I’ve completed 70 days of Celibacy, No Sex, Porn, Masturbation, and Dating. I’d like to share what I’ve learnt during my journey 
I’ve failed in the 90 day celibacy challenge for over 3 years now. I could never make it past 7-15 days. But for the first time I made it till Day 72.
Here are the benefits I noticed:
- Hair fall reduced dramatically, possible regrowth (I had a mild symptom of MPB)
- Confidence improved (there is more loudness and power in my voice. And I feel confident when meeting strangers)
- Higher productivity (since I quite porn, and even dating, I noticed I had time to easily concentrate on other areas of my life)
- Greater Discipline (discipline in one area increased discipline in other areas)
Why I failed on Day 72:
Relapse does not happen randomly. It’s a chain reaction. Last few days I allowed my mind to freely fantasize. Which lead to me downloading a few dating apps, which led to me getting hooked on the apps, which led to tempting opportunities, which let to relapse.
This is fine however, I know I’ve fixed my addiction. I’m not the chronic masturbator I used to be.
This relapse was a good thing and it reminded me of some of the important rules for success. You must have heard that saying that “time will heal the pain”, well that’s because time tends to make you forget about the pain. When it comes to curing an addiction, if you don’t follow the rules strictly and consistently, you’ll eventually forget about them. In my case, I forgot about my rule of having no sexual fantasies, no dating, no screens after 10pm etc. These rules were my precautionary measures. But I probably got too confident about my streak and chose to ignore those rules.
Lessons you can learn from my journey:
- Win the first 30 days so that you start to care more about maintaining your streak when temptation kicks in.
- Stay busy “an empty mind is the devil’s workshop”. Have one or two additional goals to stay focused on, no more (too many goals will consume your willpower and increase the chances of relapse). Similarly schedule some fun activities each day.
- Change/modify your cage to make it more interesting and supportive of your goals. (Check out these links, it will make you understand the true cause of addiction & relapse:http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/6506936 And http://youtu.be/3TX-Nu5wTS8 ). I failed mainly due to my present cage. I was able to easily tackle temptations whenever I went on vacations with my parents. Keep your space neat and organized. External environment has an impact on internal environment.
- Set up mini reward systems. (I had a playlist called Reward songs, it contained songs which gave me goosebumps. I would only listen to 2 songs from this playlist whenever I completed a mini goal. When I complete 10 days of the celibacy challenge I’d listen to 2 songs just once.)
- Setup and follow the precautionary rules.
- Don’t tell others about your goal and don’t brag about how far you’ve come. Wait until you finish your goal to tell them. There has been some research done on that.
- If you relapse, do not feel guilty. It will work against you. Be grateful, learn from it, and continue the journey immediately. If you indulge in that pleasure again after relapsing, you’ll waste all that discipline you built up during the previous days and you’ll have to start all over from the beginning.
- Eat regularly at specific intervals to fuel your brain with glucose for long lasting willpower.
- Sleep efficiently to fully recover your willpower for the next day. (There are a lot of tips I have to optimize your sleep).
Hope you learnt something from this. I’m going to take on new challenges now!
Thread: 70 days of Monk Mode/ Hard Mode Complete
BY – BrainPlasticity
Day 4, July 4
Happy 4th USA!
This morning I had a sexual dream and I woke up with a weak morning wood. I think my ED will get cured by the end of this challenge. 3 more days until Testosterone kicks in!
Today I’d like to talk about all the problems my PMO addiction has caused me:
1) Every time I engaged in PMO I felt so demotivated with life, and lazy. As a result I would not do any work in an efficient manner and I would fall off track while I was pursuing my goals (Fitness, mediation, Lumosity, Duolingo etc). I would lose my hard earned muscle mass because I would not workout or eat regular food. I used to even skip classes.
2) Hair loss: Over masturbation has caused hair thinning. I’m a good looking guy and my hair contributes significant value to my beauty. I’ve been purposely deteriorating my appearance!!
3) Puffy nipples: I started taking Dutasteride to combat my hair loss but over masturbation, and usage of 5α-reductase inhibitors can cause Gynecomastia.
