we always wonder if there’s a fail-proof strategy on How to Succeed in NoFap.
Because chances are that if you are like any other guy that has tried the NoFap challenge at a point, you would have realized like most of us that it is harder than it is advertised.
First things first;
What you will learn
What is NoFap?
If you are new to the subject of Nofap that is being discussed in this article, then let’s take a quick detour and explain what the term means.
NoFap is a term that is used to denote staying off prn and mturbation for a given period of time. The term Nofap comes from the internet slang word fap.
The Nofap community was started by Alexander Rhodes who challenged a group of friends to….
Stay off prn and mturbation for an extended period of time .
The life-changing difference and increase in the quality of life they noticed prompted some of them to continue the practice and this led to the birth of the subreddit forum known as NoFap on the 20th of June 2011 which now has up to….
308,223 members at the time of writing this.
Also, there is a website that is dedicated to the knowledge of everything Nofap which also comprises of a forum where members (aside from the subreddit) share their experiences on their Nofap challenges.
This subject accrued much popularity when Gary Wilson gave a TED talk titled “the great prn experiment” on the issue of ■■■■ addiction. His presentation was filled and backed with scientific researches and surveys of real-life people. All were substantiating the fact that internet prnography can actually become a viable clinical addiction.
This website is filled with scientific studies proofing that internet p**rnography can indeed lead to a form of addiction. And just like any other addiction, it has ….
A Negative effect on the well-being of the individual that has become addicted to it.
Should I Reboot?
When the period of time of abstinence from internet prn and or mturbation and or orgasm (PMO) is completed, the brain is rewired to the way it was in the pre-p**rn days and doing this is known as rebooting. Think of it as formatting your hard drive and rebooting it again.
The benefits of Nofap that have been reported all around the world, by those that have tried it has been phenomenal.
Ranging from curing Erectile Dysfunction, increased sexual libido, increased happiness, more focus, more motivation to “go get it” and the list goes on and on.
If you want the comprehensive reports on the health benefits of doing Nofap, please go here.
……………………
Now that you are to some extent caught up on the concept of nofap, it’s time to go back to why we are here. Many people realize a very significant thing after trying the challenge once or twice.
And that important thing is that;
It’s a lot more difficult than you think!
If you are like the rest of us, you might think to just dive in and get three months of nofap under your belt. What most people find out after two or three relapses is that the nofap challenge is harder to achieve than it seems.
Most folks have difficulties pulling off the hard mode three months challenge. But don’t get me wrong, some people are blessed with sheer willpower that they just decide to go for it and…
Come out after three months feeling like a god.
For others, it usually becomes a never-ending vicous cycle of starting nofap, relapsing after 4 days, going on a PMO binge for about 4 weeks, start feeling guilt and shame, deciding to get back on the wagon, relapsing, binging, guilt, shame, usually in that order.
When this nofap conversation comes up between me and my friends, I often tell them that if you start doing nofap and you are able to complete the challenge easily in one go, that means you were not really addicted to PMO in the first place.
Is your brain fighting for survival?
Why is this something that is hard to do you might be wondering?
The word “addiction” comes from the Latin word “addico” which means “to devote”.
When your brain has become devoted to doing something, that act has become a part of your brain’s identity. And to stop means…
Requiring the brain to change in a BIG way.
One thing to know about the human brain is that it DOESN’T LIKE CHANGE. When you want to change a pattern that had been reinforced to become a habit, the brain starts fighting back and the fear circuit of the brain SWITCHES ON while the motivation circuit SWITCHES OFF.
And by throwing some withdrawal symptoms your way, the brain gets you to revert back to the old pattern.
The Willpower Paradox
Everyone knows that in order to break a cycle of addiction, what is needed is a little something called willpower . The part of the brain that’s responsible for willpower is the prefrontal region of the brain.
But over the years of addiction, from a neurological standpoint, the addict has been giving in to compulsiveness and this act has been strengthening the limbic part of his/her brain. As a result of this…
The pre-frontal cortex has been weakening/shrinking.
Herego, the ability of the addict to exercise willpower when it comes to the addiction has been impaired.
The paradox in this case, if you are not seeing it yet, is that what is required for the addict to break the addiction is not available or at the very least, not in abundant quantity.
