Category: Herbs

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Raw-Dogging Reality – Recovering Your Dopamine, Pt. 1

One of the biggest benefits we get from semen retention is the huge increase in dopamine that occurs when we refrain from orgasm. Dopamine is the molecule that not only gives us the energy, confidence and motivation to get things done, but it’s also the molecule of reward, making us feel good when we accomplish our tasks and goals. 

Of course, it’s also responsible for the good feelings we get from food, drugs, sex, gaming, social media – pretty much anything pleasurable.

Unfortunately, the modern world is filled to the brim with cheap thrills, quick fixes and shiny distractions that constantly drain us of our motivation/reward molecule, and I don’t mean just porn – social media, gaming, binge watching Netflix, even text and email alerts all take us out of the present moment, sapping attention and depleting dopamine.

This leaves us crippled, crabby, maybe even downright useless without our normal crutches. 

In other words – we have become so hooked on chemical highs and technological distractions that bare reality has become unbearable. If we take a month or two to get rid of these chemicals and technological distractions (or at least greatly reduce them), then we will, with no further effort, become happier and more interested in the world around us.

Perhaps more importantly, we will find ourselves with both the energy and the motivation to go out there and chase after the things we really want – our dreams, our goals, our mission.

This post is about combating the modern world and all its cheap pitfalls in order to further enhance the benefits we get from abstaining from PMO, first by cutting out those addictive dopamine depletors; by learning to leverage “the suck” to further enhance the dopaminergic pathways and reward centers in the brain; and using targeted supplements to improve the functioning of dopamine within the brain. It’s similar to a “dopamine detox”, but geared towards retainers with some specific exercises and additional goodies.

Further, unlike most of my posts, there’s very little to do with transmuting sexual energy, yoga, and the esoteric. Just plain, hard science on enhancing dopamine – although this concept is essentially the same as tapas, or spiritual austerity.

This article is written with New Year in mind, and framed within a one month context. Try out what is suggested for the month of January, or any month for that matter, but realize that these are practices you should learn to adopt in your daily life, not just one month out of the year.

And let me be very transparent – I am writing this and engaging in this experiment as a kick in my own pants. I’ve gotten a little soft around the edges the last couple of months in some ways – time to get back to the grindstone.

“Resistance is the grindstone of our soul.” – Aubrey Marcus

“Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.” – Warren Buffett

Article at a glance :

  1. Dopamine is the neurochemical currency of drive, motivation and reward. One of the biggest benefits of semen retention is how it quickly and robustly increases dopamine levels – this article is all about further optimizing our lifestyle to maximize dopaminergic function. 
  2. We are addicted to chasing empty stimulation (porn, junk food, social media, gaming, binge watching shows, texts/emails, drugs), and this addiction to distraction and empty stimulation prevents us from doing and enjoying those things we know we need to be doing.
  3. If we give up these meaningless distractions, we allow our brains, specifically our dopamine receptors, time to recuperate and resensitize, making our normal, daily life more enjoyable. We will also reclaim the motivation to accomplish all of our goals, big and small, that we have allowed these devilish distractions to take from us.
  4. Taking this one step further, if we actively “embrace the suck”, we can speed up this process of healing and boost levels of feel good neurotransmitters (Part 1 ends here)
  5. Meditation is the polar opposite of constant stimulation seeking – engaging in focused meditation practice retrains the mind to focus attention and calm down, instead of scattering attention in an agitated manner.
  6. We can use targeted supplementation to increase dopamine levels, protect dopamine neurons, and even to regain neuronal sensitivity to dopamine.
  7. We can assess our progress not only by seeing how much more enjoyment we get out of the real world, but by practicing “just being”.

Dopamine Zombies

The way we achieve things in this life is largely due to dopamine, a neurotransmitter involved in both motivation (the pursuit of our goals and interests), and the feelings of reward after we get or accomplish what we were after. One of the reasons semen retention is so powerful is because of how it’s able to increase dopamine levels so robustly – recall that orgasm leads to a rise in prolactin, which subsequently plummets dopamine levels for up to two weeks afterwards. No orgasm means little prolactin, which means more dopamine, leading to you having the energy, drive and confidence to chase after your goals and accomplish them.

The problem with today’s world is that everything, not just porn, has been designed to hijack the reward pathways in our brains – from food, to video games, to social media, to tv and movies, even to our phones, and nevermind drugs themselves.

