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How much does masturbating hurt recovery?

Discussion in 'Porn Addiction' started by skaterdrew, Mar 31, 2019.

  1. skaterdrew

    skaterdrew Fapstronaut

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    I know porn and artificial sexual stimulation is the main thing I need to avoid. But how much does masturbation hurt recovery? Is it ok to sometimes masturbate? If so how much?

    I am on 3 days of no PMO and I have no sexual urges what so ever, no desire to masturbate or look at any that crap. But I know this won't last unfortunately. I would estimate within the next week I will be hit with extreme urges to sexually relieve my self. If it was up to me I would be the way I am at the moment with no sexual urges for months.

    I actually suffer with ocd, and it says on YBOP that guys with ocd can basically have a difficult time, obsessing over what they're supposed to quit. I think the problem is sometimes guys, especially guys with ocd actually fall in to the wrong belief that masturbation is as bad as porn and artificial sexual stimulation, so when they relapse they just end up viewing porn anyway. This is very harmful. I feel guys need to be aware that masturbation on it's own isn't as bad as viewing porn or artificial sexual stimulation, and it's definitely not as bad as masturbating to it.

    But on the other hand I do agree that also eliminating or reducing masturbation does seem to speed up the recovery.

    I actually find it more difficult to give up masturbation than what I do to give up porn and artificial sexual stimulation. If I am being honest though I think this is because of the extent of blocks I have on my computer, and I don't have a smart phone.

    Another thing I think happens with me is I masturbate when I am not even horny. Like I'm not even properly horny and then I start jerking it thinking about stuff and then become horny. Sometimes I might be mildly horny, but realistically it's nothing I can't overcome. But I remember one time I hadn't MOed in 8 days, and I'm not even kidding I woke up with a rock solid erection and I literally only touched my dick and almost ejaculated. So at this point I was horny, very horny. The thing is though at this point I honestly think if a woman dropped her trousers in front of me I could of ejaculated without even touching my dick.

    But yeah I just want to get opinions on how harmful masturbation is to recovery? How much is too much?
     
  2. PornFreeMe

    PornFreeMe Fapstronaut

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    I've not orgasmed in a long time, but I've edged off and on for months. As far as I'm concerned, I've made very little progress. The trick is to keep all sexual stimuli out of your mind, at least the one's that occur while you're alone. If you're with a healthy partner, then by all means, engage and let it consume you. The point from all of this is to not do it alone, it's not healthy. Sex, love, life, whatever- they're team sports; especially sex. If you train alone for so long, then when it comes to perform for the team, you won't be ready.

    Save it for someone special. Everyone is different, and if you can masturbate without porn, then that's something. No one can say X Y or Z is bad for you. You know in your heart, in your mind, what holds you back, what's unhealthy, you have to answer that for yourself and try to avoid the habits you deem unhealthy.
     
  3. Honestly i believe you either go hard mode or none at all.
     
    Fenix Rising and AxBlaim like this.
  4. Gvn2Fly

    Gvn2Fly Fapstronaut

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    I don't know the answer. I think masturbating quickly without porn is better than masturbating to porn, but we are trying to reboot our brain/sexual response so I personally feel like like going hard mode for at least a month is important..at least to me. I will definitely go longer without M if I can. Right now I feel like masturbating might lead to a relapse. I was previously masturbating daily, not always to porn, but usually.
     
  5. You have to define what it is you are trying to achieve.

    If you are watching porn you get pleasure and dopamine, alongside other types of effects. If done for a long time and consistently you end up with reduced sensitivity to these effects. The issue is that same mechanisms that you employ to experience this pleasure are also one that govern your focus, motivation, concentration and mood. Once you become less sensitive, your normal levels become "low levels", so you begin to experience lower focus, poor motivation, low self esteem etc. You naturally want to correct your mood so you begin to indulge in behaviors that make you feel better.

    Removing pornography will gradually return sensitivity to normal and you will regain, better focus, motivation and mood.

    Masturbation is usually connect to porn, but its a different beast, when done together with watching pornography you exploit your dopamine release even more and get much stronger "high", if this happens too often, your body then begins the process of reducing the sensitivity of your sexual response and stimulation in order to control spikes in dopamine. This leads to reduced arousal and pleasure from sex and normal sexual encounters or masturbation without porn may seem not to be pleasurable.

    Stopping frequent masturbation or masturbation with pornography, causes the body to increase sensitivity to stimulation recovering normal sexual response and making sex and masturbation enjoyable. It makes sense to stop masturbation for a period of itme if normal sexual response has been compromised, for example person is not enjoying sex with partner or having problems maintaining an erection.

    So now you know exactly what is what and can make an informed decision.

