What happens if I quit P but not MO?

So the side effects of PMO can actually be separated into two general categories, one caused by the P and one caused by the MO. That is to say, you can develop problems based on which one you do, somewhat distinctly (unless you do both like many here). The problems caused by P are mostly sexual in nature, like mindset regarding women, changes in sexual tastes, sexual dysfunction. The ones caused by MO seem to be more physiological, like lower testosterone levels, etc. Unfortunately, I think the social anxiety is caused primarily by the MO. That's not to say that just a bit of MO will mess you up, but being addicted to it probably will.

 

You will probably find yourself doing MO less than you were before if you eliminate P from the equation, so it definitely will be an improvement.

The hard part is actually following through with that, because right now your mind still associates P with MO with pleasure. I recommend doing a 90 day reboot with no P or MO first, just to break that association. Then you can make a much clearer decision about whether to return to MO on it's own.

 

You'd have more energy still with just MO, but you would recover a lot more slowly.
I think most of the benefits from nofap are from no P and the effects of the dopamine and not from abstaining from MO, but I'm doing both, because I want to recover quickly and I'll revaluate after I'm recovered.

 

When you're trying to quit P it's advisable to abstain from MO as well because of how they can be closely connected to each other for your mind. But you can still reboot if you don't introduce P or fantasies into MO. Social anxiety? It's about the confidence and the self-esteem, right? That I can't help you because it's your mind and there's no clear cut right or wrong way to increase self-esteem or confidence. Just don't feel ashamed of yourself and know that you have the strength to avoid P and start being more confident!

 

You should cut out MO first and foremost, and that should be your priority. MO and releasing semen in general too much is TERRIBLE for your physical and mental health. Truth be told, you should cut out P cold turkey, and discipline yourself to never look back. But if that fails, remember, your number one priority is to preserve your semen. Even if you relapse a bit on porn, ALWAYS try and preserve your semen. If you end up edging on P without semen loss, you are still much better off than MO, even without porn.

 

Quitting MO also helps me avoid social anxiety. This is not backed by any other research other than my own personal observation. I now know that I won't fail sexually with a woman if I am in that scenario all of a sudden. Cause it sometimes happens, those surprise encounters with an old flame or a girl who has had her eye on you secretly. So I don't need to feel self conscious about that if it does happen.

It also helps me in a bunch of other ways. Not doing M has been better for me than I could have imagined before I stopped. Just reset and am at 2 days.... my confidence was much higher after 14 days of no M. But it gets better every day that I don't..... but IMHO quitting P is the MOST important thing.

 

Stopping both are probably best, but no P is much more important than no M/O. For me social anxiety is reduced with no P, even if still M/Oing. To each their own, best to just give it all a rest for a while. The worst I find is actually watching P and edging for hours. Your dopamine in this instance stays unusually high for an extended period. I would always feel so weird in public, like everyone's watching and judging me and I'd feel so screwed up and unable to talk to people cause of this underlying nervousness.

 

I have quit P and gone back to it many a time. In the quit stage now . But I have never taken seriously the MO side of things. I think an infrequent amount like 1/week may be healthy (no research backing). I can certainly see a problem in my current mode of 28-33 times per month. On day 2 no fapping after signing up for nofap.com just yesterday.