Think back to when we were a tribal species. We evolved to get rewarded by “dopamine hits” from finding food, hunting prey, sleeping with actual mates, socializing with real friends and family in person, hearing stories and myths told by elders of the tribe (or by telling them), building and maintaining a living space, dancing and communing around the fire… In other words, we had to work for these rewards, and these rewards were useful and beneficial, ensuring we would do the things we needed to survive and form social bonds. And when we were hunter gatherers, there were essentially zero drugs.

Nowadays? We flip open our phone and have instant access to porn, distracting games, and endless scrolling on social media – which is designed to be addictive. Even texting “creates a dopamine loop” in the brain. We have access to drugs and booze that cause an immediate release of pleasure far beyond anything else in the natural world. We eat food and drink beverages that companies have spent millions of dollars designing to be as rewarding and addicting as possible. 

Just take a look at this chart which shows the massive release of dopamine from some drugs – 

“In today’s dopamine-rich ecosystem, we’ve all become primed for immediate gratification. We want to buy something, and the next day it shows up on our doorstep. We want to know something, and the next second the answer appears on our screen. Are we losing the knack of puzzling things out, or being frustrated while we search for the answer, or having to wait for the things we want? The neuroscientist Samuel McClure and his colleagues examined what parts of the brain are involved in choosing immediate versus delayed rewards. They found that when participants chose immediate rewards, emotion- and reward-processing parts of the brain lit up. When participants delayed their reward, the prefrontal cortex—the part of the brain involved in planning and abstract thinking—became active.

The implication here is that we are all now vulnerable to prefrontal cortical atrophy as our reward pathway has become the dominant driver of our lives.”  Dr. Anna Lembke, Dopamine Nation

And that’s real bad news, because it means we are no longer in control of our behavior. We’re no longer using our prefrontal cortex, that part of the brain so highly developed in humans that allows us to think and plan, but are slaves to our hijacked reward pathways, switching from one source of empty stimulation to the next, not getting anything worthwhile done, not chasing after our dreams or accomplishing our goals.

We’ve become dopamine zombies, slaves to our technology and chemical crutches.

How do we overcome this issue? By getting rid of our addictive substances and timewasters, and actively engaging in the beneficial but less stimulating things we know we should be doing.

“Remember and remind yourself of a phrase favored by Epictetus: ‘persist and resist.’ Persist in your efforts. Resist giving in to distraction, discouragement, or disorder.” – Ryan Holiday

Get rid of Distraction, Lean into Discomfort and Do the Hard Thing (Weaning and Leaning)

The way we get from lazy and comfortable to action-oriented and badass? We need to wean ourselves off of our comfortable, dopaminergic distractions, and lean into those things that are tough that we know we need to be doing. It’s a simple concept, but it can be difficult to really put into place effectively.

I don’t need to tell you what your time wasters are, I’m sure you know them well. Time to start weaning yourself off of them. The most effective method is to just cut them out entirely – no scrolling on any social media apps, no Youtube, no Netflix or gaming. No distracting yourself at all – I want you to be raw-dogging reality. It’s a shock to the system, but it’s effective and there’s no wiggle room to cheat.

If you can’t imagine giving everything up, at least cut out the biggest ones, and save the smaller ones for an hour in the evening the first week, 45 minutes the second week, 30 minutes the 3rd week, cut out completely the last week.

As for drugs? Many in this community don’t use any at all, including caffeine. For those that do, try to cut them out entirely for this month – no booze, no nicotine, no adderall, no pills, no kratom, none of that. I’ll make an exception for caffeine as it’s pretty mild and actually helps to increase dopamine receptor expression, but don’t be pounding energy drinks every two hours.

If your only chemical vice is a bit of coffee each day, cut back on the amount the first couple weeks and then abstain completely the second half of the month, or the last week.

If this is too painful for you, well… Toughen the hell up, buttercup. You want to become a semen retention badass but can’t wait till the evening to engage in your time wasters? Dig deep, get in touch with your manly side, and make it happen!

After you’ve cut your dopamine depletors out or reduced them and moved them to the evening, you’ll have some free time on your hands. Now comes the leaning into part of the practice. What is it you know you should be doing, but that brings up some internal resistance to doing it? Whatever that is, do that thing right now! 

