Six practices that helped me enormously

Hello everybody. I am a young man of twenty-five who was first exposed to pornography, and began to indulge in masturbation, at the tender age of eleven. They had dreadful effects upon me both in body and in mind, and effectively ruined much of my youth with their enormously weakening effect on my energies, mental and physical; destruction of my self-confidence, and perversion of my sexual tastes, among many other ways in which they harmed me. I have not entirely cured myself of the practices as yet. It only came to my attention that they might even have been the root cause of these problems in my life when I was about sixteen, having indulged in them very extensively up to that time, so that they had by that time already become very deeply ingrained in my nature. It was at that age that I was fortunate enough to chance upon some old Victorian-era books which were written against masturbation, and which described the symptoms arising from it exactly in accordance with what I could feel was happening to me in my own case—saying that it "blotted out the intellect, debased the moral feelings, and prostrated the physical energies," among other things. This was during the time when "NoFap," "Your Brain Rebalanced" and "Your Brain on Porn" were virtually unknown, so that I unfortunately was, in my teenage years at least, completely alone in my journey to stop masturbating and using pornography. The scientific establishment, insisting with one voice that these things are perfectly "healthy" and "normal," seemed to be set entirely against me, a circumstance which often made me doubt myself, and so greatly weakened my discipline. A broken generation of millions of young men who have lived in the wake of the Sexual Revolution and widespread internet pornography use has since given rise to enormous anti-pornography communities like this website, and the conclusions of those old writers are, it would appear, becoming more and more vindicated with each passing day.

Having struggled against masturbation and pornography with all my power during these past ten years, I have since that age on many occasions lasted for stretches of four, five, and even six months, in a state of complete abstinence from them. During these periods of abstinence I have experienced enormous energy both of body and of mind, along with a state of profound mental peace, just as so many other people who have posted here and reported their findings have described; conversely, whensoever I have slipped up and gone back to pornography and masturbation, I have lost much of this energy and mental peace. My desire to look at certain perverted kinds of pornography has also entirely disappeared, having left me about eight years ago; and on the rare occasion that I have fallen I have only ever looked at still images of women on their own, or what people would call "soft" pornography, and have never desired to look at anything more extreme than this. (I am determined, however, not to let even this ever happen again.)

Having had ten years of experience in struggling against pornography and masturbation, and noted what is most effective in combating them, both from reading and experience, and having enjoyed at least a considerable measure of success, I hope that what I have discovered in my own case may be of help to some of you. I can say with certainty that, to exactly the extent that I have followed the six practices outlined below, I have given myself the best possible chances of success; conversely that, whensoever I have started to neglect them, I have very often failed shortly thereafter, even after I have already managed to undergo a very long period of abstinence.

1) Temperance in diet. Some of you may be aware that those who eat fewer calories live much longer than the average person, and are much less subject to disease. But eating moderately is also incredibly effective at staving off lust. This has been recognized for thousands of years by philosophers and sages in all cultures, from ancient Greece to India. The mathematician and philosopher Pythagoras, for example, lived on a diet composed chiefly of vegetables, fruits, and grains, partially for the purpose of dissipating his lust, as we learn from the Greek writer Philostratus: “The votaries of Pythagoras tell of him that, to guard his chastity, he abstained from all animal foods.” The same writer informs us that the philosopher Apollonius of Tyana, (a contemporary of Jesus,) was able to effect the same purpose by the same means: “Apollonius, by dint of virtue and temperance in eating, never even in his youth was overcome [by lust]; but, while a mere stripling, in full enjoyment of his bodily vigour, he mastered and had complete control over this maddening passion.” So Plutarch, the Greek writer and philosopher, in his life of Lycurgus, ascribes the fact that the youth of Sparta were able to be chaste before marriage to the fact that they abstained from alcohol and ate a very sparing diet.

