LifeLife

In my opinion science is just the humans attempt to create a functional and objective analysis on life. However as you are describing you are starting to see the fallacy in science and its nature, which is essentially grounded in our perception, what we can perceive and objectively measure. Since these things are constantly changing or forever will change. The only control for our experience is like you said... direct experience. That being said, with so many interwebing belief systems, thoughts and unconscious patterns it becomes a life mission to distinguish what is our direct experience and what is false. To see things for what they are without meaning, purpose, function, reason, value etc. is Truth. If you get there, your enlightened and apparently the conscious experience is ineffable and indescribable; feelings of pure bliss and love. Besides that everything is all a fiction. However the search for meaning is a necessary fiction some might say to realise nothing and everything.

@quantum Do you use an app / particular type of headset?

Buy the book: The disease to Please by Harriet B. Braiker. Read it and follow the program at the end of the book to significantly reduce your people pleasing tendencies. That is the best book and the program was designed by the author from decades of work in psychology/counselling/psychiatry to most effectively reduce your pleasing habits.

List of options that I can think of: Gradually reduce your porn intake. So instead of completely saying no to porn, one method is to consciously choose what porn you are going to watch, when and then create a plan that suits you which is nice and realistic to your circumstances. Watch Leos video on backsliding. Get rid of internet in the house, only use the library computers. Block porn websites from your phone/computer. Stop watching porn but continue masturbating, for a few weeks and then after then start choosing when you wank to masturbate more effectively. There's no easy way out. If your waiting for you to emotionally finally come to a conclusion that porn is done, its not gonna happen you have to push through the mud abit, find your purpose and develop yourself in the process.

So. I'm 19 years old and as an experiment, because I'm in the habit of experimenting a lot lately. WHAT HABITS DO YOU WISH YOU STARTED AT 19 YEARS OLD IF YOU COULD TURN BACK TIME AND KEPT GOING: *habits not lessons* Interested to see your answers. You can include why and I will fucken do them. Lets do this shit

@PetarKa Well the ideal is to quit porn entirely. Some people continue to masturbate and just quit porn, each to their own. The nofap forums and pages refer to quitting porn and masturbation entirely as "hardcore mode, which includes not fantasising, not looking at any pictures that might tempt you, not masturbating and not looking at porn. And then there's normal mode which is just quitting porn. My advice, if your just starting, probably just try to remove porn at your own pace that suits you but if you want to experience the full reboot effects eventually I advice going to the hardcore mode - but it takes some experience with saying no to your addiction to completely conquer it. Keep doing what your doing, watch some videos on the topic and youll get a general idea. There's a lot of videos and forums on this topic. Just type in no fap in google or youtube and youll be sweet

@Leo Gura I definitely don't think we should demonise others, but I also I do think we all can control our sexual urges, with practice. From my experience from masturbating 3 times a day, now I don't find any problem going for weeks on end with out porn. The demonising aspect of no fap in my opinion is the perfectionistic baby of a tightly set belief that porn is bad. I think fuck that, saying completely No to porn is not the answer, however with practice and slowly pushing yourself you will develop the control to manage cravings and gain control over your sexual urges but you can't do that when your wanking a couple times a week. You need experience pushing through the cravings gradually. Also (I don't know this personally) but from what I've heard a lot of people say that after a long time with no fap you don't even get the cravings or urges anymore, your sexual performance increases a lot, and your ability to connect with others is heightened aswell. They still have sex but they don't feel the need to masturbate and their quality of life is balanced and much better. But that's after a lot of experience. [Edit: and to add onto managing your cravings; pushing your potential forces guys to fix their lifestyle and thoughts. So its kind of a double sides coin. On one side you can authentically grow out the addiction through inner work and on the other you can handle the addiction which forces you to develop the aspects of your life around it that cause you to depend on sexual cravings. But gradually!. the guys who want to quit for life straight away are the ones who bash themselves and have a perfectionist attitude to no fap.. I condone practice and gradually abstaining for longer and longer periods without porn and fixing the areas of your life that cause you depend on sex and encounter feelings of escapism. I don't think that's bad. ]

@Wormon Blatburm dude.. I thought we settled this.