That feeling of resistance should be your cue that whatever is causing said feeling is your new mission. “The Obstacle is the Way”, as Ryan Holiday titled his book on stoicism. That feeling of resistance is your call to arms, the rallying cry to go make things happen. Anyone who does cold showers knows this feeling well. Anyone who has tried to talk to that cute gal over there knows this feeling well. Shit, anyone who has tried to clean their room is familiar with this feeling.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it? The second you feel that feeling, go do that thing without even thinking about it. You don’t have your time wasters to distract you, so what else is there to do?

Just take a second and imagine how different your life would be if, starting today, you didn’t shirk from the essential-but-uncomfortable, but instead attacked head on. Think of how much you could get done today… Think about how much you could get done in a month… Now, imagine if you have been doing things this way for years! 

Yeah, it’s safe to say your life would be very different and undoubtedly much better. You’d scoff at the notion of constantly suckling on the teet of whatever your vices currently are.

Make a list each night before bed of the top 3-5 things you need to get done the next day. Don’t wait until the morning to make the list, have that bad boy ready to go. Then, each time you accomplish a task, cross it off the list. Making the physical list and crossing it off is key to this process. Each time you complete a goal and cross it off the list, guess what? Instant dopamine release – you feel a sense of accomplishment at completing the task (plus some relief thrown in for good measure), and that dopamine release gives you energy and motivation to accomplish the next task. 

It’s a vicious cycle of productive badassery.

Now, you can approach your productive mornings in two different ways. One way is “worst first” – you start your day doing the thing that is gonna be the biggest pain in your ass. With that out of the way, the rest of your manly duties seem much easier. If you’re one of those “fire in the belly” guys, this method may be for you.

I am many things, but a hard-charging, Type A personality I am not. I prefer to start with the smaller things and move up the ladder. The disadvantage here is things become progressively more difficult as I cross off my to-dos, but the upside is I get some small, easy wins which help me build momentum to tackle The Big Baddies. However, both energy and will-power are finite resources, so you have to be strategic about this method. Don’t drain yourself accomplishing 6 smaller tasks and then have no energy to do that 1 big thing you really needed to get done that day – I’ve done that more than I care to admit.

No matter which method you choose, and neither is better than the other, you are now setting yourself up for success in life by training your brain to get dopamine from accomplishing goals, instead of from mindless time wasters or using substances.

Now, it must be noted that in the beginning, the dopamine released from accomplishing small tasks or goals won’t be nearly as big as that released from things like gaming, social media, nicotine, booze, marijuana, etc, etc. If it were, pretty much everyone would easily accomplish their goals off the bat. Hang in there, it will get better.

And it should be noted that the more you allow yourself to spend time on these other highly addictive time wasters, well… The less enjoyment you’ll get out of doing the things you know you need to be doing.

At the risk of repeating myself too often, moving your time wasters to the end of the day and limiting the amount spent on them is a great beginning strategy, but if you really want to get the most out of this month, you should cut them out completely. If you don’t think you can give them up completely from the get-go, start by saving the time wasters for an hour in the evening the first week, a half hour in the second, and then give them up entirely the last two weeks.

This will give your brain time to literally rewire itself – in the wake of blasting your dopamine receptors 24/7 from highly stimulating bullshit, they will re-sensitize enough so that you actually come to enjoy not just adulting, but all the other badass stuff you really want and need to be doing.

And once you reach that point, this won’t be a struggle, it’ll be your new way of life.

“Every conquering temptation represents a new fund of moral energy. Every trial endured and weathered in the right spirit makes a soul nobler and stronger than it was before.” WB Yeats

Pressing on the Pain Side

What if I told you I regularly engaged in a grueling practice that was difficult, increased bodily inflammation, caused oxidative stress, left me sore for days, increased blood pressure and heart rate during the activity, increased metabolic waste products, was toxic to muscle cells and even caused tears in my muscles themselves? 

Other times I deprive my body of nutrients and fuel for extended periods. Sometimes I force myself to endure bouts of extreme heat, while other times I suffer through periods of immersing myself in intensely cold water.

What if I told you that all of the above practices, while harmful in the short term, actually not only improve my health over time, but also raise my hedonic set point, meaning I’m happier at baseline?

As I’m sure you’ve figured out, I was talking about exercise, fasting, deliberate hyperthermia and cold exposure. These are practices that cause acute stress that leads to an increase in overall robustness, which is great for physical health. Something that is often overlooked is that these things are also powerful means to improve your mood, motivation, and energy levels. 