This is the major reason why most addiction cycles cannot be easily broken.
This condition is referred to as Hypofrontality . It is a condition that is often observed among different addicts. The substance of abuse might be food, drugs, alcohol, TV, Pornography, or any other form of compulsive behavior.
How do you use something that you do not have?
Well, stick with me and you will get answers to those…
As regards your willpower, if you would like to know how it works, and how to boost it specifically for nofap, you can get this manual I’ve written here!!
What is the foundation for success?
Now that we’ve gotten those out of the way and we’ve established that it might be difficult to achieve the nofap challenge for some than others, it’s time to look to build a very strong foundation that other principles, strategies, and methodology we hope to apply to our Nofap journey will stand on.
It’s like building a skyscraper whereby it is crucial to focus on the foundation. Each effort in doing nofap is cumulative and they stack upon each other.
Try and cross as many things that will be listed here off your list and what you will discover at the end of the day is that nofap will become easier to do day after day even if you do not succeed at the first try.
A Fascinating Scene from “War Dogs”
In the movie War Dogs, there was a scene where the character played by Jonah Hill was trying to buy weeds from some guys on the street. They took his money and when he asked them where the weeds were, they showed him a pistol and….
told him to get out of their sight!
On getting back to his car, he pulled out an automatic rifle from the trunk of his car. Realizing that they were seriously under-gunned, the gang ran for their lives.
There is a slang that we often hear which is “take a missile to a knife-fight”.
When it comes to succeeding at nofap, then you need to find a way to get a missile and bring it to the knife-fight (I hope you know that the missile and knife are metaphorically speaking right?).
No form of addiction can be easily broken. So, it is better to be prepared so that….
nothing is left to chance.
Knowing the mechanics of the addiction, the emotional triggers, the cravings, the different highways to relapsing and so on are ways to be prepared and ready for the challenge.
The knowledge and the preparation that results from it will take you a long way during the pitfalls, the emotional roller coaster and the withdrawal symptoms that would be experienced.
The things that MUST be done in order to guarantee success if you are struggling with doing nofap are listed below
Before we get into it, you can check out this amazing manual that will give you all the guns you’ll need to win the ■■■■ addiction knife-fight. The manual shows you what to do when the ■■■■ cravings start, so as not to relapse and lose your NoFap progress!!!
This is the first thing to check off your list. This is the most important thing to figure out first before hoping to complete your nofap challenge.
Everybody has their reasons for trying nofap but the question I would ask you right now is that are those reasons BIG enough?
If you don’t have a strong reason motivating you, you would easily give in to cravings. Most guys get this wrong right off the bat by doing nofap in order to get laid more.
This is a good reason in itself, but the problem with this reason is that it is not sustainable. From my experience, it doesn’t last past the first two weeks or until you get into a relationship or…
Get back together with your ex.
You need something deeper than that. A reason that keeps you awake at night and makes you never want to go near ■■■■ again. If you are the observing kind, you would have noticed that those that were able to go long term with this are people that ABSOLUTELY MUST change because their lives depended on it.
For instance, guys that have developed some form of erectile dysfunction are really motivated and they go long term. I think not being able to get it up when needed to by your partner would be a big enough reason.
Don’t you?
Why do you want to quit watching ■■■■ and masturbating?
This is what will take the effort and struggle out of quitting. This is what is going to make quitting ■■■■ and masturbation a breeze and a walk in the park.
This is what will change watching prn from a pleasurable activity to poison.**
Yes, I said it. POISON.
It will make NoFap from being something that you kind of want to try out because other people were doing it into something that you absolutely must do because your life depended on it.
To illustrate what I meant by this, I would use my Dad as an example because his situation is a perfect case scenario.
My Dad loves drinking alcohol so much. In his youth, when he married my mom, he tried to quit several times but he never really did. When we were born, he told me he also tried to quit drinking but he always found a way to go back to drinking.
Coupled with the fact that my Grandfather was diabetic and he always warned my dad that since diabetes is hereditary, he was running a high risk of getting diabetes with his alcohol drinking and guess what?
That also didn’t stop him from drinking.
