Like the book? Paperback edition now available: https://www.amazon.com/Nofap-Success-System- Dave-James/dp/B08W7DX1S5 The Nofap Success System ~ Dave James (aka PathofCultivation) Contents 1 - Introduction .............................................................................................3 2 - Origins of Nofap .....................................................................................8 3 - What They're Saying .............................................................................14 4 - The Porn Trap ........................................................................................22 5 - Sexual Transmutation ............................................................................34 6 - Nofap, Yoga and Taoist Alchemy ..........................................................42 7 - The Prostate Debate ..............................................................................50 8 - Frequently Asked Questions .................................................................55 9 - The Fall of Masculinity .........................................................................61 10 - Health Essentials .................................................................................69 Appendix/Endnotes ....................................................................................79 ~ No: adjective - (quantifier) used with either mass nouns or plural countable nouns for indicating a complete or almost complete lack or zero quantity of. Fap: verb | vulgar slang - (of a man) to masturbate. ~ 1 Introduction "The height of a man's success is gauged by his self-mastery." – da Vinci ~ Conventional medicine will tell you that "daily masturbation is normal and healthy." I honestly cannot think of anything more debilitating to me as a man than to follow that advice. Nofap (NF henceforth) if you don't know, is the benefits a man will experience if he reduces the frequency in which he ejaculates. In other words, stop masturbating and you'll feel better. Most guys who read that will laugh, as masturbation is generally an enjoyable, sensual thing. Why stop such a pleasurable pastime? You ask. Firstly, let's just clarify that most guys who do NF aren't doing so because they find masturbation unenjoyable, but rather because the benefits they gain from abstaining outweigh the fleeting thrill of orgasm. This is where the initial conundrum lies. Most guys have never really experienced abstaining from masturbation so assume there's nothing to gain by doing so. Those who have however, generally agree that once you're over the initial desire to release, an enormous number of benefits lay in wait. Let's use the 'cake and broccoli' analogy. A cake is a delicious food to eat in the moment; it tastes sweet, is satisfying to eat, but is generally not going to give you optimal nutritional health. Broccoli however, while not as immediately pleasing to the taste buds, will generally bestow greater long-term health and nutritional benefits. The practice of NF is opting for long-term benefits rather than an immediate sensory thrill. But let's not get too puritanical. Obviously, if I were to stop what I'm doing right now and go masturbate to orgasm, I'd no doubt enjoy it as much as the next man. No one is disputing the pleasure orgasm brings. The question is whether the fleeting thrill is worth the ensuing feeling of depletion; a depletion that could impinge on a more productive action you would have otherwise taken. If you've ever chose Pornhub over "working on that novel" then you know what I'm saying. Think back to the last time you climaxed whilst watching porn. How did you feel once you'd ejaculated into that tissue, waddling to the toilet with your pants around your ankles, while Chad and Stacy continued fucking on your laptop screen? After ejaculating to porn, where on the emotional scale would you sit if enthusiasm was at one end and apathy at the other? If you're happy masturbating to porn then you probably won't need to read any more of this book, because of all the benefits of NF I'll go to my grave preaching, the fact is it's not for everyone. Generally, it appeals to men who: a) Are seeking or are already living a self-improvement lifestyle. b) Are looking to improve their confidence or self-esteem. These are the types of guys that will reap the most benefits from this practice – i.e. health-conscious or introverted types. For the guy who is already a confident, motivated person, the benefits are likely to be less apparent, simply because the qualities NF tends to instill are already a part of his personality makeup. That isn't to say he shouldn't try it however, as all guys could potentially gain much by reducing their ejaculation frequency. So what benefits would these be? What benefits can you expect by reducing the frequency in which you ejaculate? The following represents a summation of what guys generally report after abstaining from masturbation— More: Energy, vigour, vitality, confidence, motivation, ambition, enthusiasm, courage, self-esteem, willpower, drive, optimism, focus, discipline, attraction from the opposite sex. Cultivation of: Hard work ethic, warrior spirit, competence, self-belief/respect, stronger voice, posture and stride, stronger eye contact, stable emotions/emotional poise. Reduced: Depression, anxiety, stress, timidity, cowardice, fear, insomnia, thoughts of "I can't" and "I'm not good enough." Elimination of: Internet porn. NF basically gives you more mojo. Think John Travolta swaggering down the street in the opening to Saturday Night Fever, with the Bee Gees Stayin' Alive playing. That. That right there is NF. 'So not masturbating will make me feel all that?' I won't promise you the world, but I'll say that reducing your ejaculation frequency could potentially bring you some of these benefits, usually within a few days of your last ejaculation. The benefits guys report generally fall into having more confidence, energy and motivation. There's no exaggeration to any of this. There's an immense amount of benefits to be had by reducing your ejaculation frequency and reducing or eliminating porn from your life. On my Youtube channel (Youtube/PathofCultivation), I've made a number of videos on NF preaching its virtues, and have had enough feedback over the years to see the effect it's had. If you search the NF playlist on my channel, you can get my own face-to-face reports as well as a few thousand comments and discussions. My '6 months no masturbation' video is currently my most popular with more than half a million views, and is a good overview of what NF is all about. I don't mean to brag here, only to emphasise that I'm in a unique position at the hub of the NF community, and as such have seen an enormous amount of feedback from guys who've tried it. Admittedly, six months was a little excessive and was down to beginners' enthusiasm more than anything. (Note: I do not advise abstaining for that length of time.) But I figured if I could go six months, then surely I'd have a good idea of whether or not it worked. Well, I wouldn't be writing this book if it hadn't. I truly wish to see this information get out there. The benefits are so numerous and the effort so minimal that there's no reason for any health-conscious guy to not give it a try. At worst you'll feel a little hornier than you normally would, at best you'll make some positive, long-term changes to your life. There's a certain magnetism that this practice stirs within you. It's a primal quality that implies strength and virility, which you simply won't see in guys who jerk off to porn multiple times a day. Compare the King in the Lord of the Rings movies fearlessly leading his men to battle, to Gollum in his cave, unable to take his eyes off his precious. Which archetype does the compulsive porn addict fall into? 'Nonsense! Prove to me what you say is true!' One of the most common questions I've received from this is those asking for proof, and to them I say just try it yourself. Go a week without ejaculating and you'll have your proof, increased wellbeing or not. Again, I don't want to promise you the world, but do want to present a case based on my own experience and the experiences of many others, as to why this practice seems to have the effect it has. The number of guys who've benefit from NF have been enough to fill a small book —literally. If you turn to the endnotes you'll find a 157-page PDF document of nothing but positive testimonials, so if it's proof you want, reading some of those reports is a good place to start. 1 The scientific method, by definition, is getting consistent, reproducible results under controlled conditions. If a hundred guys are all saying they feel better after a time without ejaculating then that is fairly concrete evidence that there's something to it. But frankly, what other guys have experienced is irrelevant, for the proof is in the pudding. In other words, personal experience and using your own body as a lab will tell you more than any study or testimony. Health and fitness legend Jack LaLanne once said, "Exercise is king, nutrition is queen. Put them together and you have a kingdom." I would add that NF is the keen young prince out to make his mark on the world. After diet and exercise, I believe that NF is the next most important thing a guy can do for his health and wellbeing. Yes, it's that good. I first began experimenting with NF around 2012, it's now 2020, and absolutely nothing has changed, the benefits I experienced then I still experience. Admittedly, the effects have become a little more subdued over time, simply because they've become more ingrained in my core personality makeup and are not as obvious as they initially were. In other words, I no longer feel more confident by doing NF, I simply am confident. That isn't to say I've no more need of it however. If I were to stop NF and return to a twice-daily fap habit, I'd soon notice the difference: energy levels would drop, posture would slump, confidence would wane and productivity would begin to diminish. This is how all-encompassing the effect ejaculation frequency has on a man, yet we're encouraged to masturbate daily for it is "normal and healthy." The Chinese proverb "A drop of semen is equal to ten drops of blood" illustrates the importance of the male seminal fluid. An average ejaculation contains 300-500 million sperm cells, each one like a tiny bioenergetic dispenser. It is rich in proteins, vitamins, minerals, and a host of other trace elements required to turn a microscopic organism into a human life. Each ejaculation that does not go towards procreating deprives us of these valuable nutrients. The concept of 'vital energy'—a predominant theme in oriental martial arts and medicine—is completely absent in the West, but it is one I believe is intrinsic as to why NF works. Ultimately, NF is about conserving the vitalising, subtle energy that is lost via ejaculation. We'll go more into this in chapter six. Point is, there is a logic as to why NF works that is better understood within the framework of Traditional Chinese Medicine and health. But you don't need to go too deep into Chinese medicine to reap the benefits of NF, you simply need to reduce your ejaculation frequency. You can stop reading this book right now and know all you need to know, though I encourage you to read on for a fuller understanding. It'll take some experimentation to work out how much of a reduction works for you. I advise going a week without to begin with. Go seven days without ejaculating and see if you notice a difference in any of the aforementioned factors. There's a good chance that because of previous habits, going seven days will seem impossible. You might not even get beyond the second day before the overwhelming desire to release hits you. Before you know it, simply looking at a woman will be enough to get you aroused, but this is more down to habit than anything. If you routinely masturbate at certain times of the day then the body comes to expect it. That it's being denied that release will confuse it—albeit initially. Once you retrain your body not to expect its habitual ejaculations, the sexual energy you'd usually spend ejaculating will find other means or 'outlets' in which to be channelled. This is what success philosopher Napoleon Hill called "sexual transmutation." It's what in Taoist alchemy is called converting jing energy into chi. It is the transformation of 'base' sexual energy into a higher and more refined form. Again, more later. It's not uncommon at all when reading NF reports (and there's a great many), to see stories of guys completely turning their lives around from doing this. It's like a domino effect, guys will do NF then they'll look at improving their diets, or lifting weights, or learning a new skill, etc. NF is like the stone that starts the avalanche of a lifetime of self-improvement. All my most popular videos are about this subject, and for good reason—because it works. It's so simple but so beneficial. Stop watching porn, and instead of masturbating do something productive, like getting out of the house and off the computer, go to the gym, or work on whatever unfinished project you've been putting off. Start getting things done, or as Jordan Peterson would say, start "cleaning your room." NF at its heart is about turning procrastination into action. Again, NF, or reduced ejaculation frequency (forgive the repetition but I feel it's necessary, many guys erroneously believe NF means to stop masturbating indefinitely), won't solve all your problems, but it will offer a simple, practical way of conserving energy that would otherwise be wasted. When used alongside other healthy habits like good diet and exercise, NF will help form one of the core foundations of a healthy, active, purpose-driven life. In this book, I hope to dispel some of the conventional dogma that says daily masturbation is normal and healthy. 