Your hedonic setpoint is essentially your base level of happiness. Some people just seem to be constantly happy, and the rest of us can’t stand those people. Other people are perpetual curmudgeons, the pessimistic Scrooges of the world. The happier you are, the higher your hedonic setpoint, meaning you walk around feeling pretty good the majority of the time. The grumpier you are, the lower your setpoint – you gotta get lots of things going right for you to start feeling good about your life.

Your hedonic setpoint is somewhat malleable – take addiction for example. You take your Average Joe with a normal life who derives pleasure from a multitude of different things – socializing, his dog, his hobbies, and if he’s lucky, maybe even his job. Then you get him hooked on drugs, let’s say cocaine. Cocaine releases so much dopamine that Average Joe gets high as a kite, and so he buys more the next weekend, and more the next weekend.

From The Oatmeal

After a while the only thing bringing him any pleasure is cocaine, and a bit further down the road, even cocaine won’t bring Average Joe any pleasure but will only delay the withdrawals. Compared to the massive surge of dopamine released from cocaine, everything else seems boring in comparison.

Ol Joey has succeeded in making his hedonic setpoint so very low that it doesn’t matter what he does – he can’t experience pleasure. The good news is that after enough sobriety, he can raise his setpoint back up to something close to what it was before his addiction.

We may not be cocaine addicts, but we are addicted to all these other little dopamine wasters – social media, gaming, binging on Netflix, eating takeout chinese food, etc. And the cumulative effect of all these smaller things is very similar to if we’d become addicted to a drug – we become less happy at baseline and are constantly bouncing from one source of empty stimulation to the next, never feeling happy on our own, never satisfied, and rarely doing anything worthwhile.

Now, and this is key, the reverse of this is also true. Put yourself through deliberate exposure to discomfort, and you’ll begin to raise your hedonic setpoint, meaning you get more and more pleasure out of your day to day life.

Imagine you found yourself bedridden in a hospital for a month, and for the sake of argument, let’s just pretend the food was bland and you had no access to friends, family, phones, tvs, games, even books. Just you, your mind, those fluorescent lights and that eggshell-white wall over there. 

Sounds awful, right? 

Now imagine how great it would be once you made it out of that hospital, back into your normal life. The same old food you used to eat would taste amazing, you’d be stoked to interact with your friends again, and of course, it’d be great getting back to your hobbies and toys.

The good news is that we don’t have to be bedridden in a dystopian hospital in order to make our normal life more enjoyable – we just have to cut out the sources of empty stimulation and, simultaneously, actively and systematically embrace what is uncomfortable.

In other words, we have to embrace the suck.

I know, I just told you to give up on your comforting-but-draining timewasters, and now I’m telling you to make things worse by actively seeking out the uncomfortable… But just stick with me here.

Exercise increases all of our feel-good neurotransmitters, including dopamine, norepinephrine and serotonin, as well as endocannabinoids and endorphins; cold immersion causes a huge and long-lasting rise in dopamine and norepinephrine, giving us energy and motivation; sauna use releases dynorphin, a chemical that makes us feel acute discomfort but actually resensitizes the brain to its own endorphins; and fasting increases dopamine, as well as serotonin and norepinephrine.

By pressing hard on the side of pain and discomfort, we are rewarded with an immediate rebound of pleasure. When we give up our addictions and plow headfirst into accomplishing our everyday tasks, we don’t get quite the same immediate reward, but the two combined over time allows us to raise our hedonic setpoint. 

That means you will be happier each and every day, whether things are going your way or not.

So if you give up your junk timewasters, it might hurt today. It might be boring tomorrow. It may feel like a sludge through the doldrums for the next week or two. But by golly, stick with it, because in 2 weeks, you’ll start enjoying the little things in life again, and in 4-8 weeks, you’ll find yourself feeling happy for no damn reason most days. And this process will be sped up if you’re able to actively push on the pain side with these more concentrated practices, specifically exercise, fasting, and cold/heat exposure.

Giving up on our cheap, empty addictions is the road to recovery; actively embracing the uncomfortable makes that road a whole lot easier and shorter.

Check out Part 2 here

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Lessons Learned From Two Months of Sex W/o Ejaculation

A little over two months ago I was lucky enough to meet a girl who was 100% on board with the whole tantric/karreza/sex without release bit. While I’d had these experiences in the past, they were few and far between, and I’d certainly never had a partner who was committed to helping me with this stuff. I figured I’d take some time off from posting and take a deep dive into the world of sex with Semen Retention.

