100 Days.
Jun 18, 2021 — Reyan Chaudhry
WARNING: EXTREME CRINGE, read at your own discretion. I leave this post here simply for my future self to periodically come back when he is in need of motivation and genuinely contemplate shooting himself until he decides to move on with his life.
As the MOUNTAIN MAN once said:
me ’n my issues we do just fine
livin’ and learnin’ we’ll be alright
It’s 06/18/2021, we’ve just finished 100 days of NoFap, 100 days of not (intentionally lmao) watching any porn, 100 days of not gaming, 100 days of dodging degeneracy, 100 days of cold showers, 100 days of complete isolation from social media.
100 days of literal hell on earth.
Here’s what I have to say about it.
Table of contents
Origin Story
“Kill your demons before you become one.”
What started me on this journey was a heightened self-awareness of my dependencies and addictions around late 2020. I began to realize how hopeless my daily actions were and wanted to change my life for the better. I was nihilistic, lonely, and constantly returning to filthy pleasures in order to feel a sense of meaning in my life. I was also caught in a years long cycle of obsessive competitive gaming, which may have once been fueled by passion but had slowly degenerated into an analogous abusive relationship I would return to in order to pretend like I was taking out my anger on something.
Although I rarely ever used many social media platforms, I could easily notice that my time on reddit, YouTube, and 4chan was slowly but surely annihilating my attention span and assimilating me into outrage culture. I was constantly getting genuinely mad at stupid shit that had no affect on me and spending hours at a time watching literally nothing on YouTube. Don’t even get me started on political content, that shit messed me up in too many ways to even talk about here.
Around new years’ I had mustered up enough testosterone (and failed NoFap streaks) to give changing my life a genuine shot. Along with a couple friends of mine I started streaking for far longer and—eventually—quit porn. I also lumped
- Taking Cold(er) showers
- Quitting competitive games
- More exercise andkearly morning runs
- A better sleep schedule
- Removal of high-cholesterol and generally unhealthy food from my diet
- Host-blocking all explicit and social media sites
into the mix along with NoFap for good measure.
General Effects
Safe to say these last few months have almost completely flipped my life on end, thus I believe it’s best to organize this section into pros and cons:
Pros
I’d say these overwhelmingly outweigh the costs, regardless of their price on sleep time or my will to live; they include, but are not limited to:
- Tremendous boost in ability to focus
- Much more energy throughout the day
- Increased strength and stamina
- Beard
- Generally increased satisfaction with the little things
- Much less guilt
-
Irresistibility to females
(untested)
And last, but definitely not least: motivation to actually get around to doing the stuff I’ve wanted to for years:
I’ve learned C (and taken a decent shot at just about every relevant programming language there is), become much better at shell scripting, perfected my workflow, finally got into graphic design and—admittedly garbage— photography, spent time learning deeply about the things that will matter in life (plus any tech-related topic I can get my grease hands on), become a better son, brother, and friend (hopefully), and effectively tripled the amount of exercise I do.
It’s hard for me to overstate or really even describe how that feels, but it’s made an unimaginable impact on literally every aspect of my life knowing that I’m just that much closer to my ideal self every day.
Cons
While these are not nearly as numerous, I still feel they should be mentioned:
- Increased time to fall sleep
- Perceived (though not proven) reduction in sleep quality
- Sometimes too much energy
- More time spent trying not to fap as opposed to not fapping
I could complain a lot here, but I won’t since my name isn’t Eshah and I knew from the start that this wouldn’t have been easy. We move on as always.
NoFap
Arguably the most important piece of this puzzle, and the one with the most significant impact, my journey with NoFap has been a long and difficult struggle. I guess I have myself to blame for a part of it. Getting addicted to not-so-pleasant genres of porn and using it as an escape for easily solveable real life problems was probably not the best decision on my part, but one that I made anyway.
There are many “NoFap timelines” out there on the internet, so I’ve decided to share mine here as well:
0-6 days
Easily the most difficult of all NoFap stages, rife with post-nut clarity and existential dread. It’s absolutely crucial that you don’t relapse during these days, no matter WHAT. You’ll find yourself trapped in a destructive cycle before you even know it, and trust me those aren’t easy to get out of.
7-20 days
This is when testosterone production really clicks in. You start feeling an immediate (and strong) surge of energy and find yourself much more productive. Urges come less often here but are still prevalent. By far the most motivating stage and one that I really hoped would last longer.
20-30 days
The “blue balls” period. Constant yet only slightly irritating testicular pain. The energy from the last stage also seems to wear out around this time, and urges return with reinforcement.
30-75 days
This is where you need to stay strong my friend. Your motivation will start running low and most perceived effects will have faded away. Although you may find your days entering back into a lifeless state, it’s important that you not give up. For me personally the entirety of this stage happened during Ramadan, so I had pure fear and mental fog on my side.
75+ days
The effervescent flatline, and the final stage of NoFap. Here you will find yourself somewhat attuned to the frustrations of daily life, and spending more time being productive. You will lose quite a lot of sleep and find it hard at times to focus on even the most mundane things.
Urges are still there but the fear of having to go 75 days of NoFap again to regain your streak keeps you in a snowball-effect like state.
Legend says the man stuck in this stage is there perpetually due to this.
NoGaming
Quitting gaming was something I had been planning for quite a while already, so leaving was mostly just like ditching one of my favourite foods as opposed to cold-turkeying a potent drug. I had thousands of hours of playtime on various games already and the effect on my wallet was hardly inconspicuous, there was just far more bad than good about the whole ordeal. Furthermore, my obsessive tendencies led me to spending way more time practicing and stressing over small things than I would’ve liked; my anger issues also got a rent free apartment in my brain as a result of this.
All in all, I had better things to do with my time, so I stopped. I regretted it for a while but have come to enjoy the freedom that comes with it, and don’t plan on making any changes in this regard anytime soon.
I will mention, however, that it is very important to find something else to substitute in the time-space left when you quite gaming, It’s easy to just watch YouTube or do something just as unproductive in that time, and there is really no benefit to that. I recommend trying to learn things or exercising, calisthenics is a good way to start the latter: it has pretty noticeable short term results, requires little or no equipment, and is progressive and thus can be done regardless of physical state.
NoMedia
Admittedly a more personal problem, but an obsession with the opinions of others plus immense confirmation bias led me to waste countless hours on 4chan and YouTube filling my brain with the same garbage time and time again.
In general, there’s literally nothing good about any social media site, at least not anything good enough to counteract the negative effects on self esteem and your attention span, not to mention the fuel it gives to insecurities.
The more you can avoid it, the better.
Inspiration and Further Reading
Most of my inspiration comes from the following YouTubers:
In terms of books, I’ll have to get back to you on that later with good links
Final Thoughts
Anything I wanted to write here just sounds insanely cringe upon a second thought. I guess just never give up and always remember how retarded you are in comparison the guy she tells you not to worry about.