One of the most interesting modern studies on this subject, entitled “Human Vitality and Efficiency under Prolonged Restricted Diet,” was conducted in the year 1919 by Dr Francis G. Benedict. In this study, two squads of twelve men each were chosen from the students of Springfield Training School. One of these squads served as a control, but was also used during a short period of dietary restriction; the other squad was put on a restricted low-protein diet for a period of four months, during which time they were carefully studied. The caloric value of their diet was reduced from between 3,000 and 4,000 calories prior to the experiment to about 2,100 during it. Although the men lost twelve per cent of their weight, they were “apparently normal throughout the course of the experiment, and were able to carry on their regular work and exercises.”

The result of the reduced-calorie diet was that, in all cases, the subjects noted “a reduction or cessation of sex desire, nocturnal emissions, erections, erotic dreams, and other voluntary as well as involuntary sexual phenomena.” This is what some of the men reported in detail:

Subject A noted frequent erections while on the previous high-protein diet, especially when embracing his girl, and every morning on awakening. Nocturnal emissions occurred once a month. But on the low-protein diet he observed: “During the diet experiment there was no emission I can recall and, I believe, no erection. My roommate at college noted this; and one morning he said, ‘Say! You have lost your manhood.’ When with my fiancee during this period, nothing of a sexual nature would come to my mind. I think that if I had not been engaged, I would have left off visiting the lady or attending to any social functions. I was quite astonished and wondered at the change that had come over me.”

Subject B noticed reduced sexual feelings. Subject C observed disappearance of nocturnal emissions; but on returning to high-protein feeding, these promptly returned and also erections. Subject D noticed decreased sexual tendencies and absence of erection while on the low-protein diet. Subject E wrote: “I am very definite in the conviction that there is a reduction in sexual desire during the period of low-protein diet. During the time of losing weight, there was the least irritability. I think the kind of food affects sex appetite—meat causing stimulating of it. Do not recall any nocturnal emissions during the diet. Before the diet they were rather frequent. I have usually to put up a pretty stiff fight against the instinct and noticed that it was not nearly so difficult to control during the experiment.”

Subject I noticed after the experiment, and on returning to a rich-meat diet, increased nocturnal emissions, erections, and sexual excitement, which were reduced during the diet experiment. Subject L said: “The low-protein diet experiment just about unsexed me. During the first two weeks of the period there was at the end of each week sexual intercourse, but at these times there was no keen desire for passion, nor did the occasions produce the normal pleasure commonly associated with them. I thought to myself, ‘How foolish to indulge in this simply by habit!’”

Subject M said: “I am sure that during the diet period sex desires particularly, as associated with the attractiveness of dances and one's interest in the opposite sex were decidedly less. At a dance attended during the diet I noticed no sex desire or irritation, which was quite unusual for me and impressed me that there was a change of some sort.”

Subject Q wrote: “During the diet, sex was repulsive. I had no emissions and no erections; but after eating uncontrolled, both of these were frequent. The change, considering the short period of dietetic reduction, was more than I would have believed.” Subject R reported: “It seems to me that during the last week of the diet there was less flow of blood through the sex organs. They were less irritable, and there was much slighter tendency to erection; and not in reference to any particular time of the day, there was an absence of sex sensation.”

Subject U said: “I attended dances and danced with girls who danced in very unusual positions which were especially calculated to provoke sex irritation, but in my own case, they had absolutely no effect upon me. In fact, I could not get an erection in myself.”

The American doctor George Frank Lydson, writing in the year 1900, expresses himself on this subject thus: "The importance of careful attention to dietetic regimen in controlling the tendency to masturbation and sexual excess can scarcely be overrated. The relation of a stimulating and highly nutritious diet to sexual desire and capacity was well understood by the ancients. With some persons excessive sexual desire is directly dependent upon high living. It is probable that a strictly vegetarian regimen is the best that can be advised for an individual who desires to remain continent both in mind and body."

2) Physical exercise. It is in those periods when I have exercised the most that I have been able to remain abstinent for the longest. Conversely, it in those periods when I was not doing any exercise,—when I was completely housebound, usually because I was concentrating my attention so much upon my studies,—that I slipped up, and slipped up in the worst possible way, sometimes giving in many times over the course of the subsequent days and weeks. Indeed it was not until I began regularly to exercise in the first place, which I did not do until I was in my early twenties, that I was able to last without pornography or masturbation for very long at all, despite the fact that I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that they were harming me very greatly. Indeed I do not know that it is even possible to conquer them unless we do exercise.

