Does masturbation before sleeping hinder sleep?

[preventingdiabetes]

Does masturbation before bed make it easier to fall asleep or harder to fall asleep?

When I am feeling sleepy before bed, and I masturbate in spite of that, I feel a little more awake after ejaculating. 

Has anyone else had this experience?

I thought masturbation would make one feel more sleepy, not less. But I want to see some science on this topic. This might just be the one thing that makes me stop masturbating.

[Preety_India]

If you're doing that to fall asleep, that can become a mental addiction. Not healthy at all. Sometimes it's fine. 

 

[Carl-Richard]

The act itself wakes you up, but the after-effect makes you sleepy. So in total, the decrease in sleepiness from initiating the act will interact with and delay the subsequent increase afterwards, so it might take a bit longer to fall asleep, but you'll probably have a better chance of eventually falling asleep. 

I had trouble falling asleep when I did nofap. However, fapping before bed is a waste imo. It's less exciting and it creates a kind of hangover effect the next day.

[BipolarGrowth]

It makes it far easier for me to fall asleep at times. I have some insomnia issues, and if I really need to get to bed, it’s one of the things I’ll do to increase the chance that it can happen. 

[Thought Art]

Lol, I feel like this is a stereotype... guys sleeping after ejaculating 

Side note: Masterbation is good and healthy. You can learn to not ejaculate and have multiple full body orgasms as a guy. Turn it into a spiritual practice. Cultiviating and circulating sexual energy is crucial for sustained spiritual states.

Edited February 13, 2022 by Thought Art

[Thought Art]

Do some yoga, Qigong, Tao Yin, Yin Yoga, go for a walk, meditate, read a book while laying in bed, take a break from the screen. Stretch, relax, take a hot bath etc

[Leo Gura]

Makes sleeping easier for me. Hard to sleep when you're horny.

[ZenSwift]

For me it's easier to sleep when I'm horny ?

I have something to think about to lul me to sleep. Plus having an erection stops be from feeling the need to pee for the 7th time before bed.

 

[Seth]

Google "orgasm and melatonin".

[preventingdiabetes]

On 14/2/2022 at 1:09 AM, Preety_India said:

If you're doing that to fall asleep, that can become a mental addiction. Not healthy at all. Sometimes it's fine. 

 

@Preety_India What’s the difference between a mental addiction and a physical addiction? I think I am addicted.

 

On 14/2/2022 at 6:21 AM, BipolarGrowth said:

It makes it far easier for me to fall asleep at times. I have some insomnia issues, and if I really need to get to bed, it’s one of the things I’ll do to increase the chance that it can happen. 

@BipolarGrowth How often do you masturbate? 

 

On 14/2/2022 at 6:45 AM, Knowledge Hoarder said:

The best tactic for falling asleep is, hands down, being actually tired enough to fall asleep. Everything else (no coffeine, less screen time, etc.) comes after that. 

@Knowledge Hoarder Aren’t the point of those things literally to help you feel tired enough to sleep? No caffeine helps you get tired enough to sleep, less screen time helps you get tired enough to sleep. If you have caffeine or too much screen time, you probably won’t be tired enough to sleep.  

[Preety_India]

4 minutes ago, preventingdiabetes said:

What’s the difference between a mental addiction and a physical addiction? I think I am addicted.

Both are somewhat similar. A mental addiction can cause restlessness, anxiety and withdrawal symptoms too. This is what happens with video games that you can't play anymore. 

Don't let your mental state be a slave to chemicals. Free your brain and nervous system from chemicals making it worse. There are circuits in the brain that get trained for addiction and reward satisfaction cycle. You satisfy this addiction and your brain rewards you with happy chemicals. This is how addiction continues through the reward mechanism of the brain. Try not to do that. Mental addiction can even get  worse to the point where you may need more stimulation to get the same chemical output. For example if playing the video game for 3 hours doesn't satisfy you anymore, you start playing it for 6 hours and then 14 hours and so on. You see how destructive this can be. It can damage your health badly within days,in the video game example, your eyes will swell or get red, your head will be hot, your emotions will be scattered instead of centered, you'll be more irritable than before, the list will go on and on. 

