Nofap Depression: The Dark Side of Nofap that Everyone Hides.
Nofap depression is real, and almost everyone experiences it in their journey in nofap.
But, what is nofap depression?
Also, what is the dark side of nofap that everyone hides?
Is it something we need to worry about?
The answer is ‘No.’
This article will explain what nofap depression is and how it is a good thing instead of being worried about it.
Moreover, I will explain how to deal with it.
Let’s begin…
What is Nofap Depression?
Nofap depression is nothing but a period of your nofap journey where you will feel depressed for specific days.
You will be unable to produce any results you expected to do in this stage before starting your journey.
This will result in frustration and sadness simultaneously, and doubts will start to creep inside your mind.
Perhaps, nofap is fake, and whatever you read in those articles and internet posts does not apply to you.
You may also say, nofap is not working because it’s been a long time since you are in nofap, and instead of experiencing all the amazing benefits you read, now you are miserable, numb, unproductive, and sad.
Your moods will change in an instant.
Sometimes, you will become over-excited, and sometimes you will burst out crying for no reason.
But, most of the time, you will feel this heavy burden on your shoulder, which will feel like a shroud on your happiness.
For some reason, you will not feel like smiling; you don’t want to talk to anyone, you are not interested in your work, etc.
You are not sad, you are not happy, but you are in a state where nothing is moving.
Everything is slow, and your future seems dark.
You cannot be optimistic because there is no hope inside you left that this nofap will work.
One single thing can change your life? Nah, impossible.
This hopeless future will create negative thoughts in your head. Why did it all happen?
Why did it happen to you?
Why is God punishing you?
Once you wake up in the morning, you will keep lying in bed for a long time and think, what’s the point of getting up?
Every day is the same.
Nofap depression is difficult to explain because this is something you will understand on your own once you experience it.
The best way to define nofap depression is the bright light inside you starts to lose its power, and your inner world starts to grow darker for a certain period.
Once it is dark, it becomes tough to see.
Your cognitive functions seem to impair.
But the good news is, nofap depression is nothing but a withdrawal symptom, and it is temporary.
Nofap Depression vs Nofap Flatline
Most of us get confused between Nofap depression and Nofap flatline.
Both may seem similar to many, but there are differences between the two.
Nofap flatline is also a period in our nofap journey where we become unproductive, become emotionally numb, feel fatigued, and the future seems dark.
Still, it is not the same as nofap depression.
In a nofap flatline, our emotions become flat for a certain period of time.
In this period, we become emotionally numb.
There is no happiness; also, there is no sadness, unlike the nofap depression.
We are not interested in anything in nofap flatline, not even pornography, but in nofap depression, we want to view porn more because this is how our brain is linked before.
In the past, whenever we were sad or stressed, we viewed pornography.
Our brain has linked that activity, and now once we are stressed or sad, our brain says, “Hey, go and watch some porn. That will make you feel better.”
If we are unaware -and most of us live unconsciously- we do exactly as our subconscious brain tells us to do.
We live on impulses.
On the other hand, if you live a conscious life, your true self will say, ‘wait, that’s not the solution. Watching pornography will not solve your problem. It will increase more.”
A conscious person starts taking his stand against his impulsiveness.
If you want to know more about nofap flatline, you can go to the below link:
Why is there nofap depression if nofap is a journey for self-improvement?
Life is like demand and supply.
If you get a lot of supply of pleasure without paying anything, the payments keep getting accumulated.
A little philosophy is required to understand this concept.
You got a lot of supply of pleasure from pornography, but you never paid for it.
I am not talking about money.
I am talking about ‘meeting the demands of reality.’
Once you meet the demands of reality, you make your payment for happiness.
Perhaps, the reality demands you to do your work or solve the problems that you are facing.
Once you start meeting the demands of reality, you start earning happiness.
While watching porn can give you a lot of pleasure, but you never pay the payments.
It’s like parking tickets. It keeps getting more over time.
Once you decide to make the payments, the overdue becomes enormous, something like nofap depression.
But, What is the science behind your nofap depression?
Dopamine has a huge role in our motivation and pleasure.
Dopamine surges in expectation of a reward, and if the reward is variable, it spikes even more.
Ordering pizza gives you a spike in your dopamine level.
The happy good feeling you feel while waiting for the delivery boy is nothing but the spike of your dopamine level.
In this case, the reward is fixed, pizza, but still, there will be a dopamine spike.
Again, if the reward is variable, like in social media or in video games, where you don’t know what you will get, the excitement level doubles.
Now, dopamine is not bad. Without dopamine, there is no joy in living.
You will be a lifeless machine without it.
But, what causes the problem is the abnormal spike in our dopamine level.
Abnormal spikes occur from abnormal activities like injecting yourself with cocaine, creating a habit of watching pornography, playing excessive video games, etc.
Once you watch pornography for the first time, you get that hit of high dopamine. It makes you feel good, and your brain, whose primary purpose is survival, registers this activity as important because it made you feel extremely good.
Now, our creative mind connects extreme pleasure with pain, boredom, sadness, frustration, etc.
So, next time whenever you are in pain or sad, you watch pornography because it made you feel good before. A coping mechanism to avoid the uncomfortable feeling.
You keep repeating this process until it converts into a craving.
You constantly have this urge, this itchy feeling that you have to watch pornography for no reason, and you do watch everyday.
Again, if you don’t watch, you experience the low, you feel bad because you are now used to this high dopamine hit.
If you don’t receive this hit, you feel depressed, and it seems like something is wrong with the world.
