Takeaway
- Nofap will have a positive impact on anyone who tries it (God Mode: high energy, a clear mind, no fear, boosted IQ, etc).
- The benefits of nofap take at least 30 days to be felt.
- To succeed, your nofap should last at least 90 days.
- The nofap timeline has three stages: initial excitement, flatline, God Mode.
- A flatline can last up to two years and a half.
- Make sure to track your nofap to experience better results.
- Masturbation isn’t unhealthy or unnatural…
- …but excessive masturbation and porn addiction definitely are!
I have done nofap three times:
- Once for 101 days
- Once for 165 days
- Once for 42 days
I lay in this article everything you should know about it.
Are you struggling with porn?
Read the summary of Your Brain On Porn or watch this four-minute video of Andrew Huberman explaining the influence of porn on your brain.
The following is educational and informational content, and should not replace proper medical care. Always consult a licensed specialist before altering your lifestyle.
Table of Content
1. What Is Nofap?
Nofap is a period during which you stop masturbating. Fapping means “masturbating”, so nofap means “not masturbating”.
There are different versions of nofap that will suit different people with different needs.
Someone engaging in nofap is sometimes called a fapstronaute.
2. Why Do People Do Nofap and What Are the Nofap Benefits?
People (men) mostly do nofap to get rid of porn addiction.
Porn addiction changes the structure of your brain and impacts the rest of your life, from your relationships to your sleep to your self-esteem.
It also impacts your sexuality. Men that are addicted to porn may:
- Struggle to maintain an erection when engaging in real sex
- Come too fast
- Not come at all
- Lose attraction for real-life girls
Porn addiction isn’t the only reason why people engage in nofap as nofap also helps you to:
- Have more energy
- Have more testosterone
- Be more focused
- Be less afraid
- Solve the “death grip syndrome”
- Be less prone to dopamine-triggering activities
- Get rid of depression
- Get “angry”
- Solve your relationship with women
- Have better sex
3. Is Nofap Only For Men?
No. Many women (5% of the people who do nofap) also practice nofap and experience the same benefits as men experience.
Nofap helps women have better skin, be happier, have more energy, be more focused, and see themselves less as sex objects.
4. What Are the Different Types of Nofap?
The Classic: Nofap, No Porn, No Sex
This is the most popular version of nofap. Guys who practice it want to:
- Get rid of their porn addiction
- Be more social and less afraid of talking to girls
- Have more energy
- Be more focused
- Etc
The Boyfriend: Nofap, No Porn, Sex
Avoiding porn and fap but having sex is great to solve the death grip syndrome and get rid of porn addiction, or to reconnect to a partner.
Those who practice this nofap will not experience a flatline or the God Mode because they’re having orgasms.
The Eunuque: Nofap, Porn, No Sex
Rare. These guys primarily seek the “high energy” from nofap. They use porn to stimulate their brain and motivate them to go find girls.
Not recommended at all (speaking from experience).
The Cheater: Nofap, Porn, Sex.
Guys who practice this version mainly want to solve their death grip syndrome. They don’t care about porn addiction.
5. What Is the Nofap Timeline?
The nofap timeline is the range of experiences you’ll go through while doing nofap.
The nofap timeline is divided into three stages.
- Initial excitement and testosterone build-up
- The nofap flatline
- The nofap benefits
1. Initial Excitement
The initial excitement phase lasts from one to six weeks.
This period is when you’re the most likely to fail nofap because you’re horny. The first seven days are particularly difficult to resist the urge of fapping.
According to that one study, your testosterone levels peak on the 7th day, then decrease. However, I wouldn’t draw any precipitated conclusions since it’s only one study, and it was done years ago.
The initial excitement stops once you enter the flatline.
2. The Nofap Flatline
The flatline is a period of struggle and despair you have to go through before experiencing the God Mode.
It’s the second stage of nofap.
The nofap flatline is a period of nofap during which the fapstronaute:
- Has low energy
- Feels number
- Has no sexual desire
- Feels slightly depressed.
The flatline is the most dreaded part of nofap because it’s highly uncomfortable.
No one really knows what the flatline is nor why it exists.
It seems that the brain “rewires” and “de-addicts itself” during the flatline. Some believe it is the sum of all of the withdrawal symptoms of porn addiction.
Some people have experienced very short flatlines of a month or so.
Others have experienced up to two years and a half of flatline.
What influences the length and difficulty of the nofap flatline?
Porn addiction influences how long and difficult the flatline will be.
The younger you started watching porn (1), the more violent the porn was (2), and the longer you remained addicted to porn (3), the longer (and harder) your flatline will be.
What does the flatline feel like?
You feel numb, tired, and you have no desire or motivation for anything.
Girls no longer look attractive. You stop thinking about sex constantly.