This isn’t so much a guide or how-to style of post – I just wanted to share my experience and thoughts with the fam as well as explain my leave of absence. For any of the guys out there who are booed up and still want to practice Semen Retention – this post should be of great help.

Finding the right woman is PARAMOUNT

This is easily the most important aspect of the whole tantric sex/sex without release game. While you can meet a girl, have sex with her and (hopefully!) just not orgasm, she’s gonna think she’s either ugly, terrible in bed, something is busted with your junk or all of the above. If you explain things to her before doing the deed, at best she’ll think you’re weird, at worst she’ll call things off.

Finding the right woman goes beyond just open communication. My last serious long term relationship was not on board with me not orgasming. She said it made her feel insecure, like she wasn’t good in bed and like I didn’t enjoy myself. It was also very satisfying for her when I got off. Fair enough. No matter how much I tried to explain things to her, she was set in her ways, and honestly if a girl said she was never going to orgasm when we had sex, I’d probably feel like a failure too.

The right woman has to be patient. She has to have an evolved view of sex. Sex can no longer just be about bumpin’ uglies till a huge explosion of body fluids and expletives occurs. It becomes a long-term game, a means of stoking each other’s fires to ever higher and higher heights. Sex is no longer about just getting each other off, but a means of building up more and more energy and friction within the nervous system – with the occasional release, if your hedonic calendaring calls for it.

Communication is JUST as important

Obviously this practice is doomed from the get go if communication is not a top priority. In all likelihood the gal will have never heard of such a practice and be utterly confused. Unless you have a new age-y, hippy dippy granola type on your hands, I’d recommend just showing them the relationship between prolactin and dopamine, explaining how high prolactin and low dopamine turns you into a tame little puppy, not the savage go-getter you truly want to be. That alone should be enough to convince her of the benefits of this practice.

On top of that, she gets to play around with a partner who is looking for e x t e n d e d bouts of sex. Let’s face it fellas – most of us reach climax embarrassingly quickly, which leaves her feeling unsatisfied to say the least. She now has a partner committed to not only lasting a long time in bed, but of putting her sexual needs before his own! Sex without ejaculation is powerful for a man; sex without ejaculation where the woman orgasms is even more powerful.

“For men, frequent intercourse with infrequent ejaculation is the key technique for cultivating sexual essence and energy. Furthermore, retaining semen during intercourse enables a man to not only preserve and reabsorb his own essence, it also enables him to prolong the act sufficiently for his partner to reach full orgasm, thereby releasing her most potent secretions for his benefit. In effect, he ‘kills two birds with one stone’, preserving his own essence while releasing and absorbing hers.” – The Tao of Health, Sex and Longevity, Daniel Reid

You WILL mess up

It is to be expected that, especially in the beginning, you will lose your control and come when you didn’t want to. Even with all the tricks up my sleeve there were a few times these past couple of months where I went too far and came when I didn’t want to. 

Don’t beat yourself up over it! It’s all part of the learning curve. Get back on the horse, double down on your Jing-boosting herbs and get back at it. It isn’t the end of the world and if you’re using herbs and able to have sex without ejaculation, you’ll bring that sexual energy right back up. 

Speaking of which…

The sexual energy gained from prolonged sex without ejaculation is INSANE

The amount of sexual energy you build up and are able to circulate with tantric sex is out of this world. It blows anything else out of the water, even the more powerful herbs which we haven’t discussed yet. 

It’s the equivalent of plugging into the well of primordial life energy and just JUICING up. That said – this is why you need to have laid a proper groundwork for these practices. You absolutely can short circuit yourself doing these practices if you aren’t prepared. Remember, we’re learning to build up ecstatic energy within the nervous system, causing a cascade of changes within the hormonal/bioelectric systems of the body – the nervous and endocrine systems. This is nothing short of hacking into ecstatic states of consciousness – it’s not something to be taken lightly.

The foundation remains CRITICAL

Again, we are learning to cultivate a type of energy within the nervous system, an energy that affects hormones and, in fact, extends many feet out from the body. You absolutely must prepare the nervous system for handling higher loads of prana/Qi or the results will range from uncomfortable to psych ward. Just look into kundalini syndrome if you have your doubts.