The below GIF can help you understand the explanation…
This craving, sooner than you can think, becomes your compulsive behavior and this compulsive behavior is nothing but your addiction.
Once you go into nofap, the chase for the high stops, and the dopamine level falls down. Once it is down, you feel nofap depression.
There will be multiple nofap depression in your journey before it balances back.
A pornography addict may take 12-18 months to balance their dopamine level back to normal.
This is why you experience multiple nofap depression in your journey.
It is not a one-time thing, but of course, the initial depression will be much more severe than the others.
How long does nofap depression last?
There is no correct answer for that.
It varies from person to person, and some don’t experience nofap depression or experience nofap flatline at all.
It basically depends on the history of your pornography addiction.
Since how many years you were viewing pornography, and what was your frequency of watching!
Usually, most of us have a history of 12-18 years of pornography viewing.
This massively rewires our brain for chasing the high and developing other compulsive behavior.
We become impatient and want everything quickly and easily.
We never learn delayed gratification, which is an essential quality for a happy life.
Instead, we want good things without putting in effort and hard work.
We constantly have this rush in our brain that we cannot wait; we cannot have patience because we need to feel good; we need to be comfortable as soon as possible.
Once we pause for a moment and observe this rush, we come to know that there is nothing important that we are going to miss, and feeling uncomfortable is okay, and you can take it.
This is what makes you strong.
So, to answer how long nofap depression lasts- I will say it will be like surfing in the wave.
It will come and go for years. Sometimes it will be 10 days, sometimes 1 day, or maybe a month.
But, eventually, it will go away because nofap depression is nothing but a withdrawal symptom.
Mistakes we make in Nofap Depression
The biggest mistake we make in nofap depression is becoming impatient.
We think that nofap is not working and we were better before. At least, we were happy before this nofap journey.
Self-doubts start to creep into our heads.
Our habitual brain starts to convince ourselves that nofap is no good and we are sacrificing our pleasure for no good reasons.
Whatever you read in the articles, in the forums, or watched in the videos is fake.
Everyone is playing a massive conspiracy against you.
So, let’s go back to our normal life and stop this madness, stop this torture because this will do no good to you.
This is perfectly normal to have self-doubts and negative thoughts in your brain in nofap depression.
Your subconscious brain is not working against your best interest.
No, it wants the best for you, but the only difference is, it doesn’t know what a good or bad activity is.
It only knows what activity will make you feel good.
It cannot comprehend the delayed result or gratification because it is not trained that way.
The second mistake we make is to divert our minds to other compulsive activities to cope with this nofap depression.
Now, I am not saying to become extremely strict with your impulsive control.
Nope, that will harm even more than doing any good.
I am not saying to stop playing video games, eating junk foods, or spending money on online shopping.
I am also not saying to continue these self-destructive behaviors.
What I am saying is to focus on the emotion of nofap depression.
You will feel low, sad, and tired, but instead of diverting your mind to other activities -just to feel good temporarily- try to feel this low and sadness.
Because it is okay to feel sad, it is okay to feel depressed, and experiencing this emotion with a calm and focused mind will make you stronger.
You can only solve a problem by facing the problem, not running away from it.
What you should do in the Nofap Depression?
First, you should keep in mind that nofap depression is temporary and only a withdrawal symptom.
This feeling of worthlessness, nobody loves you anymore, the world is meaningless, etc., is nothing but the false messages your mind gives to you because it is experiencing pain.
Your conscious brain knows that this pain is good; you are just paying the price.
You are transforming yourself into a new self. You are in the process of metamorphosis.
Any transformation is painful, and nofap depression is no different.
Second, you have to be patient in nofap depression.
Getting impatient in nofap depression is common, and there is nothing to feel bad about.
If you can’t do your work because you don’t feel like working and also if you have to force yourself to do your favorite thing, don’t get impatient.
In nofap depression, it is challenging to carry on any task you liked before.
Just leave your emotions on their own and wait for them to balance back to normal.
There is nothing else you can do before your brain chemicals come to normal again.
Forcing yourself to do something will hurt more than anything.
Third, mindfulness meditation.
Mindfulness mediation has changed my life, and it is one of my favorite things in my schedule.
I am not the right guy to explain mindfulness mediation to you, but still, I will try to explain.
Mindfulness mediation is the awareness of moment to moment of our life, without any biased judgment.
You just know that you are there, alive, at this moment.
In mindfulness mediation, you don’t have to change anything; focus on anything because everything is already perfect.
You just need to observe.
I know these words will be challenging to understand for some who never did mediation in the right way.
Still, once you start to go deep in mindfulness mediation, you will develop patience, internal happiness, and progress in any aspect of your life.
The best book I came so far in mindfulness mediation is Full Catastrophe Living by Jon Kabat-Zinn.
There are other books on mindfulness meditation that I will mention in the ‘book recommendation’ sector.
Mindfulness meditation helped me quit most of my addictive behaviors, like pornography addiction and playing excessive video games.
I hope it will help you too.
Conclusion
Sometimes knowing the cause of your problem can solve half of your issues without doing anything.
This article represents what nofap depression can do to you and how this is just a withdrawal symptom and nothing else.
If you have lost your spark after starting the nofap journey, then there is nothing to worry about because this is just the silence before the storm.
In this case, the storm is your advancement in your life and your rapid character growth.
Be patient in nofap depression and let nature take its course.
Once it is over, don’t expect it will never return.
It will, but eventually, it will go away for good.
Best
Ahbab