Fast forward to the day that my Dad was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes, that day was the day he dropped his bottle. That faithful day till date, my Dad hasn’t had a drop of alcohol.
What Diabetes did for my Dad’s drinking was it turned a pleasurable activity into poison. But I don’t want you to go blind before stopping masturbation to internet pornography. What you just need to do is find a big enough WHY through some soul searching and you are good to go.
So, what is going to do it for you? What reason will be BIG enough for you to quit PMOing? Chances are if you are a heavy ■■■■ user, you absolutely have a form of penile dysfunction or a form of desensitization towards real-life s*x and girls. Would that motivate you enough?
Is it having to go out there and approach girls more because that would be…
Your only chance of getting off?
Or is it realizing that you are a 25-year-old jobless man-child with a University degree still living with your parents while life was passing you by and your mates are forging ahead in life while you are busy jerking off to ■■■■ and playing video games and being too brain-dead to follow through on your plans and goals and the activities that will make real change in your life? Well, that did it for me.
Or is it visualizing where your life will be in the next 10 years while you are still enslaved to this vile habit, where you are just too shy and afraid to face the real world and the picture you see scares the hell out of you?
Or is it knowing that all the dreams you had and still have at a point in your life might never come to fruition and your life might account to nothing because you just literally don’t have the energy to take action?
Do you like having more money?
Do you want to live a life of financial freedom so that you and your family would never have to worry about money ever again?
Because if you do, you are probably in your prime and this is the time to work on those things and….
You are busy draining your life-force into the tissue.
Do you want to be happier?
How happy would you be if you can raise your mood by 10% in this world we live in?
Do you want your days to get brighter and have a deep-seated joy and knowingness that comes from the SELF that no matter what happens, YOU will be okay?
Do you want more confidence? A kind of confidence that drug can’t buy? A God intended health, well-being, and sense of purpose that has been drained; Do you want it back?
Do you want to go back to your God intended and natural State where you feel connected to the world and the people around you on a much deeper level?
Do you want to live and feel again?
Is your relationship or marriage on the rocks because of this bad habit?
Do you want your family back again?
Are you tired of always locking yourself in your room? Are you tired of always feeling a sense of shame after your ■■■■ session?
Would you like to stop other addictions you have? Do your siblings and your loved ones seem like strangers to you because you have turned into a walking zombie?
Those should make you think for a moment and that is what will get you through the cravings and withdrawal symptoms you will experience along the way.
By now, you are informed on some of the negative effects that ■■■■ and masturbation are having on your life, and if that’s not enough, research the topic more.
What I want you to do now is sit down and take a deep look at your life and look for the ways you think that ■■■■ watching is affecting you and changing you in relation to…
The type of person you really want to be in life.
Remember, you’ve only got this one life to live and the clock is ticking. After you have done this, I want you to list the reasons why you must change.
Find the most compelling ones that when you think of them, it makes you want to curse the day you watched p**rn for the first time in your life.
You can learn more about willpower, concentration and focus, and the prefrontal cortex in this manual!!!
I think this step is obvious and it is also crucial when attempting NoFap. Kind of like an alcoholic that gets rid of all the alcohol in the house when he’s trying to stay sober.
A lot of people overlook this step and in a moment, I would explain why it is a non-negotiable thing to be done.
Our environment influences our day to day decision making processes more than we know. Recent scientific researches are shedding more light on the effects nuances we interact with externally in our daily lives are having on our sub-conscious mind.
These nuances are referred to as cues which can lead to complex overt behavior (JA Bargh).
This phenomenon is known as the priming effect.
In the popular experiment by Bargh et al., 1996, people were primed to think of old people and it was found that people primed to think of old people actually did walk slower.
As more work is being done on this, Payne et al did a series of experiments on behavioral priming. In the first experiments, researchers found that exposing volunteers to the word “gamble” for 300 milliseconds encouraged them to bet more.
Although, it was found that it only worked when the best option was to bet and this makes the researchers conclude that priming works best if in line with the individual’s stereotypes, traits or predispositions.
What this means for the individual trying to stay off ■■■■ and masturbation for a while is that if exposed to cues related to ■■■■, because he or she is already predisposed to it, then…
A slippery slope of relapse is ahead.
