You’ve decided to quit fapping(masturbating), That’s great. But it’s not that easy, you’re gonna have to go through masturbation withdrawal before you can kick this habit/addiction out of your life.
In this article, we’re gonna discuss what is masturbation withdrawal, the science behind it, some common masturbation withdrawal symptoms and how to deal with them, how long they’re gonna last, and everything else you need to know about it.
What is Masturbation Withdrawal?
Withdrawal is the combination of physical and mental effects that a person experiences after they stop using or reduce their intake of a substance such as alcohol and recreational drugs, or behaviors such as watching porn, masturbation, etc.
Substances and behaviors both qualify for addiction. You can get addicted to a substance or a behavior.
Masturbation is a behavior that you can get addicted to. Masturbation withdrawal refers to all the physical and mental effects you face when you stop this behavior.
Science Behind Masturbation Withdrawal
The science behind masturbation withdrawal is the same as the withdrawal of any other behavioral or substance addiction.
Your mind and body resist change. When you give up any high-dopamine releasing substance or behavior, your brain gets starved of dopamine and will force you to indulge in that activity.
When you don’t get that dose of dopamine, you’ll feel extremely uneasy and feel like nothing is pleasurable.
Withdrawal symptoms are the reason why it is so hard to quit an addictive behavior.
If you feel withdrawal symptoms after giving up masturbation, it symbolizes you were addicted to it and it was a compulsive behavior.
To know how to quit masturbation addiction, CHECK THIS OUT.
Masturbation Withdrawal Symptoms
1. Mood Swings
This is the most common withdrawal symptom. Almost everyone goes through it.
Mood swings refer to rapid changes in mood. You may feel grumpy one minute and happy the next.
You may feel happy one minute, sad the second, anxious the next. This way you may feel different emotions in a short period of time.
This can be very frustrating. This may lead you to relapse. Some people give up and masturbate to not feel the mood swings.
If you were addicted to masturbation or had a compulsion to masturbate, you probably did it to suppress your bad emotions. So, you never learned to process and deal with bad emotions/feelings.
Now that you’ve given up masturbation, you’re gonna feel all the emotions in a short period of time. You’re gonna get mood swings.
It’s important that you don’t give in to your mood swings and relapse.
You need to be consciously aware of your mood swings. Whenever mood swings hit, remind yourself that it is a withdrawal symptom and face those emotions.
2. Sadness or Depression
This is also a common withdrawal symptom, not just for masturbation but for any substance or behavior addiction.
When you give up masturbation, you’re depriving your brain of a huge source of dopamine.
After years of getting a huge dose of dopamine through masturbation, your dopamine receptors have become de-sensitized, meaning the dopamine released by other pleasurable activities(working out, socializing, achieving a goal) is not enough to give you pleasure.
This is because the dopamine released by masturbation is A LOT more than those activities. That’s why masturbation feels so pleasurable/enjoyable.
When you give up masturbation, nothing will feel pleasurable/enjoyable. Since you’re not getting enough dopamine to give you pleasure, you’ll feel sad and depressed most of the time.
It may sometimes feel like you need to go back to your old habit of masturbation to feel pleasure. But, this is only temporary.
You need to refrain from masturbation for enough time to make your dopamine receptors sensitive again, so your brain can feel pleasure with small things in life.
3. Anxiety
Feeling socially anxious is also a withdrawal symptom of masturbation.
You may get anxious around people or may try to isolate yourself. You may not feel like talking to people.
If you feel anxiety after giving up masturbation, you need to remind yourself that you’re going through the withdrawals.
It’s important that you don’t isolate yourself and keep socializing.
4. Irritability
Irritability is a feeling of agitation. When you’re irritable, you’re likely to become frustrated or upset easily.
You may find yourself getting irritated and angry even at the smallest of things. You may feel grumpy without a valid reason.
People’s smallest little comment pisses you off and you actively look to confront people.
If you find yourself irritable, it’s important to calm yourself and not indulge in an unnecessary argument or confrontation with people.
