Daxos
Fapstronaut
Dear Fapstronauts,
A lot of brothers are troubled about the thought of fantasizing during their reboot. Is it ok? Is it healthy? Is it slowing me down? all those questions. I know all of them since I was guilty of fantasizing during reboots as well. But now I understand how and why fantasizing about sex and especially porn is really bad during a NoFap reboot.
You see, our brains record and store everything that happens to us. This goes for all experiences you ever endure. They are all presumably stored in Synapses that travel across Neurons (brain cells). Every single time you activate those Synapses again, by for example thinking about an experience, rehearsing things of experiencing them again, you are strengthening that particular Synaptic pathway across certain Neurons. This is what makes memories sting and why certain things like language and faces are easily accessible to memory since you use those pathways a lot.
Now what would happen if you are fapping to porn for years? A lot of Neurons will be wired to this experience since several brain areas will be linked to that experience. Ever fapped as a result of stress? Then your 'Fapping Neurons' will also become linked in the emotional centers of the brain. This is also why you engage in PMO fast and so much, since your brain can very easily access those pathways and then make you act on them.
But when you are trying to reboot, you are trying too weaken those pathways. Just like when you try to learn a new language and then quit for a month and then you seem to have forgotten about 80% of what you have learned, can be applied to NoFap. You see, the pathways that are not being activated for prolonged periods of time will become weaker and thus becoming much harder to access. Ever had the feeling you knew someone but forgot where from? That is your brain trying to access those 'hidden' pathways that have weakened or weren't encoded properly (encoding means that you pay enough attention to something to let it get stored in your long term memory). This is what you want to happen to your PMO pathways, that they become that weakened that they will activate only when focusing real hard on them. And of course, you are not going to try that after a reboot...
Unfortunately you can never replace or destroy those pathways, unless you get into a car accident and blow your brains out.... but that is something entirely different. So fantasizing about porn or porn scenario's is harmful in weakening the PMO pathways because you are activating them, thus your brain is not really 'healing'. The healing process everyone talks about is the return of homeostasis of hormones and especially the release of brain neurotransmitters, but the weakening of PMO pathways is the most important 'healing' process (imo) since it takes waaaaay longer than making your brain return to hormonal homeostasis. For example, it takes only about 14 days to normalize Dopamine releases when you quit addictive habits like porn, smoking, drinking and what else. That is also why some NoFappers might take longer to reboot since they swap one addiction (PMO) for another (like gaming, edging, fantasizing, drinking, smoking etc).
This was probably a long read. I get that. But this part is so important. I blew 2 streaks and wondered why I didn't feel that much change. It was all because I didn't change much else about my life expect for PMO. I was still fantasizing, playing too much videogames and being a lazy f*ck sometimes. When I improved on all that, I was progressing by the week and I felt every flying inch of that. Don't make the same mistakes I did. Create new pathways in your brain. Learn a new language, go learn programming, go find a new hobby or whatever, but make sure your brain is busy focusing on forming new pathways so it can 'forget' about that little f*cker that is PMO. Then you will 'heal' soooo much faster.
Take it from a Nursery student who specialized in brain diseases such as Alzheimer's disease and other neurological pathological issues. Take care my brothers, and never give up.
A lot of brothers are troubled about the thought of fantasizing during their reboot. Is it ok? Is it healthy? Is it slowing me down? all those questions. I know all of them since I was guilty of fantasizing during reboots as well. But now I understand how and why fantasizing about sex and especially porn is really bad during a NoFap reboot.
You see, our brains record and store everything that happens to us. This goes for all experiences you ever endure. They are all presumably stored in Synapses that travel across Neurons (brain cells). Every single time you activate those Synapses again, by for example thinking about an experience, rehearsing things of experiencing them again, you are strengthening that particular Synaptic pathway across certain Neurons. This is what makes memories sting and why certain things like language and faces are easily accessible to memory since you use those pathways a lot.
Now what would happen if you are fapping to porn for years? A lot of Neurons will be wired to this experience since several brain areas will be linked to that experience. Ever fapped as a result of stress? Then your 'Fapping Neurons' will also become linked in the emotional centers of the brain. This is also why you engage in PMO fast and so much, since your brain can very easily access those pathways and then make you act on them.
But when you are trying to reboot, you are trying too weaken those pathways. Just like when you try to learn a new language and then quit for a month and then you seem to have forgotten about 80% of what you have learned, can be applied to NoFap. You see, the pathways that are not being activated for prolonged periods of time will become weaker and thus becoming much harder to access. Ever had the feeling you knew someone but forgot where from? That is your brain trying to access those 'hidden' pathways that have weakened or weren't encoded properly (encoding means that you pay enough attention to something to let it get stored in your long term memory). This is what you want to happen to your PMO pathways, that they become that weakened that they will activate only when focusing real hard on them. And of course, you are not going to try that after a reboot...
Unfortunately you can never replace or destroy those pathways, unless you get into a car accident and blow your brains out.... but that is something entirely different. So fantasizing about porn or porn scenario's is harmful in weakening the PMO pathways because you are activating them, thus your brain is not really 'healing'. The healing process everyone talks about is the return of homeostasis of hormones and especially the release of brain neurotransmitters, but the weakening of PMO pathways is the most important 'healing' process (imo) since it takes waaaaay longer than making your brain return to hormonal homeostasis. For example, it takes only about 14 days to normalize Dopamine releases when you quit addictive habits like porn, smoking, drinking and what else. That is also why some NoFappers might take longer to reboot since they swap one addiction (PMO) for another (like gaming, edging, fantasizing, drinking, smoking etc).
This was probably a long read. I get that. But this part is so important. I blew 2 streaks and wondered why I didn't feel that much change. It was all because I didn't change much else about my life expect for PMO. I was still fantasizing, playing too much videogames and being a lazy f*ck sometimes. When I improved on all that, I was progressing by the week and I felt every flying inch of that. Don't make the same mistakes I did. Create new pathways in your brain. Learn a new language, go learn programming, go find a new hobby or whatever, but make sure your brain is busy focusing on forming new pathways so it can 'forget' about that little f*cker that is PMO. Then you will 'heal' soooo much faster.
Take it from a Nursery student who specialized in brain diseases such as Alzheimer's disease and other neurological pathological issues. Take care my brothers, and never give up.