Walking, swimming, and running, are my exercises of choice. I find that, the longer I indulge in them, the better: that it is far more effective to have a routine where I walk or swim, say, three hours a day at a more moderate pace, than to exercise very violently for only one. For lengthier periods of exercise fill up more of the day, and so keep the brain away from sexual thoughts for a correspondingly longer period of time. The greater effectiveness of doing longer though more moderate periods of exercise did not strike my mind until quite recently, and I have myself determined to do between three to four hours of moderate exercise each and every day from this time onward.

The pre-twentieth-century doctors who wrote against masturbation and pornography all say that physical exercise is indispensable to conquering them. The English doctor John Edward Tilt says, for example, in the year 1869, that people who wish to stop these things should take "Plenty of exercise" and that "There is much more to be done in this way than by medicines." A doctor writing in the "Medical and Surgical Reporter" in the year 1877 says: "Insist upon it that your patient take plenty of thorough physical exercise." The American doctor J. W. Howe, writing in 1883, says that "Exercise out of doors, should, of course, be advised in every case." An English doctor, J. C. Curtis, says, in 1859, that “Walking exercise ought to be persisted in daily” as a part of the cure. So Dr George Frank Lydson expresses himself thus: "The lad who takes pride in his physique and is attracted to athletic sports is seldom addicted to masturbation as compared with his fellows. The practice of athletics necessitates sexual abstinence or moderation, as is well known to trainers; indeed, every athlete knows that after a few weeks' training the desire for sexual indulgence is, in a measure, lost. Physical exercise diverts the superfluous nervous energy from the sexual organs... Muscular exercise that involves a certain amount of attention and mental application, as boxing, fencing, cricket, hand-ball, etc., is particularly beneficial, as tending to divert the mind from sexual matters."

Let us now come to the present day. That pornography addiction is, in fact, a real addiction in the brain is amply demonstrated by the twelve brain studies which Gary and Marnia Wilson have collected on their website. The brains of pornography addicts have been demonstrated by those studies to be damaged in exactly the same ways as are the brains of any other class of addict. Why is this important to note? Because physical exercise has been shown to be very effective in facilitating recovery from addictions. A study published in the journal Biological Psychiatry in 2010 found not only that cocaine-addicted rats who regularly exercised by running on a wheel developed a reduced craving for the drug, but that the neuroadaptations in the prefrontal cortex associated with cocaine-seeking that develop in the brain over an abstinence period were significantly decreased. In another study published in 2010, in this case in the Scandinavian Journal of Public Health, participants addicted to drugs in a rehabilitation programme were put on an exercise programme, at the end of which they reported a decrease in the urge to use substances from 65% to 47%, as assessed by the Europe Addiction Severity Index. More than a year following the exercise intervention, five of the twenty participants who had completed the rehabilitation programme reported no substance use, and ten reported a reduced intake. In a study published in 2011 in the journal PLoS One, researchers, having had cannabis users participate in ten sessions of aerobic exercise over the course of two weeks, found that the cravings experienced during treatment were, on average, significantly reduced relative to baseline.

A detailed and interesting overview of this subject, Exercise as a Potential Treatment for Drug Abuse: Evidence from Preclinical Studies, published in 2011 in Front Psychiatry, lists many dozens more studies on the connection between exercise and overcoming addiction. A few highly interesting quotations therefrom: "At least three studies have shown that drug self-administration is reduced when exercise is available as an alternative non-drug reinforcer."—"Aerobic exercise could protect against binge-like patterns of excessive drug intake under unlimited-access conditions."—"Collectively, studies have provided convincing evidence to support the development of exercise-based interventions to reduce compulsive patterns of drug intake in clinical and at-risk populations."

We have also an overwhelming amount of testimony from posters both on this forum and elsewhere that exercise is extremely helpful in aiding us both to abstain from pornography and masturbation and to reboot the brain, as, for example, some quotations taken from "NoFap" subreddit will testify:

@Harry214: "During four weeks of not lifting or exercising much, I found it much harder to keep longer streaks on NoFap, as I wasn't getting any physical release from lifting. I was relapsing much more often and not caring as much. I felt more anxious because I felt weak mentally and physically. I had less energy, and I was more depressed."