'Stop masturbating? But I love my daily porn binges!' If you love masturbating to porn then great, but have you ever tried going without? One hundred years of feminism, decline in physical labour jobs and sedentary living has emasculated men and turned the defenders of Sparta into safe-space snowflakes. Traditional masculinity is no longer instilled in young men. Where our forefathers were taught the value of strength and stoicism, boys today are taught that their inherent masculine nature is 'toxic' and something that belongs to a bygone era. Reward without effort is the mantra of today's millennials, in which likes, upvotes and winks are all that's needed for a life of fulfilment. All good things can be obtained without the stress of leaving the cotton wool bubble in which many young people today find themselves. Look around you. Count the number of smartphone zombies you see gazing at their device in mindless hypnosis. Men today are weak, depleted of energy and slaves to a myriad of digital distractions. NF I believe strikes at the core of many of these debilitating factors, which ultimately stem from our massively overstimulated brains. As the saying goes, "The way you do anything is the way you do everything." Having the strength and willpower to abstain from masturbation is a strength that will spill over into everything you do. NF strengthens the soul. 2 Origins of Nofap "I don’t ejaculate for six weeks before the fight. No sex, no masturbation, no nothing. It releases too much tension. It releases a lot of minerals and nutrients that your body needs, and it releases them cheaply. Releasing weakens the knees and your legs. Find a lion that hasn’t had some food for a while, and you’ve got a dangerous cat. So there won't bet a drip from me. Even in my sleep - if there are girls all over me in my dream, I say to them, "I’ve got a fight next week, I can’t do anything. I can’t do it.” That’s control. I’ve been doing that since I was fifteen and it's part and parcel of my preparation now. That’s why I am who I am today - it's down to all those little sacrifices. Find another boxer who makes that sacrifice, and you’ll find another champion." – David Haye: Former World Heavyweight Boxing Champion ~ So where did NF come from? Certainly not from me, I coined neither the term nor practice itself. If we really wanted to discuss the origins we could go back 3000 years to the yogic practice of Brahmacharya, which advocates a life of chastity for a greater devotion to God, but for now we'll stick to the age of social media. NF was founded in June 2011 by Alexander Rhodes after a study examining the relationship between testosterone and ejaculation frequency in men was posted on the popular website Reddit. For a brief overview of Reddit for those unfamiliar with its format, Reddit is host to a number of discussion forums called 'subreddits,' which range across all manner of subjects. Users get to vote on content which decides whether a topic remains visible or gets relegated to the netherpages. All subreddits begin with the prefix r/, so NF for example would be r/NoFap. The 2003 study, conducted at China's Zhejiang University, found that men who refrained from ejaculating experienced a 145% spike in testosterone after seven days. The article grew so popular it reached the front page of Reddit, inadvertently creating a seven-day no masturbation challenge among the site's userbase. Inspired by this, Rhodes created an appropriate subreddit where all discussions of this experiment could take place, hence r/NoFap was born. What initially began as a lighthearted challenge soon struck a chord once the benefits of NF became apparent. The NF subreddit has continued to grow since. Current active users as of this writing are 744,911. Terms like 'fapstronaut' and 'nofapper' are some of the humorous terms to have emerged from this subculture, which play on the macho stereotype typical in men with high testosterone. (Because real men sleep on a concrete floor!) NF has grown far and wide since its initial inception and is a common subject among the 'manosphere' – a term describing the various websites that focus on male identity in a feminist age (such as bodybuilding and pick-up arts). ~ A research on the relationship between ejaculation and serum testosterone level in men. Jiang M, Xin J, Zou Q, et al. The purpose of this study is to gain understanding of the relationship between ejaculation and serum testosterone level in men. The serum testosterone concentrations of 28 volunteers were investigated daily during abstinence periods after ejaculation for two phases. The authors found that the fluctuations of testosterone levels from the 2nd to 5th day of abstinence were minimal. On the 7th day of abstinence, however, a clear peak of serum testosterone appeared, reaching 145.7% of the baseline ( P < 0.01). No regular fluctuation was observed following continuous abstinence after the peak. Ejaculation is the precondition and beginning of the special periodic serum testosterone level variations, which would not occur without ejaculation. The results showed that ejaculation-caused variations were characterised by a peak on the 7th day of abstinence; and that the effective time of an ejaculation is 7 days minimum. These data are the first to document the phenomenon of the periodic change in serum testosterone level; the correlation between ejaculation and periodic change in the serum testosterone level, and the pattern and characteristics of the periodic change. ~ My introduction to NF came about from Gary Wilson's porn recovery website yourbrainonporn.com, which provides an in-depth look into the destructive effects of today's internet porn. I'm not nor was ever a heavy porn user, but always noticed its detrimental effects after using it. Fatigue, anxiety, and brief spurts of depression always seemed to follow a heavy porn binge. These effects I later discovered were a combination of the effect porn use has on the brain's reward circuitry, and the loss of 'vital energy' that occurs upon ejaculation. In effect, masturbation to porn is a double whammy, as you're getting two uniquely different set of detriments. Although NF is not the focus of Wilson's site, naturally it arises in discussion. Both Wilson's site and r/NoFap tend to have an unspoken connection, and users of either will at some point learn of or seek out the other. For a brief summary before we look closer in chapter four, modern high-speed internet porn offers unlimited sexual novelty that our brains will never tire of. We only need to look back a few generations to see how things have changed. For men of previous generations, they might've had a glance at Playboy and got their thrills from a dozen or so pictures. Most guys would skip to their favourite girl, maybe the hot brunette on page 16, and would soon be done with the deed. Essentially, there's only so much time you can spend on finite images before familiarity (i.e. boredom) sets in. Now just imagine if that Playboy had a million pages, and instead of pictures you had high-definition, feature-length videos that you don't even need to pay for. Well, you've just imagined internet porn. Nowadays, anyone with an internet connection has the equivalent of every porn magazine ever published available for free at the click of a button. The boredom that would've set in perusing your one copy of Playboy no longer applies, because if you do get bored, you simply click another video. The end result is an excessive stimulation that leaves 'lesser' activities seeming dull by comparison. Naturally, guys raised in the age of the internet have found themselves the unwitting guinea pigs in what Wilson calls "the great porn experiment." Fortunately, word is getting out, and people like Gary have done an amazing job in highlighting this issue. On his site he advocates a porn detox, meaning eliminating all use of it to help resolve any dysfunction it might've caused. This 'no porn' challenge was eventually co-opted by r/NoFap and thus the 90-day NF challenge was born. Where Wilson's site is akin to a support group for guys whose lives and relationships have suffered due to their porn addiction, r/NoFap is more lighthearted and often tongue-in-cheek. Guys talk of 'superpowers' and feeling like Batman thanks to NF. I've been a regular part of both communities since 2012 and the success stories of reducing porn and/or masturbation continue to come by the day. Motivations for doing NF vary greatly. Some just like the challenge, others are seeking to cure their porn-induced erectile dysfunction. Having more success with women is a fairly common reason. For myself, I was drawn by the reports of having more energy as I tend to exercise a lot. At least five days a week I train in a mix of running, yoga, martial arts and weightlifting. Basically, as a health-conscious all- round fitness nut, I became enthralled by the innumerable positive reports as to what a fap detox can bring. It was mid-2012 when I began uploading videos on the subject. Few NF videos were up at the time, and the concept was little known outside of the Reddit group itself. Once I'd given NF a decent try I thought, I'd upload a video talking about it to add to my scant selection of videogame guitar covers and talks on raw food. The '6 month no masturbation' video is what became of that experiment. For reference, here is the complete transcript of that video: Nofap - 6 months no masturbation benefits 'So I've recently made it six months without masturbating and can honestly say, giving up masturbation is one of the best things I've ever done. I'm not kidding when I say it's bought me nothing but benefits and that's what I'm going to talk about today. But before I do I'll just give a shout-out to my fellow nofappers because seriously, keep at it – it will change you for the better. Now, I used to be a paranoid, timid, socially awkward and often depressed person, and although I'm not claiming to be free of any of that, those traits have dramatically reduced because of quitting masturbation. My voice is stronger, my posture's stronger, I feel more balanced, and generally just feel more whole and complete. So after 180 days I'm pretty sure I'll never go back to masturbating, I neither want nor need it, I just have that much more energy, and it really makes your soul feel clean. Although it's important to mention something that if you try this you'll inevitably come across, and that's something