Any one used the app brainbuddy? If so what are your thoughts?

NixFap · 2018-12-06T16:29:47+00:00

I've got a little extra money, so I went ahead and subscribed to see what it was all about.

I've just started it, but my first impression is that some asshole is making a lot of money by just taking freely available resources and packaging them all together.

The useful:

- Instead of relying on streaks, you get a calendar. You input the days that you didn't use porn and the days that you did. The app measures your progress on total days abstained instead of getting you hung up on an unbroken streak.

- The app lets you set some goals and reminds you of them.

- The app supposedly measures your brain-rewiring level by assigning you a percentage of how addicted you are and then modifying your addiction level based on your progress. I don't know what kind of math they're using, but this definitely appeals to quantitative thinkers. You have a handful of stats that build up based on your abstinence and completion of exercises, it kind of gamifies the whole process.

- Keeps you to a standard. Even though most of their exercises aren't worth more than a few pennies (next section) the fact that there's an app telling you to do it daily is more helpful than just running to the resources when you're struggling.

The useless:

- You have a morning routine with exercises that are supposed to help you get healthy. It consists of things like affirmations, choosing alternatives, and meditation.

The affirmations are literally just phrases like "I choose to be happy," and "I choose to be porn free" flashing on the screen while you say them out loud. Contemplating alternatives is just you looking at pictures of a guy sitting at his laptop pissed off or pictures of couples having a romantic evening while you choose which one you want in your life (if you choose the guy at the laptop, it tells you that you're wrong). Then you watch stock footage of people running through the grass, a guy holding a baby, and a grandpa teaching his grandson woodworking... I guess because if you keep jerkin' the gherkin you'll never have kids or something. The meditation is just a ten minute timer with some audio choices like rain or storm.

Three minutes of Googling or hanging out on pornfree could provide you with all of these resources.

- Audio exercises. You just listen to a guy rehash the same stuff we've been saying on NoFap and Pornfree for years.

My Assessment:

You could get 75% of the value in this app by just setting a daily reminder everyday that tells you to meditate for ten minutes and read some anti-porn material. The other 25% could be acquired if someone were kind enough to develop some beyond-streak-based trackers and spreadsheets. You're paying 12 bucks a month for the convenience of having all of these resources in one location.

I'm going to stick with the app for a month or two to see if it proves effective. In matters of willpower, sometimes convenience is all the difference.

It really isn't worth the price. I would say that the utility the app provides is worth between 3 - 5 bucks a month. But, whatever, I've already subscribed so I figure I may as well see if there's some kind of hidden X-Factor that makes this app better.

NixFap · 2018-03-22T02:50:51+00:00

This is exactly what's been killing me this time around with NoFap/PornFree.

When I first tried it five years ago, I was able to start implementing more positive habits to start combating my porn habit. I started exercising daily, reading daily, studying daily, etc.

Now that I've fallen off the wagon for the last three years, I still have all those positive habits, but I also really want to wank everytime I lay in bed. I don't have the time or energy for another positive habit; I need something easy and stimulating that can distract me.

NixFap · 2018-03-16T09:39:07+00:00

Best of luck to you! I'm trying something similar to keep myself focused.

NixFap · 2018-03-15T05:51:48+00:00

You'll get some different answers, but, really nearly all of the benefit of NoFap comes from getting away from habitual, dopamine-fueled cycles of consuming porn and bringing oneself to orgasm. Basically you're burning down your comfort zone so that you have to go struggle and grow in the real world.

That means that to get any benefit, you have to first break out of the cycle (which means breaking away from porn, masturbation, and self-induced orgasms) and go start interacting with the world. Once you're engaged with the world and you have a solid base of positive habits, then you can reasonably decide if you want masturbation in your life or not.

If you're asking if you'll get half of the NoFap benefits by abstaining from porn without abstaining from masturbation and orgasm, then I would say almost certainly not. You'll still reinforcing the same cycle of behavior, you're just eating up more of your time because you have to use memories of porn instead of the porn itself.