    I strongly suggest you stop porn use in any form and you will feel benefits fairly quickly. Many people think they are completely fine when they do not see any cravings for week or two but reality is that you feel cravings when your mood goes down and unconsciously want to lift it, so if you feel craving for porn, and you will that should tell you - my mood if bad I feel crappy. Stress and problems degrade your mood and you just want to feel better - that is when you will feel cravings, recognize that and find other ways to feel better. "I just want to feel better" is key phrase, just watch for that and you will see how it will happen.

    I do not suggest you stop masturbation, the reason is rather simple - its the opposite extreme behavior. If you stop masturbation and you do not have sex then your body will continuously increase sensitivity to sexual interactions and stimulation, eventually making you hyper sensitive. Your body also naturally increases the reward for sexual behaviors overtime, this is biologically programmed in the nervous system, the longer you go without sex the more stimulating it seems to you(higher and higher dopamine release) and the more you want it. So what you do when you just stop masturbation is you get hyper sensitive overtime and your body creates massive reward for sex(dopamine release), so anything sexual triggers a response and you basally end up using this as way to feel good. These are exactly the effects people that stop masturbating report, they feel energy and they feel good, because they are basically always horny, something that feels good. So if they are successful they as avoiding sexual activities long enough they becomes addicted to the high not having sex brings, inevitably they do run in to separate set of issues with mood swings as body tries to continuously buffer this effect.

    So I suggest you use masturbation, with focus on self and goal being orgasm. No porn or fantasies. Also masturbation is easy way to kill any cravings for porn if at one point they just do not go away. Just make sure masturbation is not a routine you have to do.
     
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  6. BigOne79

    BigOne79 Fapstronaut

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    Great article sir.... so when you say about sensitivity returning to the penis I have a question for you. I believe mind is still wired to my hand because I only feel sensation when I touch myself but not when my GF does.

    I guess I have more work to do on this nofap. I literally have not done PMO or MO for 5 months. My sensitivity unfortunately has not been reworked at this point..
     
  7. skaterdrew

    skaterdrew Fapstronaut

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    Thanks for the great answer.

    I have been getting a lot of streaks of around 30 days of no porn and artificial sexual stimulation. My mental health seems to of improved a lot. But I am still having issues with PIED. I have still been masturbating quite regularly though without porn. I feel like I might need to change my approach slightly, and try to stop or drastically cut down on masturbation.
     
  8. Sexual problems are usually separated in to two broad categories, biological and psychological.
    Biological problems are caused by issues with physical systems of the body and psychological issues are caused by the brain and nervous system pattern of response.

    Loss of sensitivity due to over stimulation is biological issue, it can happen on multiple levels, penis can be less sensitive, nerves carrying singing could be less sensitive, or networks that process or reward this signaling could be depressed. In all cases if issue is resolved sensitivity returns to normal.
    Psychological problems have to do with how we perceive information, for example our brain does not know that being first in a competition is somehow supposed to be rewarding, but we learn and reinforce that. So when we win that competition we feel massive high, our brain learned to reward this behavior. Psychological problems with sexuality are similar, you can unlearn behaviors that were rewarding. So if you are not enjoying sexual contact with your partner as much as you think you should, and you have done honest desensitization, then this is likely a psychological issue.
    Waiting for your biology to recover on its own in that case may not produce results, you would need to relearn healthy sexual response to a partner, which in itself a is huge complex topic. But I hope this sets you in the right direction
     
  9. AxBlaim

    AxBlaim Fapstronaut

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    Go all in. Dont sit on the fence
     
  10. Infinite spirit

    Infinite spirit Fapstronaut

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    Masturbation is as bad as porn. In a different way ofcourse. Pmo will cause ED. NO will cause lose of your vital energy.
     
  11. What energy are we loosing? Kinetic energy, chemical energy, potential energy?
    You actually loose more energy by having sex, allot more.

    Masturbation is as bad as porn if it is abused, but then following your logic masturbation is as bad as sex and porn and beer.
     
  12. Infinite spirit

    Infinite spirit Fapstronaut

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    You lose semen. You lose tons and tons of nutritions ..calories .and essential vitamins and minerals.
    Sex should be done only in marriage and in moderation. Married people should eat a lot of good food to balance their energy.
     
  13. Seminal fluid is not magical, it is just like any other fluid in the body, your body makes components that make up this fluid all the time, non-stop, same as mucus in your nose and throat, tears for your eyes, acid in your stomach, bile in your liver etc. There is nothing special.
    Nutrient loss from ejaculation has been examined scientifically so we do not need be hypothetical about it and it contains very, very low amount of proteins, minerals and sugars. Your body replaces that without any issues from normal diet.
    If you are without food for weeks or can only consume rice for months hiding in an underground bunker, then I would say hang on to your life and do not ejaculate, keep all the minerals you can. For normal human male that has a mean every day, that does not apply.