called flatlining. Flatlining is where one minute you feel like Batman on steroids, the next you feel like an asexual Martian with no libido whatsoever. Now a lot of people who try NF are put off by this, but I'll say look at it in a positive light, use that time to focus on other things which need resolving in your life because one day, your libido will suddenly return and those periods of highly charged confidence will last longer. They certainly have for me, I feel good pretty much all of the time now and truly believe that quitting masturbation should be the most immediate and fundamental treatment for anyone suffering with depression, it's really made that much of a difference. Now my theory on what causes this strays a little bit into Eastern mysticism, in that the excess sexual energy we don't waste by ejaculating builds up and spills over into the lower three chakras, which are the body's energy centres related to confidence and assertiveness. And just remember what it's like to feel nervous, we feel butterflies in our tummy. Conserving sexual energy drowns out those butterflies so we feel stable in our abdomen, like a calm pond. But the big question is, does NF help you get laid? Well, yes and no. No in the sense that it won't turn you into Mick Jagger overnight, but yes in the sense that increased energy, combined with increased confidence are attractive qualities in general. Then there's the porn side of things, it's important to know that both porn and masturbation each have their own detrimental effects so it's good to quit both. I've found that quitting masturbation whilst still looking at porn still leaves me feeling socially awkward, whereas masturbating without looking at porn still leaves me drained of energy. So in a nutshell, for good results cut out porn, for great results cut out masturbation, but for excellent results cut out both. And if you haven't done so, check out the r/NoFap and yourbrainonporn sites linked in the description because this is where all of this comes from. So what now after 180 days? Well, I basically plan to live a fap-free life indefinitely, there's just no need to go back to jerking into tissue, clearing internet history and all the rest. Now I know the guys out there who love their daily porn sessions think I'm crazy, but just check out the NF site, try it for seven days minimum, see the results, read the positive experiences, and just consider that the ancient peoples were onto something. Because you'll find that by storing sexual energy, you'll naturally channel it into other areas of life, be it going for that job, asking that girl out, lifting weights or whatever. I've been into holistic living now for close to a decade and believe that NF may be one of the most potent personal development tools available to the male population. And there's a big debate in martial arts circles of whether chi exists or not. What is chi? What does it feel like? Well, go for seven days minimum and you'll know what having more chi feels like. So what do you do when you just feel so horny and need to bust one out? Well, you've got to find a channel, whatever you're into, let that extra energy fuel your hobbies. Failing that, take a cold shower, which helps discharge all that hot, horny energy. But let's get one thing straight, cutting out masturbation is not a cure-all to all your problems, but it will help bring into focus all the things which need resolving in your life and give you the energy to work on them. So you have to be active with it and make the changes, and slowly, over time, the tweaks begin to manifest in your personality and you won't look back.' ~ The '6 month' video is still going strong, and aside from some cringeworthy hyperbole of "never fapping again," the information I share in it, even now still rings true. The end sequence Lord of the Rings comparison between Gollum in his cave and the King leading his men to war are excellent analogies as to the process one goes through when first trying NF. It turns goblins into kings, frogs into princes, and the timid man into someone willing to conquer the mountain of the world. This is the warrior spirit that NF helps instill. The success of this video, my time in the community, and doing NF consistently is why I feel I'm qualified to be writing this book. I earlier claimed that after diet and exercise, reducing ejaculation frequency is one of the best things a guy can do for his health and wellbeing. Well, unless something better comes along in the meantime I'll continue to believe that. I don't expect guys who try NF to become the NF evangelist I have, but I do hope to plant ideas that you may draw upon if ever your life hits a low point, because it might just be that excessive ejaculation is why you're feeling low in the first place. NF need not be a rigorous discipline, but simply a tool to use if and when the need arises. As mentioned in the video, quitting porn/masturbation should be the most immediate thing a guy should do if he's depressed. Legally, you're not supposed to impart medical advice if unqualified, so let's just use depressed as a general term for feeling low or fed up, rather than the specific medical condition. If you're prone to low confidence or have issues with self-esteem, I can almost guarantee that reducing your ejaculation frequency will have a positive effect. Still sceptical? Let's take a look at what other nofappers are saying. 3 What They're Saying Davis: "You can't come, then fight or play. You can't do it. When I get ready to come, I come. But I do not come and play." Interviewer: "Explain that in layman's terms." Davis: "Ask Muhammad Ali. If he comes, he can't fight two minutes. Shit, he couldn't even whip me." Interviewer: "Would you fight Muhammad Ali under those conditions, to prove your point?" Davis: "You're goddamn right I'd fight him. But he's got to promise to fuck first. If he ain't going to fuck, I ain't going to fight. You give up all your energy when you come. I mean, you give up all of it!" – Miles Davis: American Jazz Legend, from a 1975 Playboy interview ~ As mentioned, the number of guys who've benefit from NF have been enough to fill a small book,1 so in this chapter I'd like to share some of those stories with you; first as a reminder that NF is not simply the audacious claims of one person, and secondly to further inspire you to try it. As you'd expect, many were written by young guys on internet forums and as such were not necessarily made with regard to perfect punctuation and grammar. I've made some minor grammatical corrections here and there but don't expect Shakespeare. There'll be some hyperbole, there'll be some excess enthusiasm, there'll be those believing that a few more weeks of NF will have them shooting lasers from their eyes, etc. Try not to focus on the minutiae, but on the recurring themes that help distil the truth from the fluff. The abbreviation 'PMO' will appear a number of times which refers to porn/masturbation/orgasm. Below each excerpt I'll leave some brief comments to try and provide some clarity. ~ Case #1 So I am on day 34 of NF and started experiencing a crazy energy boost upon week 3, and since then I realise not just more women look at me frequently but men as well. Even those who don’t make eye contact seem to realise my presence more. One good example is that when I'm walking along the street people walk aside now instead of bumping into me directly, which seldom happened before doing NF. Comments – As said, not Shakespeare, but it's clear that this guy is experiencing what most guys will at some point feel, which is an increased sense of personal presence and dare I say it 'sexual magnetism,' each of which are a natural response of having higher testosterone levels when you reduce your ejaculation frequency. Case #2 I haven't masturbated or watched porn for about 5 weeks. In this time, my appreciation for everything in life has increased a lot. I feel a lot clearer about almost every situation. I can look people (and especially girls) in the eye and remain completely relaxed. In the short amount of time that I've been porn/masturbation free. I cannot believe how stupid I was to not discover this before! I don't want to give the impression that I stopped watching porn and all of a sudden girls started materialising in my bed. It's more like I've been much more comfortable with my libido around women and they've mostly responded favourably. Comments – Classic account of having increased confidence (and thus better relations with women) with reduced porn/masturbation frequency. And also an appreciation for more wholesome activities. Case #3 For me, it's all about keeping my dopamine levels more stable. That means no porn or masturbation. Every time I masturbate it increases my cravings for other activities that give me a dopamine fix, things like weed and sugar. Every time I've had a streak then masturbated without porn, I have felt irritable the next day and have noticed a loss in my energy and motivation. The increased drive I have to accomplish and my more stable and optimistic mood are what I like best about the NF challenge. When I don't PMO, I feed into other addictions less; I feel more on track with what I want to be doing with my life and I just feel fantastic in general. Far better than when I'm stoned all the time or fapping. I've also noticed a decrease in my social anxiety. New people I meet tell me they like my confidence and they think I'm a good speaker, compliments I would've never expected to hear just a few months ago. Comments – This is a good example of how the benefits of NF don't just stop with the practice itself but have a domino effect on other areas of life. By controlling his compulsive porn use, this guy better controls his dietary and smoking habits and thus is seeing a reduction in his social anxiety. Case #4 These past 20 days I've been changing into a different person. It's been subtle but all of these benefits have slowly been revealing themselves to me. Don't FAP! - Happier - Less numb to life - Excited to be alive - Better able to look people in the eye - More confidence - Less anxiety - Less brain fog - More energy - More attracted to women - Much better concentration - Need less sleep - More relaxed conversation (not searching for words all the time) - Stronger erections/increased sensitivity in penis - More social - Better posture - More aware of body language (my own and others') - Flirting feels effortless and natural Comments – Becoming a 'new man' or 'better man' are recurring themes when you read enough of these reports. NF and self-improvement are one and the same. Even if it is only a placebo, the seeds of positive change are planted. Case #5 Two weeks ago I was invited to this gathering which had a lot of people I didn't know. I wanted to leave a lasting impression and not fuck up like I usually do. I realised that I always screw up because of my complete lack of confidence and so decided to change that. I worked on my posture, eye contact, and conversation skills. But most importantly, I stopped fapping. I went to that gathering after a week of NF and was amazed. It was a different experience. Here I was, sitting with a bunch of people I hardly knew, cracking jokes here and there, making sure everyone's having a good time. I felt like a true player. Usually in gatherings like these, I leave with the most boring pitiful impressions. However, this time a lot of people added me on Facebook and wanted to get to know me. It felt like finally I had enough courage to face my weakness. I realised that confidence was my weakness. NF has certainly helped me overcome my confidence issues so far. When I relapsed afterwards, I felt like all my ego had been destroyed. I could see myself turning into this weak, slavish Gollum, but instead of being obsessed with a ring, I felt obsessed with porn and masturbation. I will not allow myself to fall back into that pit again. I have seen how its results can dramatically change a person's life. So for anyone who feels like they could use a little more confidence, please don't relapse! Comments – Yes I know, more confidence yada yada, but note what happened when he relapsed (i.e. broke his streak by indulging in PMO), he felt like Gollum, the wretched gangrel creature from Lord of the Rings. One minute he's charming everyone with his newfound confidence, the next he's alone in his room, hunched over his laptop watching Chad and Stacy go at it. Whatever pride and accomplishment he'd attained by abstaining had been lost for the sake of a quick thrill. Of course, NF will not guarantee being James Bond in every social gathering, but it's a solid foundation on which the timid man can build a more idealised version of himself. Case #6 The long-term benefits of abstaining from PMO greatly surpass the short- term dopamine fix that PMO induces. I feel like my brain is healing. When I started this reboot, I listed the following symptoms that I felt were like a weight on my shoulders: - Lack of motivation - Irritability - Brain fog - Inability to concentrate - Mood swings - Social anxiety Today, I am proud to state that I no longer suffer from any of these symptoms. My moods are much more steady, the anxiety is gone, my concentration is crystal clear and my motivation for life is very high. I also eat better and enjoy getting out of the house away from the computer. Fishing, hiking, and just walking the dog has helped me get deep into this reboot without a relapse. These are hobbies I really enjoy but neglected for the past decade since I first got high-speed internet. Comments – Those are some fairly debilitating conditions he claims to have healed by abstaining from PMO. Bold claims, but not uncommon. He also claims his moods are more 'steady,' which is a pretty vague statement, but I know just what he means – I mention it in my '6 month' video. Basically, when you're on a NF streak, the butterfly-like nerves that appear in your abdomen in times of stress greatly diminish, leaving behind a sense of calm and collectedness that requires no effort to maintain. This collectedness is what gives rise to much of the benefits. They all have their root in the 'stability' which seems to grow in the abdomen from reduced ejaculation frequency. This I believe is a result of having a stronger dantien – the body's primary energy centre in Traditional Chinese Medicine. More on this later. Case #7 Day 20. My friends have lately been saying how funny I am and that I crack them up. I've always been a social guy but while I was PMO'ing I had to consciously think of something funny or witty to say. Now, it just seems like it comes out naturally. Also, it seems like people are drawn to me, kind of a weird observation but I swear it's true. I feel like I give off a different energy or vibe or something now. Comments – The word he's looking for is swagger. Case #8 It‘s pretty amazing how this works, but it does. It‘s some kind of magnetism. I swear, when I am keeping my hand off my dick, I can do no wrong. I can say something bad, I will still manage to make a girl laugh or smile. It‘s a vibe thing and a shift that happens in a deeper way than we are used to. Plus, since we are not spending hours in front of the computer, we are actually out doing things to improve our lives. Those things add up over time and are attractive in and of themselves. Comments – Another case of 'magnetism.' Women can sense a man's sexual virility and seem to have an innate knowing of whether or not he will produce good seed. This is an evolutionary trait that informs her of what type of man will best provide her with offspring. Ask yourself how attractive do you feel to women after an ejaculation, and how attracted do you feel to them? The term "post nut clarity" sums it up well. Use NF to your advantage if you're looking for a partner. Case #9 It‘s really cool to get some space away from orgasm. If you can manage at least 3 weeks, you'll see how powerful all of this is. That‘s all the taste you'll need to want to keep up the habit. The clarity and lack of depression for me was extremely noticeable and you will likely feel like a different person. It gave me some hope that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with me. Just having that experience of clarity and lack of depression can be a powerful thing. It‘s worth it, but it can take a while to get the hang of it. Comments – He's right in that it can take a while to get used to NF and retrain your body not to expect its daily ejaculations, but when you do you stand to gain much. NF affects every guy differently, and in his case it appears his depression was reduced. Frequent ejaculations will deplete a man of his 'vital energy' and will result in any number of detriments. Case #10 I used to be depressed all the time, a loner with no friends, which caused me to keep relapsing. I've been struggling with avoiding porn and masturbation for almost two years now. These days I feel amazing when I'm not PMO'ing – healthy, no more depression, confident. I sleep well, have more energy. About 1-2 months in, I feel clear and focused... like who I really am. Comments – Another guy realising how his ejaculation frequency relates to his periods of depression. Reduced depression is almost as common as having more confidence when reading NF reports. I was no different. Nowadays I seldom feel depressed, but I wouldn't put that solely down to NF. NF works best when used alongside other healthy lifestyle habits, like good diet, exercise, quality sleep, etc. Case #11 For the past couple of months I've tested NF and found that my energy and vitality have increased tenfold, and fuelled my personal development success. Every day my routine consists of lifting weights, reading, writing, and playing the piano. My grades have picked up and I've booked a vacation to hit the slopes to go snowboarding over winter break – something I never would've done before NF. I would've just played video games and jerked off. It's obvious that this newfound spice for life was only initiated after I stopped depleting my sexual reserves. Comments – Motivation to exercise, cultivate hobbies, be creative, get out of the house, work harder and generally be more productive. This guy's experience takes into account both the short and long-term benefits of NF. Short-term being the increased energy, and long-term being the elimination of destructive habits. Case #12 I was in such a good mood today, not because anything particularly great happened, but just for no reason at all. It's been so long since I've had that buoyancy. I'd more or less got to thinking that maybe life is inherently gloomy and uninteresting because it felt like nothing I did would make me feel cheerful inside. Patches of joy here and there, but always short-lived. Today, finally, I was socialising and chatting with people because it felt good to connect. I've missed that so much, and I'm 100% sure the problem was the PMO thing. Quite simply, it made everything else boring. Masturbation by itself was bad enough to make me lacklustre, but the porn I think finally killed any chance real-world stimuli had of capturing my interest. Comments – What he's describing is a common experience among porn addicts, and it's to do with how internet porn—and the massive stimulation it offers—makes ordinary activities seem mundane in comparison. It's a case of "why do XYZ when I can watch porn instead?" When guys get off porn, they often report a newfound appreciation for more wholesome activities, things like reading a book or taking a walk in the park. ~ When combined, the above examples make up just a few pages of the total 157-page document. If you take the time to read through it all, there'll be hundreds more like the ones shown above, then hundreds more on r/NoFap itself. On any given day you will likely find at least one such story. If you were to be crazy enough to go through the entire history of the subreddit since its 2011 inception, you would surely come across thousands of such stories. I long ago lost count of how many of these accounts I'd read, but they all fall roughly into the same pattern of going from someone shy and timid to someone confident and outgoing. But as good as it all sounds, the truth is the benefits of NF won't be with you all the time, but rather tend to peak and trough. Life has its ups and downs no matter how healthy or disciplined you are. NF is simply another strategy to include in your wellbeing toolbox. Only a charlatan promises a cure-all to all of life's problems. As you may have noticed, many guys were avoiding porn just as much as masturbation, but if NF is just about not fapping, then why should porn be avoided? We touched on it briefly in the last comment, but to explore it fully, we'll need to open up a bigger can of worms. 4 The Porn Trap “Our birth control method up to that point was Steve’s 'coitus interruptus,' also called the pull-out method, which for him was about his conserving his energy for work. He explained that he didn't want to climax so he could build 'power and wealth' by conserving one’s vital energies.” – Chrisann Brennan: The Bite in the Apple: A Memoir of My Life with Steve Jobs ~ The rise of internet porn (IP henceforth) and the effect it's had on an unwitting population could be a book in itself. In only a few short decades we've gone from having monthly issues of Playboy to a near-infinite supply of high-definition sexual material no more than a swipe of a smartphone away. Nowadays, any young man with an internet connection can see more erotica in a day than his grandfather could see in a lifetime. IP has given us a means to endlessly stimulate our sexual arousal beyond its natural point of satiation, and with such a means has come a host of unwanted side effects. Let's just take a moment to recap how things have changed and what is meant by 'unlimited sexual novelty.' It's 1980, you're a young man who's just finished work early. 'Great,' you think. 'Time to go home and relax.' You stop by a store, pick up some beer and a porno off the top shelf. As you hand your money over to the cute cashier you blush slightly, knowing she knows what you'll be using it for. You arrive home, kick off your boots and open your shiny new porn magazine. It's around 50 pages long with a dozen or so women inside, but that's OK—that's all it'll take. Ten minutes later, job done. You've masturbated to orgasm and got your money's worth. With any luck, you might get a few more goes before the hot brunette on page 16 starts to lose her appeal. There's only so far you can take your arousal when you have a finite number of images to choose from. Fast forward to 2020, you've just finished work and stop by the store to pick up some beer—but you leave with only the beer. No need to endure the humiliation of buying a porn magazine, this is 2020 and you've got your smartphone! You get home, kick off your boots, chug a beer and log onto Pornhub. Immediately, there are tens of thousands of HD videos to choose from, ranging from 5 minutes long to 60, with nearly every sexual genre imaginable and all completely free. You watch a 5 minute video, easily enough to get you to climax—but why stop there? With so much porn to choose from you can keep your arousal going. Before you know it, half an hour's passed and you're still clicking away, hoping to find that one magic video even better than the last. Thanks to IP, the familiarisation that would've set in perusing a single copy of Playboy can now be delayed indefinitely. Bored with one video? Just search another. This is what's meant by unlimited sexual novelty. It effectively removes the limit for arousal that finite images once provided, and is something wholly unique to modern IP. Not even uncle Joe's vast collection of videotapes compares to what IP offers, nor even IP itself before the advent of sharing sites circa 2007. With IP, there is always something new to search. All you have to do is click away, like the compulsive slot machine player hoping his next roll will be the jackpot. Think of letting a kid run around a candy store, would he be smart and decide to stop when he'd had enough or would he gorge himself to a stupor? Likewise, how many porn users ever just settle on one video throughout their session? Unless they have to be speedy about it then probably not many. The typical user may go