It's always good to get a grip on any kind of addiction, physical and mental. 

 

 

[preventingdiabetes]

@Preety_India How do I stop it? I really need help with this. I have a feeling that something is “missing” when I don’t masturbate at the time I usually do, which is before bed. I think that’s al a withdrawal symptom.

I really want to take control of my life. 

[Preety_India]

@preventingdiabetes you can't completely stop it. It's something like hunger. At the same time if hunger is unchecked then you'll be fat in no time. 

Similarly, you have to moderate it. You have to balance it. Like anything else, don't overdo it. Just balance. Moderation. 

The same thing with porn, video games, junk food, TV, and drinking. You can never completely cut off something because we are attracted to such things. But minimization and moderation can help. 

 

[preventingdiabetes]

6 minutes ago, Preety_India said:

@preventingdiabetes you can't completely stop it. It's something like hunger. At the same time if hunger is unchecked then you'll be fat in no time. 

Similarly, you have to moderate it. You have to balance it. Like anything else, don't overdo it. Just balance. Moderation. 

The same thing with porn, video games, junk food, TV, and drinking. You can never completely cut off something because we are attracted to such things. But minimization and moderation can help. 

 

@Preety_India That’s not true in my experience. I was previously addicted to video games and junk food and I’ve cut them out of my life completely. I don’t miss them either. It must be possible with masturbation too. 

[Preety_India]

Just now, preventingdiabetes said:

@Preety_India That’s not true in my experience. I was previously addicted to video games and junk food and I’ve cut them out of my life completely. I don’t miss them either. It must be possible with masturbation too. 

It's possible to control food cravings somewhat, a lot is within your control. However masturbating cannot be compared to food cravings. If you completely shut off masturbating, then that would cause some repression and repression than shows up in weird ways sexually like sexual deviance, perversions, insecurities, ejaculation issues, unable to get aroused, feeling hyper sexual, OCD of sex, phobia of sex, sexual anxiety, unable to deal or cope with sexual desires around a romantic partner, shame, guilt, regret around sex and masturbation, depression, trauma 

Do you really want to invite all these problems. If the answer is a no, then you will have to masturbate. The only thing is that don't let masturbating ruin your life. 

The opposite is also true. If you're masturbating excessively then it could mean that you're spending your time only doing that like some people watch porn all day. This leads to feelings of guilt and worthlessness because deep down you really don't want to spend all your time doing that it makes you anxious because everyone has a hunger for career, productivity, work, and life purpose. So when you begin to fail in other areas (people have lost their marriage or Job due to porn addiction) of life because of a specific habit, it can build up frustration and then depression. 

Masturbation is a natural desire based on instinct, not a created one. Not an artificial one like video games. It's the body's sexual system. It desires stimulation. Depriving it of stimulation is like depriving the body of calcium. Your bones will become tender brittle. Similarly starving yourself completely of sexual stimulation can cause the sexual hormones to not be produced in proper amounts, repressing the sexual stimulus, this can have adverse impact on arousal. 

Just don't do it excessively. But don't stop doing it completely. 

This is hard truth. We are sexual beings. Just like we are social beings. 

Any form of ultra deprivation has a bad impact without us realizing it. 

For Example if I was kept in solitary confinement, with no social contact at all, what will happen? Can you guess? 

 

[StarStruck]

@Preety_India why do you have a german flag as your ava?

[StarStruck]

Just now, Preety_India said:

@StarStruck because I'm German. 

Oh, ok. I thought you were Indian.

[Carl-Richard]

2 hours ago, preventingdiabetes said:

@Preety_India What’s the difference between a mental addiction and a physical addiction? I think I am addicted.

 

On 4.11.2021 at 3:59 AM, Carl-Richard said:

I see this misconception way too often (conflating dependence and addiction). You have dependence, which can be either physical or psychological in nature, and you have addiction, which is psychological in nature.