4) Low willpower/unable to differ instant gratification: If you have this problem, you cannot persist long enough to accomplish big goals.
It’s time to fight back!
UPDATE – I’ve finally earned my right to post in this section :’)
Hi everyone, 26 year old male here. I’m happy to say that I’ve finally reached 90 days of Hardmode NoFap, No PMO, No Edging!! I literally just shed a few tears because I just remembered the number of years I spend trying to achieve this goal It was as if I was trapped in this cycle of temptation forever. I could never even get past day 30. Last time when I got past day 30, I had relapsed around day 70. I don’t even know why the hell I thought I could post a success story here for relapsing on day 70! (http://www.NoFap.com/forum/index.ph…onk-mode-hard-mode-complete.31769/#post190970). I was a fool to think that I had fixed my addiction.
I’m finally here, and still going strong The journey was not perfect, the past few days I spent a lot of time on dating apps because it kind of felt like a P sub and I would get pre-cum. I was not engaged in sexting, but just the act of flirting with a girl turns me on. I’ve stopped using these apps because it’s an addiction, and besides the ROI is very low compared to good old fashioned cold approach.
Anyway, I get turned on too easily now, so it’s good to know that I won’t have ED during sex. I can still feel my sexual urges everyday and I do like that feeling. But I can be strong enough to not escalate it and to not masturbate to them. I know now that it’s such a low level thing to do as a man. It’s not appropriate for my brand image. I wanted to be a man of my word so badly that I even turned down sex 3 times (well the girls were not what I consider ‘hot’ so I wasn’t too regretful).
The tools that helped me the most:
- The NoFapWar on reddit. Arguably the best gamified system for beating this addiction. I got so into the war that my desire to win for my regiment Cerulean was greater than my sexual cravings. Of course luck played a role too, like when a good looking girl cancels a date on me (thus I didn’t lose the hard mode challenge).
- My music: I’ve started to believe that the ideal version of me is in the kind of music I listen to. Whenever I used to struggle with my thoughts, cravings, laziness, and sometimes depression, I check out a playlist containing all of my inspirational songs. When I listen to them, the songs immediately remind me of my vision and set my mindset right. For example, this track always snaps me out of laziness: https://soundcloud.com/sachi-15/haikyuu-ost-8
- Motivational Anime: Sports animes that I watch once a week always pump me up to continue to walk the path of self-improvment. My favorite ones are: Hajime no Ippo (it means Start With The First Step.) & Haikyuu!
Benefits:
- Willpower to do other productive things like cold shower, gym etc.
- You’ll have desires for bigger and better things. You’ll expect more from yourself and from life.
- You’ll start to wake up easier in the morning with less hours of sleep (if you do hardmode.)
- You’ll have the drive to meet women and socialize in general.
- Hair fall frequency will drop.
- Acne may also show up less frequently (I did use 10% benzoyl peroxide time to time though.)
- Face will start to look more vibrant.
To be honest, I’m not sure if these are placebo effects. So what? I’ll still take it. I’m confident that NoFap was like the foundational habit for all of my other self-improvement activities.
If you’re struggling with your urges right now and asking yourself “Is it worth it?!” Why don’t you stand strong and find out for yourself?! Give yourself a chance to discover a new perspective. Once you’ve discovered that new perspective, you’ll know the answer that’s right for you.
The path ahead of me:
- Now I have a strong desire to fix my dating life. I’ve never had a gf, I’ve never known what it’s like to have women as companions because I never put myslef out there. I used PMO as an easy way out; it lowered my masculine drive so I did not have the need to put in hard-work and seek out an ideal companion. So I’ve started to learn and practice cold approach. I want to become the most attractive version I can be.
- I want to work on my body. I want to know what it’s like to have strong and toned body like an athlete.
- I want to develop my startup company and be a self sufficient man while creating something useful for the world.
Life is like a crappy role playing video-game, because you can’t always quantify whether you’re leveling up or leveling down, and the feedbacks for your effort takes too long(sometimes years!), making it boring and less addictive to play. But just like in a videogame, certain stages, certain worlds & environments, certain characters, certain powers & special abilities, certain storylines etc will never be revealed to you unless you level up.
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