It’s unrealistic to say that you’ll never relapse again when you’re practicing nofap. It will happen; it’s just a matter of when. The urges will come at a time when you doubt the power they will have over you; if you’ve gone a substantial amount of time without relapsing, you might think that you’ve mastered control over your sexual energy. But keeping in mind that this energy is the most powerful force within a man, it’s easy to see that mistakes can still be made. You can only fill a balloon with so much air until it bursts.
In my case, the worst example of this I can think of was when I went over three months on this journey, then binge relapsed every day for months while I was depressed after dropping out of university and without a purpose. Multiple times a day. This is extreme, but it goes to show the power of the human mind when withholding from vices. The thing that you think about avoiding every day, which you do avoid over time, eventually comes back into your life making you crave it more than ever. If you couple your relapse with other bad habits that are evidently making your life worse, your single relapse could turn into multiple – and then you’re back at square one. You do not want to find yourself in this spot.
So, with the relapse that is inevitably going to come, it’s important to know what to do after this has happened. By doing and thinking the wrong things, you’re increasing the chances of not only succumbing to the lost benefits you have accumulated, but also making the same mistake successively. Here is how to bounce back from a nofap relapse:
Admit and Accept What Has Happened
There is no use in ignoring the facts around your relapse. You had a moment of weakness which led you to do what you did. Personal accountability in any scenario will build character – this is an example of one of those scenarios. This doesn’t make you a weak person as a whole – you simply had a moment of weakness. It will do you no good to ridicule yourself as this may only increase the likelihood of it happening again.
To expand on this, note what you did that day and how you felt in that particular moment. A to-do list or agenda will allow you to track the activities you might have done, but even the monotonous moments in your routine might give you some insight about where you went wrong. Maybe you skipped something you often do, small or large, and as a result felt out of place or mentally scrambled. A lack of purpose will also fuel these same states; boredom might lead to filling time in unproductive ways. Not only will your actions be revealing, but so will your emotions. A core indicator of poor decisions is your emotional state, which shouldn’t come as a surprise. If you’ve relapsed as a consequence of a lack of emotional stability, try not to also lose yourself after the fact.When you’re actually aware of your poor decisions in hindsight, you’ll often find that there was a trigger in the form of sadness, anger or stress. Physiological states such as hunger can heighten such feelings, and even more so if you haven’t found a way to channel them in the right ways. Exercise, meditation or even something cognitively demanding like reading will provide a healthy outlet for your emotions once they have been accepted.
Do Not Let One Moment Become Many
After a relapse, there might be a moment in which you try to convince yourself that it will do you no harm to do it again since you’ve already gave in once. This is your mind playing tricks on you, trying to make you willfully blind to the consequences by placing pleasure at the forefront of your consciousness. More than that, it’s a mixture of libido and your emotional state. In The Free Choice of Will, Augustine says: “For we agree that all wrongdoing becomes such only by passion, namely, by a desire that is blameworthy.” But deep down, you know that what you want to do is wrong. You just want to believe that you have justification in doing it again.
A binge will bring you to desperation; not only will you erase the psychological and physical progress you’ve made through nofap, but you will end up valuing this dopaminergic sensation over everything else. In other words, no other feeling will match that of a PMO release, so it will become your sole source of pleasure in life. The small moments, your relationships, responsibilities and side hustles in your day-to-day will have you less engaged and less present. As a result you will lack enjoyment in the things that you once were able to find pleasure in. And in a practical sense, as it pertains to this lifestyle, your attempts to reenter it will be that much more difficult. Try not to make your life any harder as you’re attempting to bounce back from a nofap relapse.
Ingest the Nutrients That You Lost
Although the quantity is small, your juices contain calcium, magnesium, potassium, zinc, proteins and more. When you release through relapse, a portion of these vitamins, minerals and proteins leave your body; you’re basically depleting yourself of essential human health components. The argument can be made that since it’s a fractional amount that you’re losing, it might not matter that much. However it is still less than what you had inside of you pre-relapse, so it’s still a loss.
A helpful step in bouncing back from a nofap relapse is to consume natural foods to make up for these lost nutrients. A banana, for example will help you regain adequate potassium levels; chicken will provide an optimal zinc intake. So knowing what foods will meet specific nutrient needs is helpful when trying to bounce back from a nofap relapse, but generally eating anything natural will serve you well. To add to this, daily vitamins and supplements are ideal in combination with foods; consuming both will shift your body and brain back into its proper momentum.
Keep Yourself Occupied
On nofap, your thoughts and energy are abundant. The smart person will use their time to their advantage by engaging in productive habits, like exercising, reading or working on a side hustle. This lifestyle will do you no good if you’re not utilizing its benefits in the right ways. But this is learned; I think most of us have at least one point made the mistake of staying stagnant for too long, scrolling through social media. Then, the chances of a relapse will increase.
What is crucial in order to bounce back from a nofap relapse is the ability to keep yourself constantly engaged. This will signal to your mind that you’re back to your old ways – assuming that you spent your time on nofap wisely – despite the slip-up. And in occupying your mind, you do not give it time to ruminate on the mistake you made, the mistake that is more common than you realize in the moment.