through a dozen different videos before he settles on the one; a privilege made possible when the availability of porn is infinite. Infinite amounts of high-speed IP that comes with modern sharing sites means unlimited sexual novelty and a never-ending means of sexual arousal. In biology this is known as the 'Coolidge effect,' without which there would be no IP. Put simply, the Coolidge effect describes the reinvigorated libido that comes when male mammals are introduced to new females and is nature's way of ensuring that the male spreads his seed far and wide. You can see this demonstrated when you pair a male rat with a willing female. After a brief spell of intercourse the male rat will eventually grow bored of the female even if the female is willing to continue, but if you replace the old female with a fresh female, the male rat will continue to want sex.1 When we apply this to porn we see the same effect, where material that once seemed hot and exciting eventually grows stale, but when you introduce a new video or genre your interest is suddenly piqued. This reinvigoration is the result of the brain's elevated levels of the neurochemical dopamine. In the end, it's not the porn itself that the user gets hooked on, but the dopamine 'rush' that comes with the searching of new material. As one porn user put it: I feel like I'm more addicted to searching for porn than actually watching it. It's like searching for a certain candy at a candy store, and when I've found it I might hold it for a minute, but then decide to put it down and search for something else. This neurochemical – dopamine, also known as the 'pleasure chemical' is what lies at the heart of this behaviour, and is linked to the brain's primitive reward system. It's what motivates us to do things in life which help ensure our survival. Seeking food and water are the most obvious examples, as well as novel information that may have taught us how to survive, like making fire or building tools. The release of dopamine and the ensuing feelings of pleasure it brings positively reinforce survival behaviours in order that we repeat those behaviours. The most rewarding behaviour of all would be the sex act, from seeing an attractive person to the act of getting to know them, dopamine is ever pushing us to the desired conclusion that is sex and procreation. So how does IP fit into the reward system and why is it a problem? Well, in nature the brain's reward centre leads to positive behaviours and works in balance with all of its natural stimuli. The internet however is not something that occurs naturally, and the brain has not had time to adapt to the excess stimulation that IP offers. When high-speed IP came along, we essentially created a means to have unending sexual novelty and thus a never-ending dopamine rush. The brain doesn't discriminate between a real person or a computer screen and so it is tricked into thinking it has an infinite supply of sexual partners. Each new partner (video) floods our system with more dopamine, stimulating the brain's reward circuitry far in excess of what could ever occur naturally in the hunter-gathering societies on which it evolved. Would caveman Joe ever have reached the same level of stimulation as to what IP offers, with only the handful of cavewomen he would've spent most of his time with? Our Coolidge rat would be doubtful. The porn user however can spend hours on porn seeing video after video, all whilst keeping his dopamine levels elevated for abnormally long periods. This overconsumption conditions our reward centre to require increasing levels of stimulation to reach the same 'high,' which over time desensitises the brain's neural pathways linked to the pleasure response. This desensitisation makes 'lesser' activities seem dull by comparison. Life becomes grey. Wholesome activities like reading a book or taking a walk in the park struggle to match our harem of beautiful women. When this becomes a regular habit —multiple times a day at worst—you have the perfect recipe for disaster. Shyness, social anxiety and depression are just some of the recurring conditions seen among porn addicts.2 Like a drug addict, the porn user gets stuck in a cycle where porn has numbed his pleasure response – but only porn can help him reach those same highs, thus deepening the dysfunction. And like building tolerance to a drug, so too does the porn user grow tolerant of porn he once found exciting. Over time softer and more restrained images have less of an effect, spurring him to seek out more extreme, degenerate material, as the following users describe: When I first started looking at porn, I was only interested in pictures and solo sets. As I got older, I started getting into more hardcore content – degrading and taboo shit that makes me sick to think about. Many porn addicts don’t think they have a problem until they reach the "what the fuck did I just jerk off to?" stage. My tastes in the beginning started off innocent enough, typical male on female, and for years that was enough. Then I got into lesbians and MILF because they felt new and exotic. I never saw any of this as a problem at the time, I was just a normal horny teenager. Then around the age of 20 I began a rapid decline into deviancy, leading to a two year obsession with rape porn. I then started looking for the next taboo, but what can be more taboo than rape? Apparently, my mind thought granny porn was it. That went on for a little while until one night with my dick in my hand I looked at my screen at this old woman and just felt absolutely disgusted with myself. Here I was having climaxed to something that the mere thought of used to make me flaccid. I realised then I had a big problem. Like any addiction, what once "did it" for you no longer does, with the only logical recourse being to escalate into more extreme or taboo material. When habituated to the new extreme (i.e. become bored with) the cycle then repeats itself, until all that remains are things the user would've once found repulsive. Psychiatrist Norman Doidge noted this trend in his best-selling book The Brain That Changes Itself— "During the mid to late 90s, when the internet was growing rapidly and pornography was exploding on it, I treated or assessed a number of men who all had essentially the same story. Each had acquired a taste for a kind of pornography that, to a greater or lesser degree, troubled or even disgusted him, had a disturbing effect on his sexual excitement and ultimately affected his relationships."3 The key word here is acquired. Guys don't start out seeking taboo material, rather they escalate to it through repeated use and habituation. "When pornographers boast that they are pushing the envelope by introducing new, harder themes," Doidge continues, "what they don't say is that they must, because their customers are building up a tolerance to the content." If we break down all the types of porn that have ever existed, from the first magazines to the high-speed IP we have today, it is only high-speed IP that offers us such a buffet of choice and immediacy. Click, click, masturbate, click, day after day, with never a possibility of exhausting the available material. When porn was limited to magazines and videotapes there would've been natural hurdles that arose preventing us from maintaining such excessive dopamine levels – things like waiting for the next issue of Hustler, or simply going to the video store to buy another VHS. In both cases the amount of material remained finite and required some small effort to obtain. IP however grants us all the porn we care for at the click of a button, with all the barriers that once prevented overconsumption now gone. Even the corny narratives that used to drive porn movies have been phased out in favour of hardcore action the moment you click watch. Porn gives users an infinite harem that our reward centre will never tire of, with each new video causing spikes in dopamine that ordinary activities struggle to compete with. Unlike food, drink or drugs, there are no physiological limits to IP consumption. You won't bloat yourself or overdose by watching it. This lack of any obvious satiation mechanism has allowed it to slip undetected into the lives of a generation. Porn represents the final phase of 'dopamine chasing,' as once you've masturbated to porn, where else is there to go? In a single day, a bored young male may drift from TV to videogames to idle internet browsing, before topping it all off by watching porn. After he ejaculates, then what? What else will provide the same level of stimulation as IP? At this point he's suffering with two conditions, first, he's feeling the physical depletion that comes with ejaculation, and second, he has further desensitised himself from enjoying lesser activities. With that in mind, take a moment to recall some of the benefits of NF mentioned earlier, it's a more or less complete reversal or elimination of these negative traits. If you're a heavy porn user who decides to do NF, you may notice your brain 'rebooting' if you ever suffer a relapse (i.e. view porn and masturbate). Even the most modest images after a 30-day hiatus will be enough to get you highly aroused. Aside from the relapse which you obviously want to avoid this is ultimately a good sign, and a sign that your brain is returning to a more natural, baseline sensitivity. But it's not just our reward circuitry that IP hijacks, IP has been linked with increased rates of erectile dysfunction (ED) in younger men. In the early 2000s, a global survey on sexual behaviours found that the rates of ED among men aged between 40-80 were around 13%. A decade later in 2011, the same survey found rates of up to 28% in men aged 18-40. That's double the rates of ED for a range of men half their age.4 Prior to 2002, ED among guys under 40 was around 2%, 5 so where did this sharp increase in what has traditionally been a disorder associated with old age come from? This increase in ED coincides strongly with the widespread use and dissemination of high-speed internet, and the newfound availability of IP tube sites. Relationship satisfaction is also affected. In a study of male IP users from 2016, 20% reported that the motive for their porn use was to maintain attraction to their partners.6 The implication being that IP is being used to help overcome the hurdle that IP itself created, as Doidge notes once again: "A number of these men also reported increased difficulty in being turned on by their partners, though they still considered them attractive. When I asked if this phenomenon had any relationship to viewing pornography, they answered that it initially helped them get more excited during sex but over time had the opposite effect."7 Has IP set unrealistic standards for what a real partner can provide? IP allows us to have millions of hot women at our fingertips, the kind that don't represent the women we meet in day-to-day life, the kind willing to perform any sexual act we can imagine. When our partners don't perform to the same degree as our favourite porn stars frustration naturally sets in. Put simply, what man is content with missionary when he's accustomed to the unrestrained sexual gymnastics he's used to seeing in porn? Affairs and breakups are each affected by porn use, with divorce rates doubling if either party begins using it. 8, 9, 10 Such warped sexual conditioning need not only apply to adults, as by the age of ten most boys have seen porn,11 but we can extend this to the moment he gets his first smartphone. One male friend showing off some porn is all it takes to turn the porn- fledgling onto a lifelong relationship with it. Before he's even held a girl's hand he's established a porn-induced view of sex and intimacy, where courtship, touching and emotional bonding are put aside in favour of being sat in front of a screen. Previous generations did not have such interference of what should be a natural, organic process of sexual maturation. During adolescence, brain plasticity is at its most malleable, meaning the habits and behaviours we most exhibit during that time will be the ones to form the deepest neural pathways that come to define us. Compared to