In our societies today, you listen to most music, the theme is sex. You watch a music video or movie, and there is always that hero who wins at the end of the day by “getting the girl”.
Plus there is social media that seems, in my opinion, to be used by people to hawk sex at every available chance they get.
The message ingrained by the media and environment we live in today is that the epitome of achievement is sx – sx in this context is the virtual and unnatural kind that is being peddled through ■■■■ – and that is what we youths of nowadays gravitate towards and regards as the most fulfilling and rewarding thing we can do in life.
So, if you want to help yourself and make nofap super easy,
You should create an environment that is anti-prn addiction while you are doing nofap.**
This can start from getting rid of your p**rn stashes on the system, staying off stimulating content on social media, or staying off social media completely while on nofap.
You can’t be staying off prn while still having a ■■■■ stash on your devices. It is IMPOSSIBLE to succeed while they are still there. So, ruthlessly hit the delete key and get rid of all the prn videos, erotic images or gifs on your devices.
Don’t think about it!! Just do it!!! NOW!!!
Now that you have taken out the thrash, literally speaking, it’s time to go to the next step. But, before you go, do a search on your devices and make sure you got it all. If you just remembered a location where you’ve hidden p**rn on your system, go there with the machete. After all that, go to the recycle bin and….
Empty it in a click. NOW!!!
After that, what you want to do is go to social media accounts and ruthlessly delete/unfriend/unfollow/unhashtag those people or accounts you follow that upload pictures or videos that can trigger you.
Alternatively, you can make the decision to not log into your social media accounts till you complete your reboot. I know it seems like a lot and an impossibility, but BELEIVE ME…
The world won’t stop spinning on its axis if you do it.
Download this Proven-to-work manual that shows you how to block access to ■■■■ on your Android smartphones, IOS smartphones, Android Tablets, IOS Tablets, Laptops and Desktops ALL FREE OF CHARGE!!! The methods are non-intrusive and air tight that even the CSI or a Russian hacker can’t circumvent!! And as a bonus, you also learn how to get an accountability partner FREE OF CHARGE!!!
You have to pay attention to your thoughts and emotions. This is a very useful thing to do generally in life even out of the context of NoFap.
When you start noticing the thoughts coming to your mind, you get to realize at a point that you are not your thoughts. They just come and go after you have acknowledged their presence and you don’t react to them.
And at the same time, you cannot stop them from coming because, the more you resist a thought….
The more reinforced it becomes.
That’s your limbic brain (A.K.A your Chimp) at its finest and you can’t fight it, it’s a battle that you cannot win according to Dr. Steve, the author of “the chimp paradox”. All you can do is “pet” it by being logical and having a reasonable conversation with it if you are able to hear its voice.
Addiction is often a coping mechanism for an emotion or feeling we are not ready to confront or solve. Anytime you crave PMOing…
There is always a feeling or thought triggering it.
This feeling might be invoked by a picture you see on the internet, something someone said to you, a particular time of the day or a particular place in your room.
This happens because, over the years, your brain has made some associations with those things leading to…
Jerking off at your computer screen!
These emotions might be depression, boredom, feeling pressured on a particular issue, feeling like a failure, rejection or even happiness at times.
What you can do when you are on NoFap is to pay attention whenever you get the urge to watch p**rn and notice what is going on in your head, what you are doing at that time, what you are supposed to be doing and not doing, where you are and what time of the day it is.
With time, you get to identify your emotional triggers and instead of watching p**rn to suppress them, you can interrupt the pattern by acknowledging it, dealing with it or…
Finding something constructive to do.
Mindfulness to one’s thoughts and emotions is a skill that is improved with constant practice. One of the ways that it can be quickly enhanced is through deep breathing.
Deep breathing is one of the tools that enhance mindfulness towards the underlying thoughts and emotions that are triggering you to watch ■■■■.
When the inevitable cravings come knocking on the door, a very good thing to do is to take three deep breaths.
Taking deep breaths throughout the day will get oxygen into your brain and it will make you more relaxed and it kind of give you a shift and….
Distraction from the cravings you are currently experiencing.
What you ultimately want to do after taking the deep breath is to maybe leave the scene or find something to do that would take your mind off the p**rn thoughts.