    "Sex should be done in marriage" is you belief and I respect that, but do not force it down everybody's throat as a statement of fact.
     
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  14. Infinite spirit

    Infinite spirit Fapstronaut

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    One of The first priorities for your body is to make semen. If you drain it every day and eat a super healthy diet you still not going to feel as good and energized as when you don't ejaculate ..why?!..beachse your body is using a lot if the nutritions that you eat to make new semen cells ..so there is not enough energy for nurturing other areas of your body. When you stop cumming..you have enough semen..your body now is using the most of the food to make your body stronger. We all know that you feel tired and even sleepy after we cum ..like come on!!..why do you think that is?!
    Semen is not like any other fluid . It's very important and essential to our overall health. Masturbate for 5 times in a row and you imeditaly will be in extreme fatigue and nutritious deffecincy . Now you might say"fap in moderation"..but why?!..its not some magical fluid after all and it got low value?!=bullshit.
    Fapping drains your testosterone and your masculine energy. Ofcourse it's temporary and you can recover from it by diet .but why drain it but the first place?!..why would I masturbate in the first place? When I can be a fucking man and date real girls instead of this whole pathetic "fap to fantasy" crap .
     
  15. Infinite spirit

    Infinite spirit Fapstronaut

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    Neither .it's just common sense. We all know that for certain. But we are only blinded by our addictions.
     
  16. You said "daily ejaculations will deplete nutrition in the body faster than body can recover" as if its a fact and its not, like Gmork pointed out I am happy to look at any research grade scientific evidence you can provide to support this but my familiarity with biology is enough to say this is just your personal opinion or belief not supported by understanding or biological research.

    Just using simple mathematics, you can measure absorption rate of each vitamin, mineral and protein you can eat in healthy diet, then looking at amount lost to ejaculation makes this claim completely absurd.
    It is like saying making extra trip to the grocery store in your car will eventually empty your gas tank, well yes that trip does use some fuel but its tiny fraction of the overall usage and if you keep putting gas in your tank, you will not really notice it much.

    You are falling in to a trap of connecting what post orgasm feels like and what actually happens biologically. How you feel is no reflection of what is actually taking place.
    Great example of this is when you run for a long time, at some point you may feel like you have no more energy left and you are about collapse, you feel weak, tired, miserable and exhausted but in reality you body still has massive reserves.
    Your brain just makes you feel miserable so you stop there is no issue with energy availability, your body is under stress and it wants to minimize stress. If you keep pushing past this feeling it eventually goes away and all of a sudden you feel completely fine, with plenty of energy.
    This happens all the time in longer runs or under stressful conditions but it has nothing to do with nutrition however it illustrates how what you feel has nothing to do with what is actually happening.

    Orgasm is natural way of getting a strong high, strong high means its massive release of dopamine, and anything massive is bad for stability. After any massive high body compensates with opposite corrective reaction, you end up with a low. This low would feel like depression and misery but because its a natural behavior, body compensates this drop in dopamine using other mechanisms like endorphins to offset the low and make you feel normal even though your dopamine just went flat. Obviously you are going to feel effects of low dopamine and changed hormonal background, this will make you feel drowsy and relaxed but in good mood. And we are just talking about how you feel not even touching positive effects on body's systems and emotional state.

    Withholding sexuality leads to hypersensitivity to sexuality, this means you begin to react to sexual things very intensely, you see poster with woman wearing bikini - you get massive flood of dopamine - because you are hypersensitive. You see a beautiful woman - you have flood of dopamine - because you are hypersensitive. This makes you feel good motivated and full of energy, you are an addict that found a way to get hits from low exposure to sexually stimulating things, by developing hypersensitivity. This is not energy you saved - manipulating your body to feel good, this is another extreme and it is not healthy - it has its own set of psychological problems.

    Ejaculating often lowers quality of your semen, because it does take time to produce move and utilize components that make up what you ejaculate, but lower quality semen mean less chance for pregnancy now lower energy.
     
  17. What you are saying is not common sense, none knows it for certain.

    It looks to me that you are not listening and have no interest in healthy discussion, you have beliefs and do not want to question re-examine them, I respect that.
    Just keep in mind we are not responding to you we are giving people ways to understand why what you are saying is baseless.
     
  18. CowboySteve

    CowboySteve Fapstronaut

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    To the OP: I don’t necessarily believe masturbation alone is necessarily wrong, but every time I’m on a challenge and I decide to “relieve” myself with a short “M” session, I end up eventually sinking back down into my old habit of frequent porn use. It never fails and that chaser effect is real. Just eliminate PM completely is my advice.
     

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