a kid is largely because of dopamine. Everything is new to you as a kid, so more or less everything gets you that good feeling of high dopamine. When you start desensitising yourself with drugs (including alcohol, caffeine, etc), porn, masturbation, and other habits that give you insane amounts of dopamine, your body stops reacting to the smaller amounts of dopamine produced by day to day activities.

Think of it like this, if we use happiness levels of 1-10, with 0 being depressed, 1 being not so good, 2-3 being "okay", 4-5 being happy, 7-8 being one of the best days ever, and 9-10 being unnatural levels of bliss/ecstasy (the kind you only reach with substances etc). As a kid, everything keeps you in about a 5-6 most of the time, you're usually happy, or a little better than happy. Occasionally something upsets you and you drop to a 1-3 for a short period of time. At Christmas and your birthday you might hit a 7 or an 8.

Now if you say take a powerful dopaminergic drug, it puts you straight all the way to a 9 or a 10. Way more of that feel good chemical than gets released than on even the most amazing days of your life. Initially it's amazing, because you've reached a level of bliss you've never experienced before.

The problem is, your body sees that you're now getting way more of that feel good chemical than you need, so it desensitises you to it, to bring you back into a normal range. Now when you take that drug you keep taking, you hit a 7-8, which is what your natural maximum "feel good" should be.

...the problem is now your average is no longer a 5-6, it's now a 3-4, okay, or sometimes happy on good days. Your okay days are now 1-2s, involving a lot of bad days.. and your bad days are now hell.

So the behavioural response to this is to increase the dose and frequency of the drug, to try to reach a 9 or a 10 again. Your body then responds by further desensitising you. So now even with the increased dose, your feel good is still a 7-8, but now your normal days are a 2-3, only "okay" at best, and your okay days are now all bad/depressing days..

The cycle continues until eventually most of your days are bad days, and genuinely joyous days are few and far between, and most of them are only days when you're indulging in your drug/habit of choice. So you begin to associate happiness with that drug/habit, and it becomes a crutch that you depend on to maintain just a semblance of happiness.

The same thing applies to masturbation/porn, your first time with porn, there's so much novelty, your dopamine release is like a 9 or a 10. So your body sees that you have too much dopamine, and drops down its response to a 7-8. Now you aren't getting too much from porn, but you're getting too little from everything else, so your regular life becomes more boring, and less enjoyable.

In fact that right there is the major symptom of dopamine down-regulation: boredom. Dopamine feels exciting. A lack of dopamine (or of dopamine receptor agonism) feels dull, like there is no excitement to your life, like you're a bit of a zombie just getting through the days one by one, but not enjoying them.

That excitement you had back as a kid? That wasn't something you only get as a kid. You can and will get that back if you restore your dopamine receptors to their former glory.

 

@JesusGreen Yes, your thoughts on this and mine are the same. That is how I see it working.

I have another working hypothesis on this as well. Or perhaps it is saying the same thing as you just said, but in different words. i will need to think about it.

I am aware that people's level of happiness often remains about the same, regardless of external circumstances. I have read often that providing people's basic needs are met then they achieve a certain level of happiness.

That basic level are the essentials like food and clothing, followed by having enough money to keep debt collectors from the door and to participate in everyday life (such as transport etc). I am reminded of studies which show that lottery winners are very happy when they win the lottery, but that their happiness levels go back to normal after a year.

I wonder if it is the same for the capacity to experience pleasure ? If I have more or less the same capacity to experience pleasure while PMO-ing, then stopping that dead in its tracks means that after a while I will still experience pleasure, but just other types of pleasure.

Ermm....perhaps this is the same thing we are talking about but just in a different way....