Comments: Although he says 30 days, it’s likely that this is just his latest and longest streak. Upadtes show that he wasn’t yet fully healed…..
So I made it to 30 days. That’s the longest time since I was 11 or 12! Pretty huge deal for me. I’ve always thought I had good willpower and courage, but have failed to get to this mark more times than I’d like to count. If nothing else, I’ve restored confidence in myself.
Some benefits I’ve noticed specific to me:
-Completely cured ED: The last times that I “cured” it and relapsed, it wasn’t nearly as good as it is now. My partner noticed that it’s always hard now, even with no stimulation and I still last around the same amount of time. It’s a great feeling and has made me look forward to sex now, as opposed to resent it and the associated feelings of shame/guilt.
-Reduced social anxiety: I was skeptical that social anxiety was related to PMO. But since starting NoFap, I’ve had to socialise with completely new groups of people on 2 separate occasions and have never felt so comfortable or had so much fun. I worry less about my appearance or what I say. I don’t worry about pauses in conversation. I’m just comfortable and don’t feel scared. I’m just enjoying myself and by doing so causing others to enjoy themselves more. My partner was even payed compliments for “catching” me. That feels good!
-More and better sleep: I’ve used a sleep cycle app for my phone for a long time out of interest. I’ve noticed since about day 14, my sleep quality has never been higher. I’ve also, in general, been having more sleep because I haven’t stayed up late doing PMO (but have still been disrupted by alcohol/late nights/gaming).
-I’m generally happier: I’ve had a whole lot of ups and downs. The troughs sucked and I felt depressed about everything I could think of, including my job and partner and friends and whatever else. But they were broken up by periods of happiness I hadn’t experienced in a while. I’d care less about my job situation and be more productive about fixing it, I’d be happier with my partner and enjoy my time more with my friends. I remember a long time ago that I was very good at staying happy the majority of the time and was able to bring myself out of depression consciously and easily. I feel like that again. The times that I’m unhappy are becoming easier and easier to navigate and turn around.
I want to keep improving. I’ve recently started playing games later at night and more often and I feel like that’s negatively impacting my life. It’s replacing the habit of staying up for PMO. I’ve told myself that if I can’t go to sleep before a certain time, the gaming is going to have to change. I’ve also recently regressed into eating unhealthy chocolates and snacks, even though I’ve been fairly good eating healthy options. That’s changing from right now.
Thanks for reading! 🙂
LINK – 30 Day Story: Lots of improvements, want more!
by lucasfap
UPDATE – I got to day 60! (Update)
Yeeeaaaaaaahhhhhh!!
I’m still flatlining down there, with intermittent ED with my partner, but the biggest change has been to my mood. I was getting quite depressed, quite regularly before starting. Now I’m haveing some really good days and some really bad days, but I’m normally just okay. And that’s good.
I’m also much less anxious. There might have been a little influence from /r/hownottogiveafuck, but I’m slowly caring much less about a lot of unimportant things and am now anxious very infrequently. I brood less. I don’t stress about things I can’t control. That’s very different for me- and it’s nice. Due to working away, I haven’t had many very social situations, but I’ve had some good times and easily shrugged off awkward scenarios. And no social anxiety. 🙂
My resolve is still good. I turn away from “naughty” scenes in movies, I consciously ignore the dirty magazine rack at the new agent, I haven’t been to bad subreddits in weeks and I have no interest in porn. A few passing thoughts of wanting to see something have happened, but I can swat them away like a lazy fly.
NoFap has given me the motivation to have an unbroken streak of 30 days of yoga and cold showers. Yoga has been great, because getting it done first things eliminates my worry about not excercising enough. I’m eating large amounts of fruits and veggies and have no need for a sugar high (even though its nice occasionally- I just don’t need it).
In the same way I don’t resort to fapping when I’m sad, I don’t resort to giving up exercise or eating something shit. It’s a good change in habit and thought process and I think it’s the biggest reason I’ve lasted this far
I’ve also managed to stay away from competitive and online games because of their bad effect on me. I’ve replaced them with story heavy games which I enjoy but can still easily limit, as well as enjoying working on business ideas.
Onwards to 90 and a fap free future!
UPDATE – On being a person who is happy with themselves (Day 90!!!)
Fapstronauts and Femstronauts, thanks for all your support over the past 90 days- I made it at last! 🙂
I’m putting my success down to two factors: firstly, I honestly and brutally reflected on my past failures at the start of this streak and drew conclusions about the patterns, which meant that I headed off my urges at the very start (a stray thought, a longing glance at an actress, being alone and bored). Secondly, and especially near the beginning, I posted frequently and put in a lot of effort into giving advice to others, which helped to remind me of the conclusions i’d drawn and to stay on track.
The biggest difference between me and 90-days-ago-me is that i’m happy with myself. There’s no guilt about fapping. I use the momentum of this streak to get me exercising every day. I challenge my negative thought patterns, not just about fapping, but about social anxiety and work and everything. I have confidence- I know that i’m a unique and awesome person and don’t need validation to proove it. My relationship with my partner is better than ever. I’m generally happy every day, like when I was a boy. I’ve given up other addictions that made me feel bad about myself.
All of those things- they’re a result of using the confidence i’ve gained through NoFap to challenge and improve the areas of my life that I wasn’t happy with.
Stick with it, everybody. If you’re finding it hard, it’s likely that you have a lot to gain from participating in NoFap, EVEN IF you aren’t “addicted” per se. At the very least, you can proove you aren’t a slave to your body. But the potential for great things is there too- a complete life makeover awaits if you put in the effort.
Best of luck! 🙂
UPDATE – How do I fix my distorted perceptions of women that remain after 90 days of NoFap?
I’m reasonably aware of how TV, movies and advertising warp everybody’s perception of many things. When I started my NoFap journey, one of the things I was hoping to rid myself of was a distorted perception of women.
I’m talking about wondering what it would be like to be (sexually) with almost every woman I meet. I can have pretty genuine, fun and honest conversations with them, but I’m yet to be able to stop myself from thinking about them naked. And I feel worse because I’m in a happy stable relationship and I don’t want to be thinking of other women that way, or so frequently.
I do try quite hard to avoid the kind of reinforcement perpetuated by TV/Movies/adverts- I block ads on my computer, I skip them on TV, I look away in “those” scenes in TV/movies. I consciously stop myself whenever I catch my thoughts straying that way (partly to help me stay on NoFap). I was hoping that would help “fix” my thoughts, but there has been little change, so far.
Should I be doing something differently? Is this just part of being a male that I should accept? Can anybody relate to this?
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