It’s best to avoid talking to people when you’re feeling irritable and wait for that feeling to pass on.
The feeling of irritability usually doesn’t last long. You may also get them in cycles.
5. Insomnia & Other Sleep Difficulties
Dealing with insomnia and having sleep difficulties is also a common withdrawal symptom of masturbation.
Insomnia is a sleep disorder in which you have trouble falling and/or staying asleep.
If you find yourself not being able to fall asleep even after laying in bed for hours or waking up frequently during the night, it’s a symptom of insomnia.
Having insomnia due to the withdrawals of masturbation is not permanent.
It’s important to note here that masturbation withdrawal is just one of the many causes of insomnia.
If you were a compulsive masturbator, you probably used masturbation to put yourself to sleep when you naturally couldn’t.
Now that you’ve given up masturbation, It’s easy to get frustrated and think about masturbating to put yourself to sleep. But it’s important that you don’t.
6. Pornographic Flashbacks
If you were a compulsive masturbator, you probably took the help of porn to masturbate. Porn and masturbation go hand-in-hand.
When you give up masturbation, you’re gonna have to give up porn too, otherwise, it’s gonna get a lot difficult.
Watching porn and relying on your will-power to not masturbate is a recipe for disaster. Sooner or later you’re gonna give up and masturbate.
You’re gonna get flashbacks from porn videos that you used to jerk-off and it may trigger you.
But you need to control yourself. As soon as the porn flashbacks come to your mind, start thinking about something different. Initially, it’s gonna be difficult but with the time you’re gonna get better.
If you keep thinking about those pornographic scenes, you may get horny and think about masturbating. The longer you keep thinking about porn scenes, the higher the chances that you’ll relapse.
Even if you rarely or never used porn to masturbate, you’re still gonna get flashbacks from the imaginations you used to masturbate.
7. Huge Urges to Masturbate
You’re gonna get a lot of urges to masturbate when you give up masturbation, just like any other addiction.
Before giving up masturbation, you probably didn’t get as many urges because you didn’t wait for urges to masturbate.
Now that you’ve given up masturbation which was a huge source of dopamine, your brain will give you a lot of urges so it can get its dose of dopamine.
It’s hard to resist those urges, especially during the initial days of giving up masturbation. Even if you fail, keep trying because masturbation has a lot of harmful effects on your brain and body.
Giving up PMO(porn, masturbation, orgasm) is known as nofap. NoFap has a lot of benefits.
It’s unlikely that you’ll be able to give up masturbation forever on your first try. You’re probably gonna relapse a lot of times. The key is to keep trying until you succeed.
Some tips to combat urges are push-ups and cold showers. Whenever you feel the urge to masturbate, drop on the floor and start doing push-ups until you run out of breath. You’ll find that urges disappear after you’re done.
A cold shower is another good way to combat urges. Whenever you feel urges, go to the bathroom, take your clothes off and hop into a cold shower. It’ll make you uncomfortable and you’ll be too uncomfortable to think about masturbating.
Push-ups and cold showers are instant and quick ways to combat urges.
8. Little or No Libido(Flatline)
During your rebooting process, you’re gonna go through a period of no libido, also known as a flatline.
You won’t be sexually aroused by anything. It’ll feel like you’ve lost all your sexual desires and life will feel monotonous.
If that happens, know that you’re going through a flatline and it’s only temporary.
It’s easy to think that you’ve lost your sexual desires and you may think about masturbating just to check whether you still can get hard and ejaculate or not.
It’s necessary that you don’t relapse during the flatline because you are very close to beating this addiction. Flatline is a symptom of recovery, it means your brain is rewiring to your new lifestyle.
Flatline is only temporary and will end. But that does not mean that once the flatline is over you can’t relapse. You’re still gonna have to be careful because urges will always gonna be there.
How long the flatline lasts depends on how addicted you were. The more addicted you were to masturbation, the longer it’s gonna last. It’s different for everyone.
