Here we go!

[Apollo093]

Day 2

Yesterday and earlier today I was feeling very irritable, with a general lethargy and moodiness. At times it was blood sugar related but other times the side effects would still be there. When I did play games, I didn't really take care of my health with stable meals so it'll be another few days before my blood sugar is fully stablisised. That's and my general health and wellbeing is the first priority for the next few days so that any issues with mood are JUST withdrawal symptoms. I have had one or two thoughts of playing games, urges/cravings, and thoughts of the last game I played, but they don't last long or I use a process I learned through nofap to deal with cravings (modifying it for this).

Honestly though, I'm actually feeling quite good as I'm writing this, excited to be starting this journey. I'm working through the respawn materials and given how far I know I've come with nofap in the last 6 months I'm really excited to see how far I go with this. 

[Apollo093]

Day 3

I've been doing the modules in the Cam's Respawn program and they've been great! I'm up to Module 4 now and this is my first day really getting into my replacement activities and it's honestly been super enjoyable: not only was I incredibly excited to get started yesterday but I've been really enjoying the day today. I'm taking things easy, not trying to do any certain amount yet or become a productivity maniac, just really enjoying the process. Started this morning with some piano, called my sister while I was cooking and after this post I'm going to probably do one or two more mentally challenging things before phasing into the more restful. 

For a long time I've been following the advice of "stick to one thing", or beliefs from the productivity world of chunking for maybe 2-3 hours to get into a "deep work" flow state. But now I realise between porn and the constant novelty of videogames, it's no wonder I've struggled to focus on things for long periods of time! (plus I'm relatively high on the personality trait openness and extraversion, so variety and multiple interests and exploration are almost intrinsic values/drawn to them, which makes me laugh at how anal I've tried to be with scheduling before).

As for other areas of the journey so far, I'm definitely in a better mood, more focused and motivated, decreased anxiety and the irritability is decreasing too however I woke up with bad headache and was sleepless for good portions of the night. Not sure if this is withdrawal or symptomatic of other things/changes I've been making but I'm just gonna wait the next few days out and see if they resolve on their own. 

Looking forward to see what the future begins!

[BooksandTrees]

Glad you're enjoying respawn and making progress here. Welcome to the forums and I hope this makes a difference in your life. 

I found that within the first week of quitting games my mind became more clear and I was less irritable in general. It's a very taxing lifestyle to be a gamer. 

[Apollo093]

2 minutes ago, BooksandTrees said:

I found that within the first week of quitting games my mind became more clear and I was less irritable in general. It's a very taxing lifestyle to be a gamer. 

Thanks for Checking in @BooksandTrees, It definitely is a taxing life and it's only really in the last while I realised it having played just for maybe 2-3 days, but instantly regressing to a state of mind where anything that wasn't gaming was viewed like an inconvenience, eating, showering, sleeping, family etc. 

[BooksandTrees]

4 hours ago, Apollo093 said:

Thanks for Checking in @BooksandTrees, It definitely is a taxing life and it's only really in the last while I realised it having played just for maybe 2-3 days, but instantly regressing to a state of mind where anything that wasn't gaming was viewed like an inconvenience, eating, showering, sleeping, family etc. 

I found that my short term memory was non existent with gaming and it made me less productive at work, more forgetful with responsibilities like bills, and lacking effort in human relationships, which contributed to having no friends. 

[Apollo093]

Day 4

I realise overall my focus and concentration has actually increased significantly, not just since starting this detox but also with quitting porn, as I started to read a book I previously attempted about a year or two ago and I breezed through the first few pages like it was nothing. I guess sometimes you have to take a step back to realise how far you've come. 

Last night my sleep was amazing, I took a cold shower and meditated beforehand which I think really helped. The sun has been out here so I've been outside way more, and I can't help thinking how different that in itself is compared to all the sunny days I ignored to stay indoors and play video games, complaining about the screen glare! lol My mood in general is a little meh, but I'm ok with that, tomorrow is a new day.

I had a great time so far activities wise, spending time learning piano, getting started back into french (which I dropped after secondary school, looking forward changing that), and doing some reading, cooking and exercise. Plus some journaling actually. Overall things are really improving.

Bonus observation: A problem I was seriously having too was watching netflix or movies way too much, almost as a default for low mood days or just having too much free time, I realise now that was my go to resting activity but now that I've swapped reading (which I previously though was mentally engaging to me to my resting activity) aswell as having mentally engaging activities, the desire to watch netflix or a movie has massively dropped away.

I'm just beginning to bring all my activities "online" in a sense, but every morning I now wake up with such energy for what's to come, it's a seriously nice change.

[Apollo093]

Day 5

Today is better than yesterday mood wise, I think yesterday I was actually unusually touchy or sensitive at times and I've found myself very calm/confident today. I think a number of things are helping with that, such as listing out all the things that were on my mind and making a plan to tackle them (plus getting one done already), exercise this morning, catching up on chores that were piling up and going over some mindset stuff I find very helpful.

Overall I'd say improved mood, motivation, focus, patience with decreased anxiety and I had no urges to play video games. At all. Wow.

And despite saying a week ago, I'd watch a movie tonight (before doing the respawn course and putting all my activities in place mind you), I thought about it once or twice but I just wasn't that interested. Between my mentally engaging activities, being outside and reading (resting activity) in the garden, I really couldn't see myself watching tv today! big turnaround

I really enjoyed some family time today, my mentally engaging activities and I deconstructed the skills/parts to learning copywriting for including that as one of them. I first discovered it about 3/4 years ago, and tried learning it then but for one reason or another It didn't happen. I'm really excited to get started but mostly just to enjoy the process of learning it and writing. 

I've also been experimenting with supplements over the past several weeks to solve some mood related issues associated with nofap, based on the book The Mood Cure and The Edge Effect, and today I took another test to compare changes since I've started: so far there have been significant improvements (avg 20-30% improvement in the areas I've started to address) The biggest  deficiency area for me was Seretonin so I started taking 5-HTP to see if there are any effects and while I'm still in a testing period, a lot of the symptoms have disappeared at the dosage I'm now taking. 

 

[Apollo093]

Day 7 

One week!! Since I've started my sleep has improved (big time), I've much better mood, decreased anxiety, urges (haven't thought about video games today until writing this entry), more focus, motivation and patience.  

Today was a good day overall, spent a lot of time getting some chores or todos out of the way in one swoop that were piling up. Then enjoyed some reading this evening.

My big big achievement was doing a challenging workout this morning, using an app I found which uses data to personalise my workouts based on my goals/aims and equipment at hand. That has always been the biggest barrier for me, knowing what exercises to do in different scenarios and creating a plan thats adequate for where I am to where I want to go (plus tracking it). Sounds exhausting before even starting to exercise lol. Thankfully the app I found does it all, so I'm exited to keep going tomorrow on the next muscle group. 

I have noticed that "busy work" at this point in my recovery actually tired me out quite quickly, even if its important that I do it. I reason its because the activity is quite short and spikey in terms of dopamine release. I've also noticed that following either busy work, or several hours of mentaling engaging activity, if I doing some resting activity for a certain period I often find myself in the mood to return to mentally engaging activity. A very useful loop if you ask me.