You have no desire for anything. Life is boring. It feels like a light experience of anhedonia.
Some guys freak out when they realize they lost all attraction to girls. Don’t worry. It will eventually come back as you move towards a healthier lifestyle. Give it time.
One of my theories that explains why the nofap flatline is so hard to go through is that the brain is deprived of the euphoric chemicals released during orgasm.
List of hormones released during sex:
- Dopamine helps build habits, as explained by James Clear. It makes you feel good before and after doing something pleasurable so you want to repeat the behavior.
- Oxytocin acts differently according to your gender. Oxytocin has mainly been studied in women. We know it plays a role in social bonding. Oxytocin is triggered during orgasm, childbirth, after childbirth, and breastfeeding.
Understand: girls will get attached to you if they have orgasms with you. Then they will get attached to their baby. We don’t know much about the role of oxytocin in men, just that it is also released during orgasm. - Endorphins: blocks the feelings of pain.
- Testosterone: present seven to eight times more in men than women, testosterone plays a lot of different roles, from muscle building to sperm production. It also regulates sex drive for both men and women. A lot of testosterone -> desire for a lot of sex.
- Serotonin: it plays a role in your mood and is believed to reduce depression.
- Estrogen: primarily present in women, estrogen regulates the menstrual cycle. It also increases sexual desire. For men, it plays a role in testosterone regulation.
- Noradrenalin: it stimulates the body for physical action.
- Vasopressin: it plays a role in sexual stimulation and pair bonding.
- Prolactin triggers breast milk production in women, as well as breast growth. The hormone also plays a role in the menstrual cycle. For men, prolactin plays a role in sperm production.
When you have no orgasm, your brain has to make do without these hormones. It can be tough.
In a way, the flatline is a vicious circle.
Until, at last, the body “wakes up” and gets out of the flatline.
3. The Nofap Benefits (God Mode)
The God Mode is the last step in your nofap journey. It’s also a sign that your brain has gotten rid of your porn addiction.
It happens when:
- You no longer see girls as sex objects but as human beings
- Your horniness is back – with a kick
- You overflow with energy
- You can’t stop thinking about sex
- You are almost capable of giving yourself an orgasm simply by imagining an intercourse
- Your balls are about to explode
- You are super social
- You feel sharp and focused
- You have better self-esteem
These are only a few of the nofap advantages I have experienced.
Many men experience a boost of testosterone which changes their appearance (enlarging the jaw for example) and makes them more attractive.
Not gonna lie, nofap’s God Mode is nice!
It won’t last forever though.
When you don’t voluntarily ejaculate, your body does it for you (it’s called a wet dream).
The effects of God Mode stop after a wet dream, but will come back if you stick to your nofap.
A wet dream is a good thing. Going too long without sex or orgasm will make you obsessed with it, and you’ll spend your days fantasizing about it.
I believe that the God Mode exists not so you can be motivated to hit the gym or build a business, but because you need all of your energy to find a girl to have sex with as soon as possible.
If you don’t, your body will shut down and self-destroy.
Why?
Here’s my theory.
The purpose of a species is to reproduce and become stronger over time. This is why Nature disproportionally favors those at the top of the hierarchy by giving them more power, more money, more partners, etc, while those at the bottom die with nothing.
In the end, it makes the species stronger (Natural Selection).
Someone who isn’t having sex at all, from an evolutionary perspective, will appear as being at the bottom of the hierarchy.
In the long-term, not ejaculating is an invitation for your body to “kill you.”
The same thing exists for women.
Did you ever hear about nun’s disease?
Back when there were still nuns, doctors noticed that they were at a much higher risk of developing breast cancer than married women.
Why is that?
At every menstrual cycle, breast cells divide to make the breasts bigger because the girl’s body expects to be impregnated (which explains why women’s breasts evolve in size throughout the month).
When the girl gets pregnant, this cycle stops for 9 months, the length of the pregnancy.
Women that don’t have kids have their breasts cells dividing and multiplying every month with no interruption.
In case there are some cancerous cells in the breasts, the monthly divide helps them multiply quicker, which makes the cancer progress faster.
Now, this mechanism isn’t the interesting part. What is interesting is the underlying meaning. Women that don’t have kids have their bodies eventually turning against them.
It’s not so nice to read, but it’s nonetheless true.
6. Is Nofap Healthy?
Nofap itself isn’t unhealthy. What is unhealthy is not ejaculating for too long, as we stated above.
Keep in mind that no serious long-term studies about the impact of nofap on health have been undertaken, and that much about this topic is pure speculation.
But what we do know for sure is that porn is unhealthy.
If it takes nofap to break your porn addiction, so be it.
Pro tip: if you want to know the best way of doing something, try to imagine how cavemen would do it.
Were the cavemen watching porn? No.
