First off, a little backstory:

I was watching P continuosly for 8 years. Was going hard at it – 2 to 3 times per day most of the days. I was miserable. I was sad all the time. In short, I was a loser. Whenever I felt bored, stressed out or anxious I would PMO.

I discovered NoFap 2 years ago and was going back and forth with it, no luck whatsoever. Could never get past 7 days. I had a real problem. Even though I told myself that I will never watch it again… I still couldn’t do it. The urges were too much and I would just keep relapsing and hating myself. But since couple of months ago, I didn’t look at P nor did I MO. I am writing this because I had a real problem and I know that a lot of people have the same problem. I want to help everyone as much as you guys helped me 🙂

Anyways, how did I do it? Well, that one weird thing that helped me and woke me up was dopamine fasting.

What is dopamine fasting?

You are all aware that when we PMO we are releasing an enormous amount of neurochemical Dopamine which is a feel good hormone let’s say. We are releasing it almost or maybe even more than some dru.gs do when we PMO. We may not realise it but a lot of our daily activities (such as video games, social media, binging tv shows/movies…) can release a lot of dopamine and that is not a good thing. When we overuse our dopamine, it requires more and more of each toxic activity and that is when we mess up with our life (start playing video games for hours on end, Pmo-ing more often, eating more food etc.) Don’t get me wrong, dopamine is a very important thing as it gives us motivation to do things. There are healthy ways to release it such as finishing a job, reading a book, finishing a workout, talking to people etc. It is only bad when we overuse it with toxic habits.

Dopamine fasting is essentially not triggering the dopamine system for a certain amount of time (I recommend 24 hours, you can do less or more, just don’t overdo it). What are the rules of the dopamine fast? Here they are:

– No PMO or s*x

– No talking to people

– No food, no dr*gs, no cigarettes, no alcohol

– No video games

– No music/podcasts

– No electronics (no laptop/PC, no phone and no TV)

– No internet and social media

– No reading books

– No workout

– You can meditate

– You can clean your room and do a little bit of household work

– You can drink water

– You can journal (with pen and paper)

– You can take walks

Of course, you can alter the rules to your personal taste but this is the most effective in my opinion and y’know – it’s only 24 hours of “mental pain”. This essentially helps your dopamine recover and start working properly once again and let’s your mind relax after overusing too many brain chemicals.

How did I use it to overcome my PMO addiction?

When I did the 24 hour dopamine fast, I essentially had 24 hours for myself, from the moment i woke up to the moment i fall asleep. I had so much time to think, reflect and meditate. I meditated for maybe 2 hours that day and that helped me declutter my mind. But the game changer was journaling that day. I had the whole day to write anything I want. So I was thinking, how should I use this to overcome PMO? Well, I talked to myself, but through pen and paper. Yes, I know, it sounds weird but hear me out, this works wonders. Whatever I was overthinking about past I wrote down and realised how stupid it was. I wrote down everything about my addiction and what steps I am going to take to overcome it. I promised to myself that I am never going to do it again. I even joked to myself. And I wrote hella lot. Pages upon pages. Here is an example of what I wrote (translated from my language):

“Why are you doing this to yourself man? For fook sake bro you’ve been trying to quit this stupid thing for ages now. Don’t you think it’s time to stop? Damn my friend that showed me P for the first time. Fook that guy, seriously. I know you still remember that day vividly Andrew, you thought that it is a start of something special. A new form of entertainment, right? Well frick no, you done did it fool. Now it is time to change. And this time, for the better”.

Sounds weird but you don’t realise how well it worked. Never relapsed after that. I tried literally everything and watched all videos, but no luck. But this thing, it works. From that time on I knew what my goals were and I stick to everything I promised myself. I hope this helps all of you who are reading this as it helped me. If you have any questions or any concerns, feel free to ask me, I will try to respond to as many as I can.