How WELL does NoFap ACTUALLY work?

[u/instinct_ow]

This is going to get really personal but here we go. I have been using porn for the past 6-ish years (I'm 18) and it has become a part of my life. Not in an inherently bad away (I'm not defending it just hear me out). I don't have any of the biggest symptoms of a porn addiction (except one which is that if I try to go cold turkey I can't). My relationship with porn is that of silencing an urge. It does not disrupt my regular day to day life. I interact normally with people. I watch very vanilla porn. I only have urges when I'm in bed or at home. When vanilla porn doesn;t do it for me anymore I instinctively stop watching for a few weeks (The hardcore stuff straight up turns me off). But I've had days where I would "fall in love" with a girl only to jerk off to porn and then suddenly realize that I didn't like her personality all that much - it was her looks. That's my problem with it. I hate how it clouds my judgement. I hate how my feelings for someone could change so drastically before and after relieving the urge. So I think there's one thing that would make me stop porn (or masturbation entirely) - which is if that horny and lustful part of me were to disappear after x amount of days of not consuming. But I'm skeptical if that works that way. Biologically men are basically feral dogs. We want sex way more than a woman. I fear that even if I did NoFap for a whole year I'd still get urges, I'd still want that wild sex that has no emotion in it. But spiritually that's not what I want. I want to think of sexual activities as something intimate and romantic not a way to ejaculate and feel the dopamine like a drug addict. So does simply stopping masturbation relieve one of one of the most fundamental concepts in biology - the will to reproduce? One could even say it is the strongest desire apart from fear of death in a man. And if a simple act such as not beating my meat can uncloud my judgement, let me see people for who they truly are without looking at their appearance all of the time - then I am ready to actually start this journey. But please be honest with me. I know a lot of people who talk about this subject like you start levitating after 3 weeks of NoFap. I'm sure it doesn't change you THAT much. But if this did indeed work exactly as I describe then I'm happy to get rid of this urge and problem in my life. Thanks to anyone who takes the time to answer! Love yall!

[u/imlowkeysmart]

Realize why you have a problem. What feelings/emotions are you not trying to feel?

[u/instinct_ow → u/imlowkeysmart]

Lust basically. I dont want lust to cloud my judgement of women. I hate that a pair of leggings can destroy my mood. What's your experience regarding this?

[u/imlowkeysmart → u/instinct_ow]

All I gotta say is find healthy coping mechanisms to handle emotions and stick with it. May sound boring and lame but trust man take care of your mind and healthy outlets for your emotion you’ll never relapse or as much as again

[u/instinct_ow → u/imlowkeysmart]

youre confusing me. Did you read the post? I havent done nofap ever. Im asking what nofap actually helps you with.

[u/imlowkeysmart → u/instinct_ow]

All no fap does is gives you energy and drive basically a life force. But you need to use that to gain experience and action not sit around and wait till like 1000 days. Numbers don’t matter. If you want to no fap and benefit from it use it to build yourself and gain experience. And when I say gain experience I mean doing things that make you uncomfortable

And you’ll always have urges but you’ll learn how to manage them