@Radon19: "If I'm not doing something physical after work (yoga, lifting, foam roller) I will masturbate. I almost don't trust myself [if I don't]."

@MyStrongestVersion: "On my work-out days my urges are far smaller than they are on rest days. That's why I keep my rest days to a minimum."

@the_student_: "I am swimming almost every day now, and I was just thinking this morning how helpful it has been on my recovery journey."

@d3rdt3: "I made it to 53 days on my first try, but relapsed. Now I'm on day 9, but this time with exercise, cold showers and meditation. I'm finding urges much less dominating and easier to get through."

@ThurnisH: "I'm on my longest streak so far, and it has to do with me exercising."

@Instagrape: "I have found, personally, in these 196 days, that, when I am exercising, I feel a lot less tempted, a lot less urge-filled; and when I lose weight, I feel even better, and have more motivation. Recently I have been slacking and it has gotten harder. What I'm trying to say is that doing other things is critical. Exercise and diet are critical. Just as PMO is plague on my life and a streak of abstinence is something I need to continue, so diet and exercise need to be part of my streak too."

@divinitystreak: "I see these habits as a pyramid of importance. For me, NoFap is the base, followed by exercise and diet. While masturbating, there is no chance of any stability for me. But I agree 100%: Exercise helps so much."

Exercise has also been shown greatly to improve mood by an enormous number of studies; and depression, fear, anger, and guilt, are often the causes of a relapse, as we all know too well.

I do not know whether there are any studies that have proven a direct connection between exercise and recovery from pornography addiction; but if there are not, it is not surprising, because the acknowledgement that pornography can even be an addiction is a very new one, as are the studies very new which have actually been conducted upon the subject of pornography addiction. We are all pioneers here. For now I think it is logical enough to assume that exercise will help us to recover more easily and more quickly from pornography addiction, first, on the basis that pornography addiction is demonstrably an addiction just like any other; secondly, because exercise is already demonstrably very helpful in facilitating recovery from addiction.

3) Avoiding idleness. It is also during those times when I have had very little to do that I have most assuredly regressed into my old ways. Even during those periods in my life when I did not exercise, I was able to stave off my desires for a time, so long as I was working on some very engaging project,—but, the project being completed, and I not having anything more to do, if I subsequently lapsed into trying to think of ways to amuse myself all day rather than how to occupy myself with something new, I almost always slipped up. Consider the wisdom of the ancients on this matter, some quotations from whom the scholar Robert Burton, a contemporary of Shakespeare, collects: Aristotle said, “As match or torchwood takes fire, so does an idle person love.” The successor to his school of philosophy, Theophrastus, wrote: “Love is an affection of an idle mind.” The Roman Ovid, one of the greatest poets that ever lived, said that “Love tyrannizes in an idle person.” And the great Roman philosopher Seneca said that “Youth begets love, riot maintains it, idleness nourishes it.”

The same sentiments are expressed by the pre-modern medical authorities. Dr Lydston, for example, writes as follows: "The old maxim that 'idleness is the mother of mischief' is especially applicable to the sexually depraved... The individual who exercises both mind and body to the extent of reasonable fatigue has little desire for sexual indulgence."

4) Early rising. The later we stay up, the more isolated we are, and so the more greatly are we exposed to temptation. We also tend to snack during the post-midnight hours, and so tend to over-eat; and it is more difficult to get any exercise done at night, because it is dark outside during those hours. On the other hand, if we overcome our irregular hours and get into a habit of early rising, we shall eventually be sure to fall asleep as soon as we get into bed, and so be less exposed to the temptation of using pornography and masturbation as aids to get us to sleep. Early rising also appears to have a relaxing and improving influence upon the mind altogether, a fact which many scientific studies demonstrate.