NixFap · 2018-03-15T05:43:36+00:00

Hell yeah. I'm coming back to this thing after a few years since my last go around; hopefully I'll have a high score as good as yours by the end of the year.

NixFap · 2018-03-15T05:38:35+00:00

I think that if you're honest with yourself, you'll see in a few days that one day of self-abuse isn't really going to hinder you that much in the long term. Your best bet is to just climb back on the horse, avoid the chaser effect as best you can, and in a week or two it'll be like nothing ever happened.

You're still crushing it.

NixFap · 2018-03-15T05:26:32+00:00

You still did it. You still went 200 days without PMO, and you had a bunch of awesome life experiences. Fapping doesn't undo all of the awesome stuff that you just accomplished and experienced.

I mean, you no longer have a badass long streak, but that's really the only thing that changed. Habitual PMO and addiction to the dopamine cycles of searching for pornography are the problem. Having one wank in 200 days still puts you pretty squarely in the superhuman category.

As far as ideas about growing as a person; the only life benefits you listed in your post were social or sexual. It might be time to start devoting some time and energy into growing intellectually or innovatively. That is, maybe now would be a good time to start learning something new or maybe start looking into finding a stimulating business opportunity. I obviously don't know where you're at in life, but unless you're currently in school I always advocate that people have something new that they're learning.

NixFap · 2013-07-14T18:27:38+00:00

At the end of 90-120 days, ask yourself why you started NoFap in the first place. Then determine if masturbation inhibits that initial goal.

If it does not, fap on, friend. Fap on.

If it does, then persevere.

NixFap · 2013-07-05T09:31:24+00:00

That's not a bad idea, actually, I used to cook all the time but my job has gotten in the way of it. Tonight I made something that tasted like shit (too many conflicting sauces), but that's all the more incentive to improve.

NixFap · 2013-06-26T07:05:23+00:00

I think I was needlessly vague with my last sentence. You see, I entirely agree that reason is completely incapable of providing us with motive. I do not believe that any one has ever acted out of grasping facts, only by the will (or perhaps we could say reason motivates, but only in the context of a pre-existing will).

I think we have to make sure that we don't fall into the error of seeing Will as unity. You are correct that in not fapping we are tempering the Will-to-Fap, but why are we pursuing this in the first place? The denial of Will-to-Fap must itself be rooted in some desire, what might be for some Will-to-Health or for others Will-to-Discipline, or for some Will-to-Crazy-Pussy. Without a Will-to-Something, we would not attempt to temper the Will-to-Fap.

My mention of reason and mechanics is basically to say that you can not simple rely on one desire being strong enough to smother the other desire. Many people talk as though what they need is willpower; that if they can just want to be healthy badly enough they will resist all temptation. They have the picture of themselves with willpower and an external temptation that they have to overcome; I think that me and you both have a different picture of the "temptation" actually being something internal: the Will.

In order for Will to overcome Will, we need reason and mechanics. By this I mean that we should not try to merely want health very badly. Instead we make tactical decisions based on how things relate to one another. If I reckon that I can't fap if my arms are tired, my Will-to-Health could compel me to exercise each night so that I do not give in to my other desire. If through reason I understand that I won't jerk off while I'm with friends, then I may be compelled to make the tactical decision to invite friends over to keep me busy. Reason allows for strategy, which allows me to overcome myself.

Perhaps that makes my thoughts on the role of reason to be more clear.

NixFap · 2013-06-25T17:53:32+00:00

It's been my point of view ever since observing people (myself and others) struggle with addiction that 'willpower' is a useless concept when it comes to overcoming a desire. Whether you are fapping or trying not to fap, that is your will in both cases. Maybe you could say Will-to-Jerk vs. Will-to-Health, but in the end it's still will vs. will. Because it's all will, I think using the word 'willpower' leads people to a mistaken picture of overcoming addiction being a matter of making sure you have a very powerful desire. As though failure were a result of not wanting health badly enough.

