If you’re reading this article, you probably know what nofap is and you might even be practicing it. If you’re a part of the nofap community, you probably heard the term “edging”. In the article, I’m gonna discuss what nofap edging is, does edging count as a relapse, how edging affects your nofap progress and everything else you need to know about it.
What is NoFap Edging?
Edging means stimulating your genitals, with or without porn, for pleasure to reach orgasm without ejaculating.
In simple terms, it means stroking your penis to feel pleasure or to reach orgasm and stopping just before the ejaculation. You can do it with or without porn, they both count as edging.
Why Do People Indulge With Edging?
If you’re reading this article and follow a nofap lifestyle, you probably yourself have indulged with edging in the past. It’s common for beginner fapstronauts(people who follow nofap lifestyle) to indulge in edging to satisfy their sexual urges.
People indulge in edging in order to satisfy their sexual urges without wasting their semen and breaking their nofap streak.
In nofap, you’re not allowed to watch porn or masturbate. So some people take advantage of the loophole and try to please themselves by stimulating their genitals(stroking their penis) without ejaculating because if you don’t ejaculate, it doesn’t count as masturbation.
People who indulge in edging often think that that as long as they don’t watch porn or masturbate, they’re fine and they’re recovering/rebooting. Or sometimes they know that edging is bad and it kills their progress, but they still do it because they can’t control their sexual cravings.
Does Edging Count as a Relapse?
In nofap, relapse is when you watch porn or masturbate, so technically if you’re able to do it successfully, then it doesn’t count as a relapse.
But, edging will kill your progress as much as a relapse with ejaculation. For a recovering PMO(porn, masturbation, orgasm) addict, edging is as damaging as relapsing with porn or masturbation.
That’s why I want you to consider edging as relapsing.
If you don’t consider it as a relapse, then you’ll keep doing it and will eventually relapse. You can successfully edge once, twice, or thrice, but sooner or later you’re gonna slip and relapse badly.
Even if you don’t, there’s no point doing it because edging kills your progress as much as watching porn or masturbating.
How Edging Affects Your Brain & Your Progress?
Neurons that wire together, fire together. If you have a compulsion to watch porn or masturbate, your brain has associated those activities with pleasure, because watching porn or masturbating releases a huge amount of dopamine.
Dopamine is a feel-good chemical that is released when you feel pleasure like eating tasty food, masturbating, having sex, accomplishing a big goal, etc.
A porn or masturbation addict’s brain has associated those activities with pleasure, that’s why it craves more of it. The severe the addiction, the more the cravings will be and the harder it will be to resist those urges/cravings. This is the science behind addiction.
To learn more about the science behind PMO addiction, CHECK THIS OUT.
The good news is that our brain is plastic(a phenomenon known as neuroplasticity). That means if you abstain from porn and masturbation for long enough, your brain will start de-associating those activities with pleasure.
That’s what fapstronauts do. They completely give up porn and masturbation. As a result, their brain starts de-associating those activities with pleasure and their cravings/urges to watch porn and masturbate decreases with time.
Ofcourse, this doesn’t happen overnight. This takes months and years and a lot of failures(relapses) in between.
That’s where the problem with edging comes. Your brain has associated masturbation with pleasure and it gives you cravings/urges to indulge with it. If you indulge in edging, your brain can’t de-associate masturbation with pleasure.
If you stimulate your genitals(stroke your penis) to feel pleasure, no doubt it’ll give you pleasure, but your brain still thinks that stroking your penis equals pleasure and it’ll give you more cravings/urges.
Edging never satisfies your sexual urges, it just leaves you craving for more and eventually, you’ll relapse.
You’re just killing your progress if you indulge in edging.
How to Stop Edging?
Now that you’ve understood that edging kills your progress as much as a traditional relapse(porn or masturbation) and how it affects your brain, you might be wondering how do I stop it.
The first thing you can do is start considering edging as relapsing because it kills your progress on nofap as much as a traditional relapse.
Edging usually happens when we feel urges. So all the steps which help you to quit masturbation will help you to quit edging. To know how to quit masturbation, CHECK THIS OUT.
Other things which help in controlling urges and avoid edging are push-ups and cold showers. Push-ups and cold showers are instant urge killers.
Whenever you feel urges and think about edging, immediately start doing push-ups until you run out of breath. Urges are nothing but stored sexual energy. By doing push-ups you are utilizing that sexual energy into something positive.
Cold showers are another instant urge killer. A cold shower has many more benefits, but here we’re only talking about how it can help with your urges.
As soon as the urges hit, you can go to the bathroom and take a quick 2 min cold shower if you’re in your home. The better thing to do would be to take cold showers daily and not wait until the urges come.
You’ll notice the difference immediately after hopping into the cold shower. You’ll forget about your urges and by the time you’re done, there’ll be no more urges.
If you’re experiencing the negative side effects of porn and masturbation and are trying to it, I recommend reading the book “Your Brain on Porn” by Gary Wilson. It explains the scientific reason behind porn affecting our brain negatively and what you can do to quit it. It’s the best book I’ve read on the topic. It is available on Amazon.
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Conclusion
Edging is when you stimulate your genitals(stroke/rub your penis) trying to reach orgasm and stopping just before the ejaculation, with or without the help of porn.
Edging kills your progress on nofap and it is as damaging as a traditional relapse.
Some people consider edging as a relapse and some don’t. It’s in your own interest to consider it as a relapse since it is killing your progress as much as a traditional relapse.
People usually indulge in edging whenever they feel urges. To avoid this, immediately start doing push-ups or hop into a cold shower to combat urges.