Dependence is simply a range of symptoms that occur as result of withdrawing from a drug, either from coming down from a single drug experience or from discontinuing frequent use or abuse. The physical symptoms relate to vital physiological functions and can be life threatening, while the psychological ones relate feelings like low mood and dysphoria.

Being drug dependent simply means that your body, in order to maintain optimal functioning, has tuned its adaptation mechanisms to accommodate the drug-mediated change in activity, which involves decreasing the activity that the drug is elevating (downregulation). Roughly speaking, dependence happens on the level of receptors. For example with cannabis, it happens at the level of CB1 receptors.

On the other hand, the mechanisms associated with addiction is what initiates drug-taking behavior, produces drug cravings, and is for all intents and purposes psychological in nature. Addiction operates technically adjacent to drug-specific receptor activity and more on the level of networks (specific dopaminergic pathways). In other words, it doesn't really matter whether or not you feel dysphoria from drug withdrawal (e.g. low CB1 activity): if you're addicted, it's possible to feel drug cravings despite having been off drugs for a while and having stabilized your drug-related systems (normalized CB1 activity).

So when people say "weed isn't that bad, you can only get psychologically addicted", it's firstly a conflation of dependence and addiction, and secondly it's a misunderstanding of the mechanisms that lead to compulsive drug-taking. While it's true that cannabis doesn't produce physical dependence at the same level as say heroin, it's not the dependence aspect that technically initiates the compulsive drug-taking behavior in the first place. The conceptualization of physical dependence should not be one of "intense, dangerous cravings" but rather "the presence of usually innocuous but potentially life-threatening physical symptoms, ranging from a light cold to intense, seizure-inducing over-activation".

An useful analogy is how a diabetic is dependent on exogenous insulin to survive. The diabetic doesn't feel cravings because of the lack of insulin (he isn't "addicted"), but his body is dependent on insulin for optimal functioning. That is what heroin is to a heroin dependent person. Now, meanwhile it's certainly true that a heroin dependent person is also probably plagued with addiction, it's not actually the physical symptoms that makes you take the drug. A way to make this abundantly clear is to consider the fact that cocaine is not considered to produce physical dependence ("wow?").

Although it's certainly the case that dependence and addiction interact to produce what is normally associated with compulsive drug-taking behavior, the two are to be treated as separate concepts, and it's the activity in dopaminergic pathways that initiates the motivation, movement and reward-seeking behavior that leads to drug-taking behavior, not the downregulation of drug-specific receptors. Repeated administration of such dopamine-elevating drug will strengthen these pathways, increase cravings and reward-seeking behavior, and potentially lead to addiction. This is what is mean by a reinforcing drug (strengthening reward-seeking activity).

So to take this back to cannabis, it's perfectly possible to become addicted to cannabis as it increases dopaminergic activity in major reward circuitry in the brain. Being addicted to cannabis is not the same as being dependent on cannabis (although they certainly correlate). Addiction is a mental phenomena, but this does not detract from its seriousness. Addiction to cannabis, alcohol, cocaine, heroin are all mental phenomenas.

Tl;dr: the dichotomy between "mental" and "physical" exists only through receptor-level neuropharmacological mechanisms of dependence, not addiction. Addiction is defined neuropharmacologically at the level of networks and behaviorally by various criteria, which makes it a psychological/mental phenomena, thus there is no such thing as "physical addiction." There is mental dependence, physical dependence, and there is addiction which is mental.

[Leo Gura]

It would be wise of you guys to stop demonizing, judging, and repressing masturbation. That will not solve your problem.

Chimps jerk off all the time. You don't see them feeling guilty or butthurt about it. You are creating a self-interference pattern.

The solution is to indulge your desires mindfully and in moderation.

Then maybe one day you will outgrow them. But at least they will not hinder you too much.

[Mannyb]

56 minutes ago, Medhansh said:

Finally. You cleared so many of my confusions with this single statement. 

Check the episode Awereness alone is curative for a more in depth explanation if you care.