This is why I espouse the benefits of yoga so much – through its postures, breathing exercises and meditation you strengthen and gain control of the nervous system, allowing it to handle the higher wattage produced from Semen Retention and tantric sex. The postures squeeze and tone the endocrine system, regulating and optimizing hormones. The breathing exercises directly regulate the nervous system, and meditation strengthens and calms the mind. It is the perfect complementary practice to Semen Retention, which is why Brahmacharya is an integral part of higher yoga practices.

This is NOT for beginners

It goes without saying, but this practice is absolutely not for beginners. Those starting on the path need lots of time to get used to building and working with sexual energy, carnal desires, and the biological urge to procreate. You MUST master these urges before you attempt to have sex w/o release.

The ONLY exception to this rule is for those that want to begin Semen Retention while already in a relationship. Practice all the techniques solo, then practice them while edging, and then get your lady on board and try it out during sex. You’ll still need to tamper and modify your sex life, but I can’t paint in broad strokes in regards to people’s individual sex lives – you’ll have to tailor that as you see fit.

Most helpful practices

By far the most beneficial practice for sex without release is kegels. In yoga this is known as vajroli mudra, which means thunderbolt gesture, and which I haven’t touched upon much yet. Besides the yogic theory behind it, vajroli mudra is essentially identical to kegels, which hopefully you sons a bitches have been practicing. Do kegels often, whenever you think to. Quick short holds, medium length holds, longer holds, and don’t forget reverse kegels, where it feels like you’re trying to piss as fast as possible. An easy regimen would be 20 pulsed quick holds, 10 medium length holds (2-3 seconds), 5 long holds (5 seconds), and 10 reverse kegels, held for 3 seconds. Do this routine once or twice a day.

The next would be testicle breathing. This is almost identical to the spinal breathing we’ve been discussing in previous posts, except it involves a few tweaks, namely a coordinated combination of kegels, breathing and contracting the muscles around the perineum/prostate. In its complete form, it also involves bringing that energy down the front channel and storing it in the third chakra – this will be detailed in an upcoming post. While kegels help you to not come too fast, testicle breathing helps you to draw that sexual energy upward and away from your dick, which not only helps prevent orgasm, but recharges the entire body/mind complex with fresh, juicy sexual energy. This is not as difficult to perform during sex as you would think, especially if you have been practicing it during solo masturbation sessions.

Schisandra is a great help in keeping your seed inside. It doesn’t compare to having practiced and mastered kegels or testicle breathing, but in a game where so much is at stake, every little bit helps. Not only does it boost your sexual energy and sperm production, its astringent qualities help to lock both semen and sexual energy inside, so you don’t lose your precious seed during sex.

One factor reigns supreme in all of this though, and is more important than any technique available – a willing and understanding partner. When you’re in the heat of the moment and she’s grinding her hips and pelvis into you, pulling you deeper and deeper inside and asking you to fuck her harder… Good luck, buddy. If you and she aren’t on the same page it’s almost a guarantee you’ll lose your seed.

You have to rethink how you go about having sex in general. The goal is no longer to reach orgasm – no more pounding away like porn has taught you (which isn’t what most women want anyway), no more jackrabbiting, no more sexual bravado. Sex is no longer a race or a battle or a conquest – take your damn time, enjoy yourself. Pull out if you’re getting too close to orgasm and explore the rest of her body, give yourself time to cool off.

And while you’ll be lasting longer, the goal also shouldn’t be for her to orgasm, though this should be much easier and is beneficial for you too. The goal is now to cultivate sexual energy, getting close to orgasm, slowing down and circulating it, and then repeating the process… All the while remembering that your lady needs pleasing too.

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Intro to Tantra

This post is gonna be a two-parter. This first part is on the background and theory of what Tantra is, with the follow up post being the actual techniques used.

When it comes to Semen Retention, one of the most dangerous things you can do is entertain the idea of anything sexually stimulating. Porn, edging, hell, even looking at or thinking too much about the enticing female form is off the table for many of us, and rightfully so. It’s what led us down this path, spiraling out of control.

So why, of all things, am I about to start discussing how to masturbate and even have sex in order to supercharge our SR practice?

For one reason and one reason only – tantric methods are, by far, the most powerful way to speed up our evolution on this path. 