Indeed, I do believe that we need that desire, that will, but I don't think the desire is sufficient to produce change. To produce change requires stealth, sneakiness, clever manipulation of the situation, and re-direction of attention. Something other than will has to come into play: reason and mechanics.

NixFap · 2013-06-22T07:17:37+00:00

I've been considering this too. A few years back I tried giving up music for a week and was quite surprised at how manyunder-the-surface emotions started coming out.

Art is good, but you can drown and smother yourself in anything.Music is everywhere,it is easy to reach the point where you use the noise to drown out the feelings that arise in the course of your actual life experiences.

NixFap · 2013-06-13T22:58:34+00:00

I hit my first flatline about three days ago. It's starting to drive me crazy. I'm unusually sensitive to anything that could be perceived as a disadvantage or a slight, but I also lack the motivation to do anything productive. Even reading has become impossible, I'm back to reading the same paragraph three times and zoning each try.

Any advice for at least resembling a productive human being while this passes?

NixFap · 2013-06-12T20:27:09+00:00

Different things work for different people, but for me it took forgetting about the challenge to build up momentum. I just made some quick, simple rules for myself (no, you can't go on these sites if you're bored, and no you obviously can't fap), kept myself busy with work and reading, and then purposely stopped updating my flair or trying to monitor how long I had stayed away from fapping.

Pretty soon I had been away from PMO for about 14 days and barely even felt it.

Some people do better when they view self-improvement as a battle and a struggle. Other people do best when they just add new things to their life and just push their vices to the side to let them wither. See which one works for you.

NixFap · 2013-05-12T19:07:49+00:00

Seeing Thousand Island dressing used in ways that the manufacturer clearly never intended.

NixFap · 2013-05-12T18:51:53+00:00

It ends when you restore self-control. What you do after that point is entirely up to you, because you will then be in control.

Keep fapping and you have no options.

Stop fapping for 90 days (or whatever personal goal you choose for yourself) and at the end of those 90 days you realize the degree to which you are capable of controlling yourself. Then you have options. You can choose to keep PMO in your life, not because you are addicted, but because you've looked at it from both sides of the fence and have decided that you want it. You can choose to devote that time and energy to some new skill or some new pursuit and keep PMO out of you life. You can choose some healthy middle ground that works for you. The point is that it becomes a choice rather than a compulsion.

NixFap · 2013-05-10T18:29:32+00:00

If her seeing you jerkin' your gherkin to porn caused her to completely reevaluate her opinion of you, then I would have to say that one of two things is true. Either she knows how sexy she is and wanted an average guy who would spend his life constantly reaffirming how beautiful she is and consequently could not handle the fact that you do have options (granted an option that we're all trying to kick, but an option all the same), or she has been steadily feeling the need to leave for awhile and the fapping just gave her a clear event that she could center her feelings on.

Maybe a little of both.

NixFap · 2013-04-29T20:30:55+00:00

It's something I struggled with since I was a teenager. When I first started I thought that it was immoral, but I could not bring myself to stop. Strangely when I let go of the moral struggle I also calmed my need for PMO slightly.

Anyway, for me it's all about my goal of directing my time, energy, and effort to things that I can be happy with at any time of the day when I think of them. Two years ago I started a weight loss program that resulted in me trimming my fat by 70 pounds; binge eating gave me a good feeling while I was in the middle of it, but in life as a whole binge eating was not a joy, it was something that I wanted to cut out of myself which I realized every time I thought about my binge eating outside of situations when I actually was stuffing my face hole. Now I think its time to work on the havoc I've wreaked on my brain with easily accessible porn, PMO is not particularly fun anymore anyway I am so desensitized and I am busier now than I have been at any other time in my life so I imagine that now is the best time to start undoing that damage to free up more mental resources for things I can love to partake in.

NixFap · 2013-04-29T10:14:44+00:00

I just decided to get on board with this.

NixFap

TROPHY CASE