Some people go through flatline for a week, some for 2 weeks, and some for months.
Check out the things that you can do during flatline to not relapse by CLICKING HERE.
How Long The Withdrawal Symptoms Gonna Last?
Now that you’ve understood the science behind withdrawals and common masturbation withdrawal symptoms, you might be wondering for how long you’re gonna go through the withdrawals.
The good news is that masturbation withdrawals are only temporary, just like any other addiction withdrawals.
The duration and severity of masturbation withdrawal depends on the following factors:-
- How addicted you were to masturbation
- How frequently did you masturbate
- Did you masturbate with porn or imaginations
- For how long you were addicted to it
- How old/young you were when you got addicted to it
Depending on the above-mentioned factors, the duration of masturbation withdrawal symptoms is different for everyone.
If you were a highly frequent masturbator(multiple times a day) or masturbated with porn, it’s gonna take you longer than someone who rarely masturbated using only imaginations.
Also, if you got addicted to it at a very young age and were addicted to it for many years, you’re gonna go through the withdrawals longer than someone who got addicted to it at a later age and was addicted to it for a shorter period of time.
The more addicted you were to masturbation, the severe the withdrawal symptoms gonna be.
Withdrawals Are a Sign of Recovery
If you’ve given up masturbation and are going through withdrawals, don’t be sad, be happy.
Going through masturbation Withdrawal means you’re rebooting and your brain is rewiring. Your dopamine receptors are getting sensitized again. It’s a slow process but it’s worth going through the withdrawals.
As I’ve said before, the duration of the withdrawals depends on the individual but it’s gonna end that’s for sure.
How to Deal With The Withdrawals
1. Get Educated
This is the best thing you can do to combat withdrawals.
If you’re aware of the different withdrawal symptoms you’re gonna get after quitting masturbation, you’re gonna be better prepared for them.
If you don’t even know that the thing you’re going through is a masturbation withdrawal symptom, you’re more likely to relapse.
You can go to different online nofap forums to see what withdrawal symptoms people went through/are going through and how they are dealing with them.
Nofap forum on Reddit, r/nofap is the most popular and biggest forum out there on the topic. Reboot Nation and forum.nofap.com are also good.
You can learn from other people what steps they’re taking to quit masturbation and you can do the same.
On Online nofap forums, people share about their struggles with fapping and what are they doing to overcome this addiction.
There will also be many people who have defeated this addiction and they share what steps they took to overcome masturbation addiction.
If you’re serious about quitting masturbation, get yourself educated.
2. Embrace the Withdrawal Symptoms
This might not sound like good advice at first, but if instead of running away from the withdrawal symptoms you embrace it, it’s gonna get a lot easier to go through it.
Instead of wishing that you didn’t have to go through it, work on accepting them and making sure that they don’t make you relapse.
3. Persist
It all comes down to one word, persist.
If you were a compulsive masturbator, you must go through the withdrawals before you can beat this addiction.
Think of the withdrawals as a test that you must pass in order to kick masturbation out of your life.
Summary
Here are the 8 common masturbation withdrawal symptoms:-
- Mood swings
- Sadness or Depression
- Anxiety
- Irritability
- Insomnia & other sleep difficulties
- Pornographic Flashbacks
- Huge Urges to Masturbate
- Little or No Libido(Flatline)
The duration and severity of masturbation withdrawal depends on the following factors:-
- How addicted you were to masturbation
- How frequently did you masturbate
- Did you masturbate with porn or imaginations
- For how long you were addicted to it
- How old/young you were when you got addicted to it
If you’ve given up masturbation and are going through the withdrawals, don’t be sad, be happy about it because withdrawals are a sign of recovery.
Going through masturbation Withdrawal means you’re rebooting and your brain is rewiring. Your dopamine receptors are getting sensitized again. It’s a slow process but kicking masturbation out of your life is worth going through the withdrawals.
Ways to deal with masturbation withdrawals:-
- Get Educated
- Embrace the Withdrawal Symptoms
- Persist