someone in middle age, a teen's brain is like wet clay and at its most influence from outside stimulus. Whatever impressions porn makes on the adolescent brain during this time become all the more harder to undo, as they develop sexual conditioning before they even have a sexual experience. When they do have their first sexual experience, it must then compete with what porn has conditioned them to. In his popular TEDx talk, The Great Porn Experiment, Gary Wilson suggests that this is why younger guys need longer to recover from ED as their introduction to porn was IP, unlike the magazines and videotapes their fathers used. For older guys, IP came after these core reward pathways were established and thus, having that prior reference point, takes less time to recover from.12 That being said, try telling a boy just hitting puberty that porn might negatively affect him, he'll likely scoff. You're essentially handing him a pack of cigarettes and asking him not to smoke them. IP represents a goldmine of stimulation for a young man just exploring his sexuality, and offers a temptation near impossible to resist. When modern IP users are likened to guinea pigs and that IP is the experiment, it's easy to understand why. Porn is like the perfect sexual partner, always there and willing to offer you unbridled sexual release. Why bother meeting someone in real life when you can just whip out your harem of readily available women? Things such as dressing well, grooming, keeping fit and healthy, and working to become an attractive mate. The work required to attract a real woman seems like a chore in comparison. By removing the daily PMO habit from your life, you'll naturally begin improving yourself in these areas and seeking your 'dopamine fix' in more wholesome and productive ways. We cannot claim that all users of IP are suffering negative effects because of it, but the rebalanced reward circuitry, combined with the increased vitality that comes with retaining one's seed has an undeniably positive effect. The multitude of reports speak for themselves: I have been on the NF "challenge" for approximately two years now, attempting to get to 90 days. As I have gone through streaks of differing lengths, I have experienced a massive surge in motivation, drive, and self- confidence. There have been well over 100 studies linking IP use with a multitude of undesirable mental and behavioural conditions, how long we ignore these warnings is up to us.13 Even without IP, society has become so sexualised that it's almost impossible to go about your day without seeing some degree of sex. Half-naked women in music videos, on billboards, etc. Commonplace images that would've been explicit a generation ago. You don't even need to go to porn sites to get your porn. Popular social media sites like Twitter are home to some 10 million porn accounts, 14 with multimillionaire Instagram 'e-thots' taking selfies of their ass for a living. Even Youtube has porn creep through from time to time. Point being that no matter how hard you try and avoid it, porn is slipping through the cracks in ever greater amounts. Young girls are slowly sold the idea that sexual degeneracy and unrestrained sexual behaviour is not only the norm, but where the money and fame is. Just ask 'gamergirl' Belle Delphine, the 20-year-old Instagram star selling jars of her dirty bathwater to her adoring fans at £24 a shot.15 Again, not to get too puritanical, but if the hardcore porn of the 1950s is the kind of thing that shows up commonplace today, what does the future hold in terms of sexual standards? Will I still have to reach for the top shelf if I want a copy of Stacy's Gangbang Fun, or will it be right there next to PC Gamer? Of course, there will always be the guys who watch hours of porn a day who insist they enjoy it, are not negatively affected by it, and are not anxiety-ridden recluses. In which case good for them. Generalisations are best avoided when it comes to a person's pastimes. But just consider all those who proclaimed that smoking and alcohol were not the cause of their ill health when we first started to consider their adverse health effects. In his book Sex and Culture, anthropologist Joseph Unwin wrote that as societies become more sexually liberal and unrestrained, social cohesion starts to diminish leading to its eventual downfall. Loose sexual conventions and the lessening of monogamous relationships ultimately impact the forming of stable families which are the foundation of a strong civilisation. He concluded that the most developed civilisations were the ones which exercised the most sexual restraint. As such, in order to maintain an energetic, active society, sexual drive should be controlled and shifted to more productive work. In short, is our oversexualised society causing a dissipation of energies that could otherwise be better spent? The concept of sexual transmutation is something we'll explore in the next chapter. Again, when we talk of porn addiction, it's not the porn itself that users get hooked on, but the dopamine 'rush' that porn induces. You can feel this rush by the simple experiment of watching porn without actually masturbating. Don't try to get an erection and don't even unbuckle your trousers, simply watch porn as if you were watching a TV show. Observe the sensations in your body; in your gut, chest and head. You may feel a flutter of excitement here and there. These physiological sensations are what the user gets hooked on—the porn itself is simply the trigger. By doing NF and being porn-free, we wean ourselves off of the excessive stimulation porn has conditioned us to and help rewire our brains to enjoy more natural, baseline stimulation. I just generally have more fun and enjoy my life so much more without spinning my wheels aimlessly in endless sexual fantasy. Even now, I sometimes just stop and realise I have nothing to occupy my mind. This never used to happen. I now have the time and inclination to read novels again. I am more productive on home projects. I have more hobbies and time for more productive endeavours! Now you might be thinking, wouldn't all the benefits ascribed to NF actually be due to the elimination of IP and the ensuing 'reboot' of our reward circuitry? After all, no one who abstains from masturbation would bother watching porn. This is a valid question and one I've pondered myself over the years, as well as seen pop up in numerous discussions. Is it NF or being porn-free that's actually providing the benefits – and if it is simply porn, why not continue to enjoy porn-free masturbation? The idea that being porn-free is the primary reason why NF works would imply that regular masturbation is harmless, which is something I would disagree with. Sure, the occasional fap won't do you any harm, but both porn use and ejaculation each have their own unique set of detriments. Ejaculation without porn will still incur a loss of fatigue, whilst watching porn without masturbation will still incur the numbed pleasure response we've discussed throughout the chapter. Admittedly, masturbation without porn is a less severe assault on the body than a half-hour Pornhub binge, but in the end, you're still enduring the loss of subtle energy and nutrients that semen contains. As we'll learn in chapter six, various ancient cultures were against masturbation for this reason, and this was long before IP came on the scene. In summary, both NF and being porn-free each bring their own set of benefits and as such should be considered as two separate practices. Each can be done without the other, but both together is best. But it's not just internet porn We mentioned earlier that IP is not something that occurs naturally, and that the brain has not had time to adapt to the excess stimulation it offers. Well, we can extend this principle to internet use in general, for it shares many of the same underlying triggers as porn that keep us continually clicking away, ever chasing our next dopamine hit. Just consider what might be an average day for a modern man who isn’t making an effort to curb his compulsive 'dopamine chasing.' After waking, he'll have a coffee (stimulant) with sugar (stimulant) and maybe a cigarette (stimulant). This triple whammy floods his body with dopamine before he's even sat down for cornflakes. Afterwards he'll sit down at his computer or tablet and check one of his various emails and social media accounts, each designed to trigger his reward centre with a myriad of digital pings. Colourful pop-ups, new mail messages, comment likes, upvotes, winks, dating matches and endless notifications. Each new click brings another rush of dopamine that he will continue to visit throughout the day. Porn hasn't crossed his mind yet, he's too busy scrolling through the Daily Mail homepage. The stories are endless, he scrolls along and the stories just keep on coming. Unlike the internet of yesteryear, websites now aren't so much static pages but reams of continuously scrolling information. As long as he keeps swiping across the screen, new, novel, interesting material will continue showing up and continue rewarding him with dopamine. Cute video of a puppy on a skateboard? Click. Man performing amazing gymnastic stunts on a high wire? Click. Thousands left dead after tsunami destroys city in Southeast Asia? Yeah, better click that too. Social media is like a 24/7 dopamine drip-feed, rewarding our brains for doing little besides scrolling through memes and responding to little notifications we subconsciously see as being urgent. Each ping and pop-up are like Pavlov's dogs but with dopamine, conditioning us to keep seeking the next novel, interesting or entertaining piece of information. This compulsive search for novel material is the same reward mechanism at work as when we're viewing porn. The stimulation is lesser of course, as sex will always remain our primary rewarding behaviour, but when we talk of porn addiction, the same triggers extend to internet use in general. Silicon Valley bosses seem fully aware of this fact. In a November 2017 interview, former Facebook founder Chamath Palihapitiya said that he feels “tremendous guilt” for helping build Facebook into the behemoth it is today. "I think we all knew in the back of our minds something bad could happen," he says. "It literally is at a point now where we've created tools that are ripping apart the social fabric of how society works. That is truly where we are. I would encourage all of you to internalise this – if you feed the beast, the beast will destroy you. The short- term, dopamine-driven feedback loops that we have created are destroying how society works. No civil discourse. No cooperation. This is a global problem. So we're in a really bad state of affairs right now, in my opinion. It is eroding the core foundations of how people behave by and between each other."16 He added that he rarely, if ever uses Facebook, posting maybe twice in seven years, and that he would not let his own children use it. Most sobering of all is the notion that if users don't control their compulsive social media use, then the "beast will destroy them." We only need to look at the average smartphone zombie to see what he means. Stifled social skills are one of the many consequences of our mass addiction to internet and smart devices. Just observe how automatic it's become for people to whip out their phone and escape into its world of pings and pop-ups, rather than interact with the people around them. Young people are especially victim to this, with 77% of 18-24 year olds being nomophobic, that is the fear of being without their phone. 