Samuel11

The Dutch institute for public health was against it when they came out of the first lockdown, as they feared that masks would make people keep less distance from eachother, and that it would be safer to focus more on keeping distance than masks. They also estimated that a lot of people would wear them incorrectly making them less safe. Masks became mandatory in public transport but nowhere else. Now that cases are growing rapidly and people are not keeping distance anyways they are heavily recommended indoors and in the process of becoming mandatory.

I am currently following an engineering course, which I started with the intent to work on green energy. I started last year, with me burning out after the first semester due to several reasons and being unable to work during the second semester due to all the mental and physical problems all that stress caused (symptoms of depression, sleeping 12+ hours, being very anxious and having my body constantly shaking). Those effects faded away towards the end of the second semester and completely during the summer. Since the beginning of this school year I have been having a lot of trouble studying or doing anything related to the study. I feel like it is completely pointless, and that no matter if I study or not it will not affect my happiness levels. I have noticed some emotional resistance to studying, which might be a defence mechanism from burning out again. From a logical point of view I know this is a strategic blunder and that I should finish this study to be able to gain financial independance and to be able to create something meaningful. My feelings however tell me that all of this is completely pointless and that I would be as happy with an easy part time job that would bring me enough money for survival (I live in western europe and could easily move to a place where this is possible), so that I could focus on my hobbies, spirituality and well being. Anyone here who has dealt with a similar situation? Would the life purpose course be useful for me? What should I do? I have been stuck in this position for months now and would like to move forward, whether that means gaining motivation or finding something new to do.

In my experience one needs to be at stage green to be open to stage turquoise. I have had someone who is mostly stage orange but still has blue in him get almost agressive when he overheared me talking about my ego death experience to a stage green friend. It was quite scary actually. Those people have a lot of work to do before they can benefit from it.

@Javfly33 @Ryna Both great insights. Thanks!

At a very young age (7?) I started masturbating multiple times a day. Around the age of 12 I discovered porn, and started using it multiple times a day (usually 2-3). It started having a bigger and bigger effect on my life but I didn't seem to find the link between the brain fog and constant tiredness until the age of 16-17 when I discovered nofap and started experimenting with it. Until then I had never had any interest or strong attraction to girls around me and I had already developed porn induced erectile disfunction (PIED). When I started nofap I my urges for porn became bigger and I thought my PIED was cured, and everything seemed to go well. This was until I went through the "flatline", a term for a common effect in recovering porn addicts where your brain starts to readjust to lower levels of dopamine (compared to the dopamine flooding caused porn). For 18 months I had no sexual urges and felt very depressed. During this period abstaining from PMO was fairly easy (went 6 months without) as I had no urges at all. At the end of this period I started feeling better, and my sexual urges started to return, but in a more organic form than the intense cravings caused by porn. I thought I was cured until I started relapsing, and these relapses started getting more frequent. My usual cycle is now: 1. Sexual urges start returning 2. Relapse(s) 3. Brain fog, no libido or urges for porn I am getting sick of this cycle and battling this addiction for 2.5 years now, having no libido and missing out on multiple opportunities of having sex and relationships sucks. I really need to get to the root cause of this addiction but don't know what to do. tldr: Went through porn withdrawal but still addicted, need advice for how to fix this for once and for all

@Shin I have been really focussing on my hobbies lately and have noticed an improvement. I think that taking the life purpose course would be really beneficial, I have been on the fence about buying it

@assx95 I just thought about this and you are correct. When I relapse and go on a porn binge that is what I actually want, and I start justifying it. I really noticed that in my last relapse. @Keyhole What kind of reward are you suggesting? I am having trouble finding something I could use @Red-White-Light I just deleted reddit as that is where I get most of my porn from

@Keyhole I agree. However when I relapse my mind completely shuts off and I ignore this. I just realised that I only watch porn on my phone, never on my computer. Maybe I should switch to my old school nokia phone for a while, or at least hide my phone away when I am at home.

I did this a few weeks ago for 15 minutes and here is what happened: I started feeling tingling in my fingers and hands, my body felt warm. After I finished the 15 minutes of breathing I got into a higher state of consciousness, and I had some form of awakening in my taste and smell senses. Until then I had always eaten food very quickly without paying attention to it, and barely chewed on my food. Since this experience I have started to learn myself how to cook better and I have started appreciation my food more and have started chewing properly. I also felt completely at peace and really started seeing beaty all around me (especially the sunset that I was seeing). I then fell asleep for around 10-15 minutes. I woke up with a weird feeling/pain in my heart/chest area. I first thought that I had done something dangerous with this breathing technique, until I noticed that a huge pressure had gone off my chest, and I felt really free. I had never really noticed this pressure, except on some occasions while high on weed but I never thought much of it and considered it normal. A few days after this experience my mood lowered quite a lot, maybe some form of ego-backlash? I was also struggling with a lof of other problems at that time though which surely played a big part in this. This experience has really made me curious about how deep you can really go with this, considering I only did 15 minutes. i will definetly be doing this more often.

@Nickyy I have not, but that might be the way to go once my libido returns. That way I at least avoid the porn. @Lento I climb 2-4 times a week. I used to go to the gym but got bored and switched to climbing. This is very good advice, I used to do wim hof breathing when I got urges, it reduced the chance of me relapsing a bit. Maybe I should just go for a run every time I start feeling an urge. The journal and observing myself is also very good advice. I often notice myself going more unconscious before I relapse, so concentrating and trying to stay more conscious should help. @Applegarden @Preety_India Thank you both for the reminder to not judge or shame myself, often after relapsing the shame feels even worse than the imbalance caused by the relapsing itself. The advice of going outside is very good. @Nahm Never crossed my mind, but that is very good advice. At the moment I have no direction in my life, I am not working towards anything besides graduating (and getting better at climbing hahah). @Shiva Your advice ties directly into this, I am a student and spend most of my days in my room studying and browsing the net. After my last relapse I decided to stop skipping class and start studying at the library instead of at home. I have also been wanting to buy the life purpose course as I am not sure what I want out of life and if the field I am studying is really for me. I think that if I would have a life purpose and other dreams that I would be working towards and would follow the rest of the advice given here for what to do when I get an urge this problem would be fixed. Thanks for all the advice, I did not expect to get this much feedback