@Wormon Blatburm Yup Well if your trying to get your dopamine baseline levels back to normal and sexual function than quitting porn is a must. we can question social anxiety but that is a certain.

@Wormon Blatburm Even then I think when you get off your medications you should give it another crack, and go for 90 days see what happens. Worst comes to worst nothing happens, your lifes the same.

@Wormon Blatburm I completely empathise with your situation. And sincerely if you need someone to talk to, hit me up. But you came on this thread with a unique circumstance. Your on medication, you have a number of problems and tried to change other peoples ideas and experience, claiming the effects of no fap when your experience with the matter is insufficient and unique. Someone could have benefited from this thread but the ungrounded skepticisim you brought with your narrow scope of vision into this topic might have swayed them away. Just be more considerate, there are other people with crippling anxieties coming on these forums to improve their life.

@Wormon Blatburm I don't know who is spreading those ideas but no one on this topic has said that so yeah there's not much to say there but anyway I cleared that up And you simply cannot judge no fap from one 20 day streak a year ago haha its like going to the gym for a few months and then giving up saying that gym doesn't instantly give you muscles. It takes time for gains to come through, as well as persistence. Likewise I would give nofap 90 days atleast without porn or masturbation before you make an assessment and try and convince others to conform to your own opinions when you clearly dont have sufficient experience to back up your reasons. How do you have more authority to speak over this matte then someone who has gone for a year without porn. You don't. You have no idea nor can you comprehend their experience. Even then you would only be able to speak on behalf of the 90 day challenge from YOUR experience. But atleast then you can make an assessment. If my longest streak was 20 days I would tell everyone to not waste their time. Within 20 days change abit but the long term benefits dont start to creep in for another month.But because I've experienced it longer I can speak of the benefits based off my experience.

@Wormon Blatburm First off let me just start off by saying that up until recently after YEARS of self development and investigation into my belief systems i went through all that. All my life i had one friend literally, no dad, spent years upon years isolated un-nutured and developed that crippling social anxiety where I couldn't look at my parents in the eye let alone talk to them without a nervous freakout. I was afraid to leave the house literally, had agoraphobia look it up. Depression aswell.. I've been there. I know what you mean, not many people would i can understand that. But you can get out of that and no fap can aid that process. I NEVER said it's a magic pill that cures social anxiety. Let's get that straight. No one is saying that. But to a commoner it has tremendous benefits. For you like myself i had to tackle a multitude of complex beleifs systems that were so tricky and complicated to be able to interact and socialise with someone. But if i was still addicted to pornography I would have never been having this conversation let alone experiencing the quality of life I am experiencing aswell. However, other things that played a MORE important role included; experience, meditation, books on psychology, going out of my comfort zone repeatedly spending days on end trying to learn how to socialise. Social anxiety disorder is really complex I don't think ANYONE completely understands it neurologically at this moment because of all the factors that affect it.

@Wormon Blatburm http://yourbrainonporn.com/brain-scan-studies-porn-users And there are tonnes of videos on YouTube where people say they experience a significantly decreased amount of general anxiety and social anxiety. Are you going to neglect subjective feedback and evidence like hundreds of videos and forum threads across the internet where guys have reported decreased anxiety? I myself can tell you I notice a significant increase in anxiety after I masturbate 'to porn' . I've experimented on many occasions to see whether it was placebo or not, having gone no fap for months to quit to see what effects it had. AND they're real alright haha. But you probably need a study to believe me.

@Spacious I really want to go on a vegan diet! How long have you been on one for? Is it compatible with gym? Do you have any deficiencies? Where do you get your recipes? What books on veganism would you recommend ?! haha I have experimented with green foods replacements and i will testify they definitely make you feel so much clearer and more energy. Just don't know how to create a vegan diet

@IndependantKouhai I love your contribution to these threads!! Thankyou haha and also dw about that. My advice jump in a warm shower and turn it on cold after your done cleaning yourself etc. It's still exhilarating and it gets you in on days where your willpower is low, good method to trick the brain. And then you just increase the time you stay under the cold, over time youll be taking chilly showers like nothing guaranteed

@DoubleYou Good for you man.