Were they having sex often? Likely.
Masturbating? Probably yes, but not ten times a day.
My third nofap experience ended up with a complete loss of appetite (I wasn’t eating anymore) and a distressed mind, so I stopped.
Mind that I was also doing daily emotional releases with stretching, going to the gym four times a week, and that all of these things might have put too much stress on my body.
Bottom line: nofap is a tool, not an end in itself.
Don’t be a nofap maximalist.
If it’s making your life unbearable, stop it.
7. My Experiences With Nofap
I did nofap countless times and failed for various reasons. But I managed to do it twice fully. Once for 101 days, and once for 165 days. And then once for 42 days, but it cannot be considered success as a successful nofap lasts 90 days.
1. My First Nofap Experience
My first nofap experience happened after I read Your Brain on Porn written by Gary Wilson. I realized I was addicted to porn and that it negatively impacted my life, so I aimed at not fapping for 100 days.
The timeline went like this.
- 3rd of January 2016: first day
The first week was hard. I became horny and had to fight with myself not to fap. I avoided spending time in my bedroom as much as possible not to be tempted. And I smoked weed to fall asleep not to rely on fapping.
Since I never fapped without porn, not watching porn actually helped not fapping. The goals were supporting each other.
The initial period culminated with a wet dream.
- 24th day: wet dream
- 25th day: flatline
I then entered the flatline in what was a roller-coaster of emotions.
Mind that at the time, I was depressed, did not exercise, ate unhealthy food, did not have a purpose, almost no friends, etc. My emotions weren’t influenced by the nofap, but certainly were amplified by it.
Emotions are influenced by so many different things that it would be unscientific to attribute their cause to one thing only.
- 77th day: out of the flatline and start to have crazy energy and focus
I got out of the flatline quickly and started experiencing crazy energy and focus.
I was restless. I cut down my study time by three and got higher grades.
I could focus better, understood things faster, and my mind was clear and constantly racing. I probably gained 10-15 IQ points thanks to nofap.
These mental perks never left me afterward.
- 87th day: wet dream
The rest of the days were spent having extra-high energy. I was talking to random people on campus, went out alone to clubs and bars to talk to girls, and had a lot of energy.
- 101st day: end of the nofap
I couldn’t take it anymore and burst.
This first nofap is the one that has had the biggest impact on me. No other nofaps were as impactful in comparison.
2. My Second Nofap Experience
I did the second nofap for two reasons. First, I was tired due to my carnivore diet and I thought nofap would help me have more energy. Second, I wanted to resolve my death grip syndrome.
What is the death grip syndrome?
The death grip syndrome happens when you have masturbated so often that the nerves responsible to make you feel pleasure have lost their sensitivity. As a result, you need to squeeze your penis in your hand ever harder to properly experience some stimulation.
The more you squeeze, the less sensitive the nerves get, the more you need to squeeze, the less sensitive the nerves get…in a never-ending cycle.
When you suffer from the death grip syndrome, a vagina does not provide enough constrictions for you to orgasm. You become incapable of coming – worse, you are incapable of experiencing pleasure during sex.
This leads to a whole lot of psychological issues. Your girlfriend get stressed because she thinks she isn’t attractive enough for you, you start to wonder whether you’re really attracted to her… This can lead to breaking up.
For example, my own death-grip syndrome was so strong at some point that I had to squeeze it so hard that it hurt me!
If this is your case, I’m begging you, stop jerking off now.
The only way to resolve your death grip syndrome is to stop masturbating and let the nerves rebuild themselves.
In the most extreme cases, it may take up to 6 months of not touching your verge to feel pleasure again during sex.
Protip: Use lube when masturbating. There’s always some sort of liquid involved when you’re having sex with someone anyway, so we can reasonably assume that jerking off “dry” isn’t a good thing to do.
Here’s the timeline of my second nofap.
- 4th of May 2020: first nofap day
- 50th day: wet dream
- 70th day: subtle boost in creative energy
- 80th day: wet dream
- 135th day: extreme horniness, I cannot think of anything else but sex.
- 165th day: end of the nofap
As you can see, this nofap was similar to the first one, except that it took longer for everything to happen (likely because I was older and my addiction to porn was worse).
The first wet dream happened after a longer period of time, the flatline was longer, etc.
It also made me extremely horny.
3. My Third Nofap Experience
My third nofap experience was weird.
For the first 30 days, I didn’t have any problems.
After that, I began to eat less and less. I was tired, and I was constantly thinking about sex.
After two days of not eating at all, I decided to break the nofap.
I later found out that the loss of hunger was due to the daily stretching for emotional release that I was doing.
I learned that nofap put a heavy toll on your body.
Don’t make it harder for yourself by adding other stuff on top when you’re on nofap.