Withdrawal symptoms and finding a healthy, balanced lifestyle.

Withdrawal and finding a healthy, balanced lifestyle

My NoFap period over, I masturbated once 5 days ago and then 3 days ago. I have restarted. Today is day 3.

Has anyone ever experienced any withdrawal symptoms during a NoFap period? Is withdrawal a phase that someone needs to go through in order to break out of the habit of masturbation?

Anxiety attacks

Throughout the last 3 weeks of my previous NoFap, which lasted 2 months, I had around 5-7 anxiety attacks. The episodes that lasted between 30 minutes - 2 hours, it felt as though an internal switch had been pressed and my state of perception had changed; I felt spaced out, scared, dread that something terrible might happen, very unsure of myself, disconnected, confused and my voice seemed quite loud. There was a small surge of adrenaline too. When I’m experiencing an episode of anxiety I need to be in a calm and quiet space either on my own or with my partner. Engrossing myself on my bass helps my mind to settle.

Anxiety like this is new to me. Could such episodes be withdrawal symptoms? Perhaps anxiety and fear that was previously managed/subdued by anxiety masturbation, is now surfacing as I haven’t found a replacement for masturbation?

Masturbation as a crutch

For myself masturbation is an old habit – I haven’t stopped (apart from 1 year) since I discovered orgasms. Stopping such a long lasting masturbation habit is big lifestyle change. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts I am deeply anxious about living a lifestyle without it. Masturbation is an ingrained habit, I developed through childhood, teenage years and almost half of my 20’s with it as an integral part of my lifestyle.

To me masturbation is a crutch, which I used to support myself through stressful years, but now I’d like to lose it, to learn to ‘walk without it’. It depletes my physical energy, my mind becomes completely occupied with objectifying thoughts of women, has ruined a lot of computers (porn viruses) and is bad for my general wellbeing and self-esteem. It seems in order for me to do this I must learn a healthy approach to deal with some repressed anxiety, stress and fear.

Possibility of withdrawal symptoms

The similarity between an orgasm and a hit of an opioid suggests the possibility of withdrawl symptoms from masturbation. It seems, neurologically there are a few similarities between orgasms and opioids highs; opioids are incredibly satisfying, rewarding, and comforting as well as being easy to become addicted to. Both activities apparently release similar neurochemicals:

http://www.sexualhealthsite.info/the-dark-side-of-the-big-o.php

Initially, to cope with the anxiety episodes I used sexual fantasies to soothe myself. Though it eventually lead to me ending a 2 month period of NoFap. For the last 3 days I have been playing my bass daily – it is a relaxing activity and has been shown to release dopamine: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12135590

Could the manifestation of mental health issues actually be a result of the brain no longer being soothed the dopamine rush from masturbation? As this is my blog for NoFap I will keep updating my progress.