66% of all age groups suffer from this fear,17 which can be summarised as FOMO, or fear of missing out—missing out on all the fun their friends are having while they suffer in digital limbo. You can tell a lot about a person by their relationship with their phone. Comedian Will Ferrell once said, before you marry someone, see how they fare with slow WiFi to see who they really are. I mean, he's not wrong. Smartphones have created a generation of attention-deficit distraction junkies. Pick any of the countless colourful apps you have installed to be instantly entertained and amused. Oh there's a humpback whale passing the boat you say? Who cares.18 The prerequisite for any accomplishment is focus, i.e. the ability to concentrate single-mindedly on a task for an extended period of time. What interferes most with being able to focus? Distraction. Nothing will hinder achievement as much as distraction, and this is the great challenge for young people today who wish to pursue a creative or entrepreneurial endeavour. Ever tried to complete an important task on the computer while connected to the internet? If you know the kind of tug-of-war that transpires between what needs to be done and idle net browsing then you know what I'm saying. Let's use rock legend John Lennon as an example of the kind of distractions present today. When John was 16 and wanted a career in music back in the 1950s, all he could really do was write music and play guitar. All his focus and energy went into his chosen craft. If John was a teenager in modern times he'd have to balance his songwriting with internet, videogames, smartphones, porn, etc. All the creative energy he would've channelled into his musicianship would risk being dissipated among the various distractions now present in society. Of course, distractions didn't just appear with internet and videogames, but there's a big difference between the chess and cards of yore to a day spent on multiplayer Call of Duty. How many young, would-be musicians out there can relate to choosing between sitting down and working on a challenging song or lyric, or saying fuck it and loading up their level 20 mage in Warcraft? Whether gaming or internet use the principle's the same – instant gratification at the expense of sustained, focused work. 3.25 hours per day, on average, is the time people spend on their phones. 19 That's a lot of time that could be spent doing something more productive. Unless we make an effort to curb our compulsive phone use and that of our children, then things will only get worse. To share a small anecdote, a few years back I was on the train home after a day out hiking. Most people on the train were glued to their phones, but there was one girl who wasn't. She sat calmly with her head and posture held straight and looked completely relaxed. In that moment she had a certain elegance about her, not because she was particularly 'hot,' but because in an age where everyone's hunched over their phones, sitting up straight will make you stand out. Her whole demeanour was one that said, 'I'm at peace in the moment and don't need a distraction,' and that's a rare thing to see nowadays. Of course, we all need to use our phones, but there's using it with purpose then there's checking Facebook for the 50th time that day. Like the train girl, be someone who can be calm and confident in the moment and who doesn't need to distract themselves with compulsive internet use. On principle, I won't get my phone out in public unless I need to make or answer a call, and that's using an old style calls and texts only phone – one that is without internet, and I couldn't be happier for having avoided the smart revolution. I don't propose we forsake all aspects of modern life in favour of living like the Amish, but do encourage those who relate to this cycle of 'dopamine chasing' to ask themselves whether they're checking their phone out of necessity or addiction. Be honest now, is it necessity or addiction that makes you reach for your phone? If your phone use has become compulsive, I recommend purchasing a non-smart, calls and texts only phone. Learn to smell the roses again. Look up at the sky, birds and trees rather than down at your phone. Users of yourbrainonporn.com advocate a period of abstinence when talking of porn recovery, which is anywhere between 1-3 months. I would suggest just getting off the internet entirely, or at least reducing all non-essential use of it. A pay-as-you- go dongle is a good idea. I use one of these rather than contract internet and average 1-2 days of internet use a week. All my most productive (and happiest) hours come when I'm not connected to the internet. ~ One of the best things about getting off porn is understanding how the same reward mechanism applies to other technological addictions. By successfully conquering an addiction to IP, users can apply the same recovery strategy in beating other cravings. If you look at some of the reports from guys who've quit videogame addiction for example, you'll see that they're largely similar to what guys experience when they get off porn. The reason being that it's ultimately being rid of the excessive dopamine dependency. Many of these can be found on r/StopGaming: I stopped playing a week ago. I feel so bad for all that time wasted. Call of Duty specifically was the game that kept me addicted, until I decided to sell my PS4 and now I realise how good it feels to not have that distraction. For me, not gaming opens up more time to go the extra mile with regard to doing more things, and at a better quality. But this is secondary to the change in dopamine I experience. Previously I got a kick out of gaming and perceived most other things as dull. With gaming gone, work has gotten more interesting, and real-world achievements feel more rewarding and worthwhile to pursue. Replace the references to gaming with porn use and these reports are pretty much interchangeable with what we've seen from NF. Be vigilant. When you remove IP or intensive net use and gaming from your life your reward system will go haywire. Withdrawal symptoms like boredom or irritability will begin to ensue. Your brain will be begging you to pick up your old habits in order that it be satisfied. In such instances, getting out of the house and doing something physical is the best defence against relapsing. A visit to the gym, cycle, or hike in nature are some examples. Sitting at your computer, whilst bored, and also whilst telling yourself not to gorge on the 'junk' dopamine triggers you're trying to abstain from will be like the recovering alcoholic staring at a beer telling himself not to drink. So get out of the house, and look towards cultivating the natural rewards our brains evolved on. Things like socialising, good conversation and interactions, exercise, adventure, art, creativity, and the accomplishing of goals. Think of caveman Joe sitting in his cave staring at his smartphone while the rest of the tribe are out by the fire, singing, dancing, and interacting. A life spent on a smart device might as well be the human equivalent of a caged animal. 5 Sexual Transmutation "Sex desire is the most powerful of human desires. When driven by this desire, men develop keenness of imagination, courage, willpower, persistence, and creative ability unknown to them at other times. So strong and impelling is the desire for sexual contact that men freely run the risk of life and reputation to indulge it. When harnessed and redirected along other lines, this motivating force maintains all of its attributes of keenness of imagination, courage, etc., which may be used as powerful creative forces in literature, art, or in any other profession or calling." – Napoleon Hill: Think and Grow Rich ~ Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich (1937) is a classic in the field of personal development. In it Hill outlines thirteen principles that some of the most successful individuals of the time possessed. These include desire, faith, imagination, planning, persistence, communication, decision making and so forth. The book asserts that by applying these principles, anyone can achieve their goals in whatever field they're in. By his death in 1970, the book had sold more than 20 million copies and to this day remains one of the best-selling success books of all time. Our concern however is with another one of Hill's principles; the rather enigmatic sounding term sexual transmutation. In simple terms, to transmute means to convert one form of energy to another. In the case of NF, it's to convert sexual energy into something other than the brief thrill of orgasm. Sexual transmutation is about harnessing the sexual drive and channelling it into the attainment of your goals. Admittedly, the idea of "transmuting" sexual energy conjures forth humorous images of some qigong style superpower, but the reality is more about where you put your focus. If we recall the Steve Jobs quote from the beginning of the previous chapter: Our birth control method up to that point was Steve’s 'coitus interruptus,' also called the pull-out method, which for him was about his conserving his energy for work. He explained that he didn't want to climax so he could build 'power and wealth' by conserving one’s vital energies. The concept of sexual transmutation could be deemed the most fundamental basis for doing NF. The reason being that guys aren't doing NF because of some sadomasochistic desire to suppress their sexual drive; rather they're looking to channel that drive into more productive pursuits. Just think of how much time and energy a typical age 15-30 male will put into the pursuit of sex – an enormous amount I'm sure you would agree. A young man will jump through hoops if he thinks it will get him laid. He will alter his behaviour around his crush, he will think of her when away from her. He will expend a colossal amount of time and resources working out ways in which to win her heart. We've all seen the dreaded 'oneitis' – the condition of infatuation where a guy or girl cannot get their crush from their mind. Those in such a state are essentially slaves to their desire and are often incapable of anything remotely productive. This kind of servitude to one's base urges are (in part) what NF seeks to overcome. Sex drive is the greatest motivator, nothing moves a man more than the prospect of sex. It's our biggest natural reward and ensures we pursue it in order that we reproduce. When a man depletes himself of this drive by excessive ejaculation, he no longer feels as driven to succeed; he becomes more mellow, his competitive edge blunts, he settles for and demands less of himself. The French call ejaculation la petite mort, meaning 'little death.' Hill again: Destroy the sex glands, whether in man or beast, and you have removed the major source of action. For proof of this, observe what happens to any animal after it has been castrated. A bull becomes as docile as a cow after it has been altered sexually. Sex alteration takes out of the male, whether man or beast, all the FIGHT that was in him.1 Think of sexual drive as a wellspring that is always generating new energy; energy which can be expressed in ways other than ejaculation. By doing NF, we slowly learn to rein in our servitude to the sexual urge and in doing so, harness those unspent energies in the pursuit of our goals. In psychology, this is referred to as sublimation. It is the process of transforming libido into "higher" achievements such as creative or intellectual pursuits. In comments not too dissimilar from Unwin's in Sex and Culture, Freud described it as being "an especially conspicuous feature of cultural development; it is what makes it possible for higher psychical activities, scientific, artistic or ideological, to play such an important part in civilised life."2 Don't be mistaken for thinking that NF is about abandoning the pursuit of relationships altogether; if anything it's encouraging the kind of qualities that help attract a partner, but it is about reining in those compulsive urges that often ensnare us (and any victims of those urges) so that we may build and develop ourselves in other areas. For example, it's common when reading NF reports to see guys picking up their guitar after a long hiatus; to start reading more, socialising more, asking their crush out, going to the gym, working on some creative project and so on. The newfound energy that comes with reduced ejaculation and the avoidance of the brain-frying habit of internet porn suddenly finds itself being expressed in more productive channels. This is transmutation, and it seems to have a powerful influence on when a man reaches his creative or professional peak, as Hill notes: Men who succeed in an outstanding way seldom