The old writers against masturbation are unanimous on the importance of the practice of early rising. The American doctor Samuel B. Woodward, for example, writing in the middle of the nineteenth century, says that a person who wishes to stop masturbating “should rise immediately upon waking, and never retire till the disposition to sleep comes strongly upon him." So Dr Lydson: "Late hours, the dance, liquor, tobacco, high living, foster sexual excitability and must be avoided."

Exercise is very helpful in securing this habit of early rising. I also recommend that you do not expose yourself to anything but dim light past about eight or nine o’clock in the evening; otherwise your ability to sleep will be greatly disturbed, because the light will interfere with your production of melatonin, the chemical which sends us to sleep. Set an alarm and force yourself to get up early in the morning, no matter how late you do happen to sleep, until it becomes a habit; and refuse ever to sleep in. Go outside in the morning hours: the bright light will help to calibrate your body clock, and so make it easier for you to get to sleep at night.

5) Bathing, swimming, or showering in cold water. This is very effective in staving off desire, although it is not in my opinion anywhere near as important as exercise or eating temperately. It was often recommended by the old writers who wrote on the subject of conquering masturbation. The above-mentioned Dr Samuel B. Woodward says, for example: “The cold bath is a valuable remedy; a sea bath is better, and the shower bath is often superior to either.” Dr Lydson writes: "There is no better anaphrodisiac than an hour in the gymnasium, followed by a cold shower and a vigorous rub." And many posters on here have reported success with it as well.

A couple of instances of testimony from the NoFap subreddit:

@gelfie94: "It takes true mental toughness and persistence to force yourself through those tempting thoughts, and stand under the ice... But afterwards, you feel stronger, tougher, and better for it."

@Dupreelee: "I almost had a relapse last night. I was two seconds away from masturbating, but then I remembered that such a moment is the perfect time for a cold shower. Mind you, I hate cold showers; but this was the best one I have ever taken in my life... The water was very soothing to my arousal and eventually numbed the sensation of desire away... I slept like a baby immediately afterwards. Day eight and still going strong."

According both to ancient wisdom and scientific studies, cold water also confers all kinds of health benefits, among which is improved mood: a very useful thing in connection with stopping pornography and masturbation, as I have previously remarked.

6) Not imagining that giving in occasionally is a path to success, or that the use of masturbation and pornography can be “moderated.” Thinking to the contrary has been my downfall on innumerable occasions, even when I have been abstinent for many months. The voice of temptation that succeeds with me is always the one that tells the lie that I can "indulge moderately." There can be no means of cure from this addiction, along with its pernicious consequences, but giving up pornography and masturbation for good. Never delude yourself into thinking otherwise. "As the inebriate would probably never conquer his appetite for alcoholic drink if he indulged once a month," wrote Dr Woodward a hundred and fifty years ago, "so in this habit, the occasional indulgence will thwart the whole plan of cure." So have we all discovered in this community by experience in the present era. We must endeavour to put a stop to both of them for good.

In conclusion, gentlemen, I greatly hope that this information may be of help to some of you; and I implore you all to stay the course and fight the good fight so far as in you lies!

SUMMARY: Eat temperately; exercise; do not be idle; rise early; have cold showers; endeavour to give up masturbation and pornography for ever, and not to moderate them.

 

Thanks to both of you for your kind words. @Lucky1 I can only manage long swimming sessions if I pace myself. Can get utterly exhausted after twenty minutes if I'm not careful!

 

@pmarch12 One theory I have as to why that may be the case is that, if we are in the habit of using pornography, we tend to sit ourselves in front of a computer screen, or look at a bright phone screen, at night. There is a chemical which our brain begins to secrete between about 8 and 10 p.m. called melatonin, which makes us sleepy; but if we are exposed to anything brighter than dim light during those hours, its secretion is interfered with, and it becomes much harder for us to get to sleep. Studies show that the light on our electronic devices is bright enough to cause this interference. There is an interesting study that was done recently where some scientists took people camping in Colorado, and did not allow them to use any artificial light at night. Every single one of the subjects involved eventually began to sleep early and wake up early. Depriving myself of access to bright light at night was the main reason why I was able to fix my own sleep pattern. It is food for thought at least.

@fupornwife, @Shekhar95 Thank you both!