@Wormon Blatburm I see where your coming from and ofcourse nothing is a magic pill in this life. Meditating is not a magic pill, taking cold showers, yoga, exercise... nofap.. all these areas influence the body and brain chemistry of the individual for the better but focusing on one alone is not going radically alter your life in ALL areas of life. However, in my opinion, and I think we're on the same page, is that self actualisation is about increasing the quality of our lives in ALL areas of life and not just one. THAT BEING SAID. This is a fact. That when you solve one area, what you gain from that area usually spills over to others. Likewise with pornography and its effects on sexual performance, quitting the addiction (meaning reducing the exposure to overstimulating material) definitely has an impact on motivation levels, general sense of well being, to some like someone commented on this thread it might mean they regain certainty over their sexuality again and confidence from the increase levels of testosterone. There are so many more neurological benefits from quitting addictions not just pornography and what it has on the brain that definitely it would be silly to say here that it doesn't have an affect on the individuals sense of well being and their ability to tackle other areas of life. But yeah I don't think we need to argue here. I agree with your point. Attracting a woman is much more complex then quitting porn, all those qualities you listed should be taken into an account. But my point is that excess use of pornography is just an uneccesary impediment that causes a spillage of a lot of negative side effects with don't need to be included in ones life. Hopefully we can agree I'm not the type to want to militantly convince others I just wrote this topic to enlighten others and myself as well as talk about our experiences.

@Flo Hey I been there too, there's no shame in the neurological effects on behavioural addictions. It's only when we are aware of this addiction can we begin to understand the situation and claim responsibility but even then its a growing process. Don't beat yourself up though, I've read online people have done some crazy shit during their search for novelty, in pornuse and reality. Seriously, I've read some fucked up stories hahaha

@IndependantKouhai Wow. Deep. Amen.

@Sick Boy ahahahahahaha yes ikr ! That's a good way to put it

@Sick Boy Yeah dude I feel ya.. ESPECIALLY in the first week its so tough. Keep trying, you can only improve. Even if you relapse, keep learning how you found a way to relapse each time and then from there you can catch the temptations in the early stages. The addiction IS REAL. I myself have been trying to quit since the start of this year as well and I'm back on my first week so we are literally in the same boat haha! Each to their own however and I might make a no fap thread in a different forum section, but what I've noticed the fap addiction cycle usually follows this scheme. 1. Complication - (boredom, exhaustion, depression, anxiety > escapism ) 2. Temptation - Cravings (Wishful cravings [playing with fire fantasising for the juicing effect it gives], desire cravings [reminiscing about things/scenarios you wish you could have] and habitual cravings [those random urges/spontaneous feelings of horniness] 3. Negotiation - Impaired rationalisations ( creating rationalisations, thinking you can watch porn in 'controlled' way, unconsciously giving in to your urges in small bite sized chunks - Bargaining with your addiction 4. Escalation - Unconsciously complying more and more to your urges. - The snow ball effect that usually leads to relapse 5. Ejaculation - Fully blown relapse So that's the scheme I've come up with after a year of no fap lol the aim is to come up with preventative and immediate measures that suit you to cut off or prevent any of those 4 pillars leading up to the relapse. Those you create from experience, what works. Generally when you fix the first one you'll probably grow a lot in your day to day lifestyle, productivity and happiness if your strategically make the right preventative measures. And from what I sounds like you've got a way to deal with the 2nd pillar I think you might need to reflect on the third one though from what it sounds. But anyway learn from your mistakes and keep making an effort to uphold that model and you will eventually have a boss strategy to tackle your porn addiction, anyway this is just what I've learnt so far keep commenting if you want we can message each other to anonymously support each other on the journey always happy to help.

Anyone here with a lot of experience with creating NEW radical change can enlighten me if emotional labour continues to always be scrutinizingly painful or if it subsides with experience? Like do you ever reach a point where you just used to it and even if you realise you've set a new comfort zone its not scrutinizing to jump out of it? I'm very curious.

@Mercy I agree at first its annoying but you get used to it. I always start off with a warm shower anyway to get me in there.

@Matthew Lamot Humility son.