My own belief is that people who succeed on nofap are outliers. Only a small minority benefits from it, while most people are not going notice any effect. Of course, a subreddit about nofap selects for people who benefits from nofap (whether the effects comes from nofap itself, or from self-improvement in general). In addition, in my experience, these places are like cults. Go against their narrative one bit and you will be shamed and silenced (I guess they need the constant validation to stay on track).
The reason why I think nofap may benefit certain people for real is due to my own experience. I used to have an illness called postorgasmic illness syndrome. After having an orgasm, severe depression would creep up on me and last for up to a day. Then it would just spontaneously go away, like it was never there. When I made this connection, I started semen retention, and it made a huuuuge difference. I suspect many of the people who benefit from nofap also suffer from POIS.
One day my POIS just went away for whatever. I stopped feeling depressed after ejaculating. Because of this, my benefits from nofap vanished. I've tried going back to nofap more than once with the bias that it works due to how well it used to work, sometimes for almost a year. And nope, I can't detect any benefits. If there are any, they are so minor that I don't notice them. Anyway, me having been on both sides of nofap puts me in a nuanced and biased position imo.
My own belief is that people who succeed on nofap are outliers. Only a small minority benefits from it, while most people are not going notice any effect. Of course, a subreddit about nofap selects for people who benefits from nofap (whether the effects comes from nofap itself, or from self-improvement in general). In addition, in my experience, these places are like cults. Go against their narrative one bit and you will be shamed and silenced (I guess they need the constant validation to stay on track).
The reason why I think nofap may benefit certain people for real is due to my own experience. I used to have an illness called postorgasmic illness syndrome. After having an orgasm, severe depression would creep up on me and last for up to a day. Then it would just spontaneously go away, like it was never there. When I made this connection, I started semen retention, and it made a huuuuge difference. I suspect many of the people who benefit from nofap also suffer from POIS.
One day my POIS just went away for whatever. I stopped feeling depressed after ejaculating. Because of this, my benefits from nofap vanished. I've tried going back to nofap more than once with the bias that it works due to how well it used to work, sometimes for almost a year. And nope, I can't detect any benefits. If there are any, they are so minor that I don't notice them. Anyway, me having been on both sides of nofap puts me in a nuanced and biased position imo.