do so before the age of forty, and more often they do not strike their real pace until they are well beyond the age of fifty. Biographies of American industrialists and financiers are filled with evidence that the period from forty to sixty is the most productive age of man. The major reason why the majority of men who succeed do not begin to do so before the age of forty to fifty, is their tendency to dissipate their energies through over indulgence in physical expression of the emotion of sex. The majority of men never learn that the urge of sex has other possibilities, which far transcend in importance, that of mere physical expression. The majority of those who make this discovery, do so after having wasted many years at a period when the sex energy is at its height, prior to the age of forty-five to fifty. The years between forty and fifty are, as a rule, the most fruitful. Man should approach this age, not with fear and trembling, but with hope and eager anticipation. The above passage is paraphrased somewhat, but the basic message is that as we get older, the preoccupation with sex and 'getting laid' tends to diminish, freeing up our energies to endeavours that the preoccupation with sex got in the way of. In most cases this would involve more focus on our work, career, and personal goals. Though the implication that one must wait until they hit middle age to do this is false, for by doing NF and reining in your desire for "physical expression" (i.e. orgasm), you can begin the process of transmutation at any age. Some of the best results that come from NF come via the effects of transmutation. This we could say represents one of the more long-term benefits to come by doing it. Yes, after a few days without ejaculating you might feel an increase in vigour, but after a few months of it, that's when your entire personality begins to shift in response. If having more confidence and energy represent some of the more short-term benefits of NF, then the long-term benefits are the changes you make to your overall work and lifestyle ethic. This change in lifestyle is the greatest benefit of doing NF. You begin to cultivate a 'success mentality' and as a result, the body aura will slowly purge itself of lower 'muddy' energies. 'Aura... energy... what is this wishy-washy new-age shit?' Have you ever had the experience of talking to your crush not long after masturbating to the most depraved shit you could find on your favourite porn site? How easy do you find maintaining eye contact with her? Have you experienced a sense of shame as if you're trying to hide something? That's what we're talking about here. Non- verbal communication makes up more than half of all communication, and betrays much of the things we do in private or would like to keep secret. Put simply, women can sense a creep a mile off. NF will help steer you away from the endless inertia of internet, porn and videogames and into a more productive mindset. Re-read case #11 in chapter three for a good reminder of what that entails. It is a discipline that will spill over into everything you do. Over time, it becomes less a challenge and more a lifestyle – a lifestyle that refuses instant gratification to instead focus on long-term goals and accomplishments. You have a constant stream of life force energy emanating from your sexual centre. Instead of being wasteful with it, learn to channel it into more productive endeavours. As long as your desire to accomplish your goals is greater than the desire for sexual release then your energy will naturally be transmuted, for energy flows where attention goes. 'More productive endeavour? But sex IS a productive endeavour!' Of course it is when you're with a loving partner, but is the same true for your daily porn habit? NF is not about forgoing sex to spend every waking hour transmuting your sexual essence into being the next Steve Jobs, but it is concerned with finding a greater sense of meaning and purpose to your life. Relationship guru David Deida puts it well: Your purpose must come before your relationship. Every man knows that his highest purpose in life cannot be reduced to any particular relationship. If a man prioritises his relationship over his highest purpose, he weakens himself, disserves the universe, and cheats his woman of an authentic man who can offer her full, undivided presence.3 Your partner doesn't want to be with someone who has no direction in life, but someone with goals and aspirations beyond her. She wants a man who is going places or is at least making the effort to. Just try wooing your next Tinder match by boasting about your hourlong porn binges and see if you get a second date. The idea of having a 'mission' or purpose is something that guys tend to gravitate towards when doing NF. Higher ideals and aspirations will begin to occupy your thoughts. When you break away from the unending dopamine loop that is internet, porn and videogames, you'll experience a sudden void where these things used to be. It's a void that your natural talents and passions will gradually begin to fill, as the countless "I picked up my guitar" reports can testify to. As youngsters, we're only taught the importance of "getting a job," when really it should be find out what your purpose is. Words carry a lot of power, and simply making the switch from having a job to having a mission will affect how you view the concept of work. So ask yourself what your mission is. What were you put on Earth to do? What do you feel is your higher purpose when not working your day job? Having a sense of mission will give a much greater sense of fulfilment than simply doing a job. If you don't know what your mission is, look at the things you're most passionate about. Whatever brings you the most joy and excitement (or is something you would do for free) then that is what you should try and build your life around. Do you exist only to serve your contracted hours in your job or do you have a greater calling? A job is about paying the bills, mission is about realising your purpose on Earth. Ideally the two will be the same, but for most people this sadly isn't the case, and they get stuck in a meaningless job before reaching middle age and asking what the hell happened. To avoid being one of these people, start following your purpose now. Heed the call of your higher self. Follow your passions, cultivate your talents and ensure they are kept honed and sharp. In other words, don't be the guy who used to be good at piano or used to be a good athlete; be the guy who's still good at them. So many people rest on past achievements and define themselves by the things they used to be good at. Be the eternal student always willing to improve and reinvent yourself. Avoid the 'job-is-a-job' mentality and only take on jobs if they're going to add value to your life. Be warned that when you shift your attitude this way, there's a good chance that family and friends will not understand. They may criticise, condemn or seek to guide you in a way more fitting to their standards than your own. Learn to ignore all such well-meaning guidance and instead heed your own counsel and intuition. Sitting atop Maslow's hierarchy of needs is the realisation of one's potential. Does your current job facilitate or stifle that? If your job is getting in the way of what you feel you're here to do then maybe it's time to find a new job. Being unemployed is a step up from being stuck in a soul-destroying job. Of course, we all have to work, I'm not implying we should quit our jobs tomorrow, but if you don't love what you do then how can you claim to be successful? Successful people are people who love what they do, and it's usually based around their unique gifts and talents, which unlike so many of us, they chose to build and cultivate rather than let stagnate through fear of failure or ridicule. A willingness to be ostracised is an important stage to pass through on our journey to maturation. It teaches autonomy, and the freedom to think and speak freely. To live in fear of expressing your uniqueness is to live a life of quiet desperation. Let's use a famous example to illustrate the point. When David Bowie dyed his hair red and started calling himself Ziggy the space alien, people laughed and ridiculed, but who is it that history's remembered? If Bowie had hidden his uniqueness he would've spent his life in obscurity and we wouldn't have had all that great music. Better to be ridiculed by staying true to yourself than failing to reach your potential by following the herd. So forget about job, and focus on mission. Be the hero in the movie of your life. Walk the Hero's Journey. From the Bible to Batman, the Hero's Journey (or monomyth) is an archetype which appears time and again in our myths and stories. It's a story as old as human civilisation, and it's basically this: Simple farm boy dreams of adventure, but he can't go and adventure because he's got to plough the fields, but every night he looks longingly at the mountains dreaming of greatness. Then, disaster strikes, his village burns down and he's thrown into the wild. Panic ensues as the hapless farm boy finds himself alone in a big, harsh world. Along comes the wise old man, who takes the boy to safety and explains the world beyond the simple farm life. "Great things await," he promises the boy, "but you're not ready yet." And so with the wise man's help and guidance, the boy trains and becomes a warrior, goes off on a great adventure, faces his fears, fights evil, gets the girl, and returns to the village he left as a battle-hardened hero. Did someone say Luke Skywalker? Or was it Neo? Or Frodo Baggins? Doesn't matter. They're essentially the same character when measured against the monomyth. Star Wars and the first Matrix movie are near enough the exact same movie when you compare their plots, and there are no doubt countless others. How many videogames have you played where the first mission is some kind of disaster that thrusts the hero into a great adventure? Dragon attack on Helgen anyone? And pretty much every JRPG ever. The journey of the hero is the journey each of us go through from the hapless farm boy with no direction to someone with a mission, purpose, and reason for living. It's an archetype that's woven into the human psyche. We tell these stories because the themes the hero faces are the themes that we as individuals face in our own lives. Obviously, that doesn't mean our house burns down and we meet a wise old man, but it does mean things like facing our fears, rising above mundaneness, and living for something bigger than ourselves. So the message is simple: be the hero within the context of your own life. This might sound childish to some, but it's about living your life in a more meaningful, inspired way than simply working a job until you're dead. There's a great scene in the third Lord of the Rings movie where Elrond presents Aragorn with the sword Anduril and tells him, "put aside the ranger, become who you were born to be." This scene is a perfect metaphor that can apply to anyone, in terms of putting aside the unfulfilling humdrum to pursue your higher calling. This could be as simple as to stop working at Tesco to go work at Asda. The context isn't important, it's about putting aside your fears to go after your dreams, which is just what the Hero's Journey ultimately is: a metaphor and template for realising your life purpose. And as the great stories show, the hero is defined by his actions, not by the recognition of his actions, meaning that succeeding in your mission isn't as important as simply going for it. I like to call it the 'spirit of the round table.' In other words, trying, not succeeding, is what matters. In her book, The Top Five Regrets of the Dying, palliative nurse Bronnie Ware found that the single biggest regret people have as they approach death is wishing they'd had the courage to be true to themselves and not live the life others expected of them. "This was the most common regret of all," she says. "When people realise that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honoured even a half of their dreams and
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