How To Recover Fast From A NoFap / Porn Relapse?
A lot of people want to know how to recover faster from a NoFap relapse.
Let's start by making it clear that in this article, by saying NoFap relapse, I now mean a relapse where you've actively been trying to stay away from porn and now you just had a setback, fapping to some online adult content.
So we are not talking about releasing your seed here. We are talking about porn.
It's very important to distinguish between the two as ejaculations are normal and does not harm your brain at all. But too much online porn can actually do so, because today's online porn is hyper stimulating.
Today's online porn is a supernormal stimulus….
Today's online pornography is what biologist would call a “supernormal stimulus”.
A supernormal stimulis is an exaggerated version of what we've been evolved to respond to. It's something that is more stimulating than what can ever be found in nature.
For the brain, today's online porn is something that is more stimulating than what our dopamine systems came equipped with being able to handle.
For example: one of the effects porn can have on the reward system is that it can become desensitized, which basically means you get a numb pleasure response.
The biological process behind desensitization is a gradual downregulation of your dopamine receptors. I.e. you become less sensitive to whatever amount of dopamine you happen to have, at a given moment. I'm not going to get deeper into that right now, but I wanted to mention it briefly as it will help you understand why I have include the tips you are about to learn.
How to recover faster after a relapse…
I'm going to divide my tips on how to recover after a porn relapse into two parts…
- Part 1 What you can do to help speed up the brain recover (the above mentioned desensitization of your reward system)-
- Part 2 What you can do to in terms of strategies, tactics and mental tools that will help you in the moment, as well as help prevent further relapses.
Part 1 -How to recover after a NoFap relapse – The brain…
Instead of writing a wall of text here I recommend you watch the embedded video below.
It's a video I crated for my YouTube channel a while back, and it will give you several brain healthy tools and tips on how you can recover faster.
How to recover faster…
I hope you found the video informative.
If you did, consider subscribing to my YouTube channel by clicking here.
A short summary of the video…
- Physical exercise (particularly anaerobic exercise)
- CDP-Choline
- Cold showers
- Intermittent fasting
- Omega 3 fatty acids
- Meditation
- Dopamine fasting
Now, it's important to point out, just like I did in the video as well, that just by staying away from your addiction your brain will recover fine on its own. Even without you having to do much extra of the above mentioned points at all. Just as long as you don't keep hammering it with other forms of supernormal stimuli.
Other forms of supernormal stimuli that may hold you back…
Some other forms of supernormal stimuli that may hold you back if you do too much of them…
- Junk food
- Social media use
- Video games
- Gambling
- Alcohol / weed
- Other drugs
Part 2 How to recover after a porn relapse – The tools and tactics…
Let's continue with some practical steps you can do to both feel better right after a relapse as well as some things you can do to help prevent similar relapses from happening again.
Take a deep breath and calmly read them all.
Here we go…
Avoid binges, by fixing your mindset…
There is a big difference between having just one relapse here and there and letting a relapse turn into a several day binge fest.
After a relapse it's very normal for guys to start thinking something along the lines of “Oh man, I blew it…I might as well keep binging now since I'm back to zero.”
This is not a constructive mindset. In fact, it's destructive in so many ways.
First, if you want to count days, then that's fine, but know that the number you can see on your day counter is only keeping track of when you had your last relapse. That's it.
Adding more of a bad thing is never a good idea…
Second, the phrase “back to zero” is something you should be careful with, because there is no “zero” in terms of brain health. If something is bad for you, then more of it is obviously only going to be worse. So no matter if your relapse happened on day 65 or on day 7, there really is no “zero”.
This means you should not let the addiction fool you into thinking something like “Since I was only on day 6 when my relapse happened, I must surely now be back to zero now… and therefore I might as well keep watvhing porn this week and then start fresh on Monday”.
Again, there is no zero in terms of brain health (unless you're dead), and if you keep piling more relapses on top of the first one, then all you're doing is making yourself more unhealthy, no matter what number you see on your counter.
Try to adapt the following mindset when it comes to your relapses…
If you're going for a drive and you suddenly get a flat tire, would you then go…
…”Oh man, I blew it! Well…since one can't drive a car with a flat tire, I might as well destroy the rest of the tires now.”?
Well, of course you wouldn't.
That would be extremely stupid. But just because dopamine is involved with porn (it feels good), we tend to come up with all kinds of rationalizations…
…and we tend to believe them as well.
Again, if something is bad, then doing more of it makes no sense at all.
Immediately after a relapse, take one small step towards your goals…
After a relapse we often feel bad about ourselves and the last thing we want to do right then is something that takes a lot of effort. Our first instinct is to go for some junk food and wallow in self pity.
But the thing is, if you can just bring yourself to immediately go do something that's good for you, no matter how small the action is, you will feel so much better.
It can be things like…
- Taking a 1 minute long cold shower
- Going for a 15 minute run
- Writing just one paragraph on your blog
- Going to the gym
…or whatever, just as long as it is something that you know is good for you.
By doing something like this within the very first hour after a relapse it will help offset some of the bad feelings you have about yourself for relapsing, thus preventing a drop in self-esteem (which would only increase your risk of further relapses).
Forgive yourself…
No matter how seemingly stupid the relapse was -according to your own judgement- nothing gets better if you start beating yourself up about it.
In fact, there are even research showing how addicts who take a more understanding approach to relapses actually start relapsing less.
Now, don't twist my words here either….
This is not to say that you should start neglecting your reboot strategies and become way too careless with your rules. No no no! You should still be careful and take your reboot seriously, but IF a relapse happen then it serves no point in beating yourself up about it afterwards.
Make a post relapse report. This is important!
So now you know that being too hard on yourself after a relapse is something you should avoid.
What you can and should do, however, is the following: make a an after action report.
Or a “post relapse report”!
This is when you sit down with a pen and a piece of paper and write down how the relapse happened…
- What was the trigger?
- What were the steps that led to the relapse?
There are a couple of things to consider here. It is often the case that the the first steps leading up to a relapse actually starts way earlier than what we think. So, in your mind, try to go back to the very beginning of the day and replay it carefully.
- What emotions were you having?
- When do you think the first trigger hit?
- What mistakes did you do and what could you have done better?
- What can you do next time it happens in order to avoid a similar relapse?
The last two there are obviously super important, because just as long as you learn something from every relapse AND you're making adjustments accordingly, you are actually progressing.
Just as long as you learn from your relapses and adjust accordingly, you're making progress on your journey.
You can >>Download<< my FREE guide below to help you…
If you keep relapsing often, or even if you just relapse every now and then, I highly recommend you get my FREE quit porn guide by using this link right here.
It's an easy to reade guide that will instantly help your reboot and, again, I'm giving it away for free.
You can also check out my YouTube channel, Dopamine Focused Warriors here.
Thanks for reading and all the best on your NoFap journey!
-Scandinavian Bob