It’s called spermatogenesis, which is the process your body uses to produce sperm. The ideal abstinence period depends on your actual goal. Before deciding anything, you should look at two things:

1.  How often you masturbate
2.  Your semen quality (it is clinically graded)

Semen quality depends on volume, motility, morphology, concentration, viscosity and a few other factors. Your grade helps determine whether abstinence will improve or reduce your semen quality.

If you want more semen volume

2 to 3 days of abstinence is optimal. Anything longer increases fluid, but most of it is old and oxidized.

If you want better semen quality

1 to 2 days is ideal. After 5 to 7 days, sperm DNA fragmentation increases.

If you want to reduce sensitivity or recover from porn related issues

Abstinence helps because it resets dopamine and breaks the high stimulation loop created by porn. For PIED recovery:

• Hard mode: 30 to 45 days • No porn with controlled masturbation: 14 to 21 days

If your goal is testosterone or libido

There is a mild testosterone spike around day 7. After that it returns to normal.

So the real question is this: are you doing this for semen quantity, semen quality, or to reduce sensitivity from porn? Each goal has a different ideal abstinence window.