If you don’t know what the Nofap Philosophy is, read this first.
The Nofap flatline is a period of complete or partial loss of pleasure or satisfaction from rewarding experiences caused by abstaining from self-touching and adult content.
The Nofap flatline occurs when your brain is recovering from no longer receiving the hypernormal stimulus amount of dopamine produced from PMO. A Nofap Flatline is a dopamine detox from PMO. A flatline can feel like an intense distance from happiness, motivation, confidence, and optimism. It feels like the only cure for it is PMO, which is always a lie. Experiencing a flatline is experiencing the withdrawals from hypernormal dopamine releases. No different than a withdrawal from drugs.
Going through the flatlines are the price to pay to getting back to a dopamine rewarding state.
Because of how powerful PMO is from a dopamine perspective, someone who is an addict isn’t sensitive enough to feel the small amounts of dopamine that comes from rewarding behavior, like making progress towards mastery. They don’t get to feel the small pleasures of life. Someone who follows the Nofap Philosophy feels good following their positive habits, even if they require discipline and are difficult, because they are sensitive to the dopamine rewards that come from these activities. Completing an assignment, closing a sale, scoring in basketball during practice, etc.
When you’re addicted to PMO, you’re numb to small wins, and your big wins don’t feel as good.
The most common periods of Flatline occur:
1. The first three days
2. The second week
3. End of month one
4. Mid and end of month two
It takes around 90 days for most people to feel like they are back to a dopamine-sensitive brain. If you cannot go that long without PMO, you are addicted. Once your brain resets, you can feel pleasure for completing tasks, improving at skills, and doing challenges in your life. This is the way you are meant to feel.
Nofap Flatline Strategies
Change your environment
Changing your environment is one of the best ways to beat a Nofap Flatline and prevent a relapse. Get away from the place where you normally PMO. Go on a walk, or go to the gym. REWARD yourself for not giving in to the temptation and get coffee out, guilt-free. You need to reward yourself for doing the right thing so you continue to do it.
Getting away from the place you indulge makes you feel less attached to the ritual. A change of philosophy comes with the destruction of one ritual and the creation of others.
Ideally you can go outside and somewhere with bright sunlight, as the sunlight is shown to increase dopamine production. Spending time in nature, hiking, trail-running, or going on a walk somewhere in the woods is ideal because you cannot relapse, you get dopamine from the training, the sunlight, and being surrounded by plant life.
Vigorous exercise
High-intensity training releases endorphins like dopamine. When the trough is to dry, you need to make it rain(dopamine). This philosophy is not just for a Nofap Flatline; anytime you are down, you need to train intensely. Hard-training will give you a reward that will make you feel better.
Sadly, 40% of adults in the world are overweight. Almost 70% of Americans are. We eat too much and exercise too little. You need to adopt a Body Mastery that becomes a path you can follow. Whenever you feel down and depressed, or a lack of dopamine, you can turn towards your body mastery which will keep you healthy, and refresh your mind so you can continue a mental pursuit.
Meditate or breathing exercises
A Nofap Flatline usually comes with negative self-talk in your mind. First, understand that all negative self-talk must be destroyed in your mind by countering it with positive self-talk. This is a tenet of the philosophy. Breathing and meditation helps calm the mind, which can take away thoughts telling you to do something that goes against your philosophical code.
One downside of meditation for a Nofap Flatline is the potential lack of dopamine released, as compared to hard training. So meditation should be done after or alongside of hard physical training.
Hang out with the boys
If you don’t have some boys, you gotta find some boys. Hanging out with friends is shown to increase positive chemicals like dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, and more. Ideally you can do something active or productive, instead of being inactive and consuming entertainment.
You also cannot relapse when your with others, so you immediately remove the ability to fail.
Get out of bed as soon as possible
The bed is the primary location for being intimate. If you’re trying to stop being intimate with yourself because you don’t like how it feels, get out of bed as soon as possible. When you wake up, get out of bed. You can even make your bed and lay on top of it. Ideally, you leave your bedroom. What you want to avoid is waking up, staying in bed, and looking at your phone. Because your phone is where adult content is, and the bed is where intimacy occurs, we must leave our beds to break down the ritual we are trying to destroy.
Wait
The best thing you can do is wait.
“I can wait, I can fast, I can think.” Said Marcus Aurelius.
The Nofap Flatline will pass. If you can make it to 90 days, you will never have a flatline again. And you’ll feel rewards from the path.