What deep breath gives you is a window of opportunity to alter your predominant cycle and patterns that make you watch p**rn. If you still engage in the thoughts causing your cravings after taking the deep breaths, there is a very high chance that you would…
Take a bite of the forbidden fruit.
Deep breathing is an act that you should try to make effort to do throughout the day even outside the realm of NoFap. It is a very good relaxation technique that helps you be more stress-free and eventually more productive in your day to day activities.
One thing you could do is to set an hourly or two hourly reminders on your mobile phone to take three deep breaths. I currently have a reminder on my phone that goes off every 50 minutes and reminds me to take 3 deep breaths immediately. Try to incorporate this, and you will notice you are more relaxed, focused and creative in executing your daily activities.
What I want you to do right now as you are reading this post is to take a deep breath.
“ Breathe in deeply through your nose and fill your stomach, chest, and lungs with air until you feel you can’t fill it anymore.
Let the air out at your own pace. Notice how your stomach and chest deflates as you let out the air and notice the yawning that mostly follows the first exhale.
Notice how your body is slipping into a state of relaxation. Take in another breath, exhale, take another breath in and exhale again as you feel more, more and more relaxed. ”
In this manual, I teach you the ultimate breathing technique that will instantly relief stress, make you super-relaxed, make you super-focused, and instantly boost your willpower by 200%!!!
In an ideal world where the laws that govern the universe we live in are honored and taken into consideration, you shouldn’t be addicted to ■■■■.
Nofap shouldn’t be a challenge or competition; it should be a way of life. Try not to make it a competition.
Psychologically, all you do when you make it a challenge is signal your brain that it is hard to achieve and your brain will make it hard. If it is something that you have accepted as a way of life, you would have done the above steps and cravings will reduce.
Know that this is your life and you owe it to yourself to be…
The best version of yourself that you can be.
Stay off counters and try to stay off Reddit and forums as much as possible and kind of just move on with your life.
By any means, if you are looking for motivation sometimes, go there for those and when you want to post your own success story after a long time of abstinence in order to encourage people just starting out on this path, then do that.
Don’t allow the addiction to take over your life. The addiction is the anomaly in your life, not the abstinence or streak you have managed to achieve. Make this mental shift and you are putting your hand on the steering wheel instead of your chimp.
I wouldn’t lie and say that nofap is easy. If it were easy, there wouldn’t be a need for this lengthy post.
There will be hard days along the line. Days when your mood would be all over the place, your libido would be off the chart or its existence would be close to none.
Days you would be bored or angry for no particular reason.
It’s a good and wise thing to plan and prepare for this type of days in advance.
Two things are to be done here
The first thing is to spread your life’s horizon a little bit more. Make a list of positive and empowering activities you can use to fill your time while doing nofap.
These activities could be something like joining the gym, going out of the house more, go for a walk more, going for a run more, buying a musical instrument and learning to play it, taking a scheduled nap in the middle of the day, watching your favorite comedy tapes, reaching out more to new and old friends and making plans with them, or …
Taking a cooking class.
The aim of this first step is to get you engaged and get you out of the house more.
The second thing to be done is to make sure that you plan your tomorrow today. What I mean by this is that you should always plan your days the previous day.
Might be in the night before you go to bed, make sure you plan the next day down to the last hour.
Fill in your days with the engaging activities you just decided to do in the first step.
WARNING: Don’t overwhelm yourself!! Only bite what you can chew!!
This is what can be done wrong in this step. Trying to take on a lot of new activities at once might get you overwhelmed and therefore making you unable to do anything at the end of the day.
Take on new activities one at a time and don’t just pile it all on yourself at once.
What I don’t see often on the nofap forums is a comprehensive account of how someone failed at doing nofap. I wonder why that is. Wouldn’t it be helpful to others to know how to avoid that pitfall? [Just thinking out loud]
Journaling helps to think out loud as thoughts and moments have a habit of always fleeting. Journaling will help you know if you’ve made progress…
Even when you think that you haven’t.
Write down the emotions that are triggering you. Also, and of paramount importance is to write down those things that caused and led to your relapses if there is one.
Write down what you think you could have done differently to avoid the pitfalls in the future. Write down the ways you think you have made progress and also learn from those.