From the Chinese classic Secrets of the Jade Bedroom –

“Rainbow Girl: It is generally assumed that a man gains great pleasure from ejaculation. But when he learns of the Tao of Yin and Yang, he will ejaculate less and less. Will this not diminish his pleasure as well?

Pen-Tze: Not at all! After ejaculating, a man feels tired, his ears buzz, his eyes get heavy, and he longs for sleep. He is thirsty and his limbs feel weak and stiff. By ejaculating, he enjoys a brief moment of sensation but suffers long hours of weariness as a result. This is no true pleasure!

However, if a man regulates his ejaculations to an absolute minimum and retains his semen, his body will grow strong, his mind will be clear, and his vision and hearing will improve. While the man must occasionally deny himself the fleeting sensation of ejaculation, his love for his woman will greatly increase. He will feel as if he could never get enough of her. Is that not the true and lasting pleasure of sex?” 

There are Two Paths

While it’s more nuanced than this, let’s split spiritual practice, and by extension, semen retention, into two camps. That of renunciation, and that of tantra. 

The path of the renunciate is where we all begin, and where many of us may stay indefinitely. It is by no means the inferior of the two paths, and seeing as it is the basis for tantra, one might even consider it to be the superior of the two. It is powerful, effective, and most importantly, safe. It’s only downfall is it is slower.

In the path of renunciation, we give up all things sexual. We give up porn, we give up masturbation, and we sure as hell give up sex. When the goal is to retain semen, why would we be having sex? It’s almost a guaranteed spillage of precious seed. 

In the beginning, we might be extremely strict. We modify our environment to remove as much temptation as possible. We unfollow IG accounts that post photos of scantily clad women, we stop hanging out with our attractive female friends or buddies who only talk about getting laid, and we may even avoid social situations that could arouse lust within. These are temporary but necessary limitations we impose on ourselves – remember, “discipline equals freedom”.

As time progresses, and we build confidence in our practice, we may relax things a bit. We’ve gained enough mastery that hanging around attractive females is no longer a trigger. We brush off our buddies’ discussions about their weekend conquests, or attempts thereof. While we prob shouldn’t follow accounts or subreddits dedicated to naked females, we may be strong enough to follow accounts that post the occasional dimepiece. 

Then there is the path of Tantra. After a certain level of confidence has grown in our practice, and a certain amount of self-mastery, a few of us may decide to take things to the next level. 

The risk is great, but the reward is even greater.

We realize that maybe, just maybe, we can use our own desire to further our practice. Just as a smoking piece of wood quickly catches aflame as it is tossed in the fire, so too can our practice go from smouldering to ablaze through using our own desire.

The person on the tantric path learns how to masturbate in such a way to stir up his sexual energy, and then uses tantric techniques to further increase and circulate this energy. 

He learns how to look at an image of a beautiful female and use the desire it stirs within him to accomplish his real lifes work.

The most advanced amongst them even learn how to have sex in such a way as to stoke the sexual energy within, magnifying it many times over, circulating it blissfully throughout the body, all the while absorbing the Yin Jing of the females secretions or “elixers”.

The man on this path walks a dangerous tight-rope. Learning the techniques and the patience to keep his sexual excitement within 90-95% of climax, and being able to focus internally on the circulation and transmutation of this energy is no small feat, to say the least. 

Almost everyone will fail their first few times having tantric sex. With the right practice and Jing-building herbs, this is but a minor setback. 

Many will try it and, realizing its difficulty, give up the practice and return to the path of renunciation – and there ain’t a damn thing wrong with that.

Unfortunately, a few will try out this path and, after indulging and failing to retain their seed, give up the practice of semen retention all together. This is most unfortunate but is a real risk, so keep it in mind. 

However, the persistent among us, those willing to take their time, who have properly prepared, and who are willing to keep practicing… These men will see their practice, and entire life, explode into whole new dimensions of bliss and self-realization. 

Speaking on the difference between these two paths, Lama Yeshe writes,

“The behavior of someone following this path (the path of renunciation) to individual liberation is therefore characterized by extreme self-control. The practitioner posts a strict guard at the door of the senses and is extremely suspicious of whatever wants to enter…

Compared to a system like tantra, which actually uses the energy of desire, this cautious approach to the spiritual path is considered inferior… Tantra’s approach is very different. Instead of viewing pleasure and desire as something to be avoided at all costs, tantra recognizes the powerful energy aroused by our desires to be an indispensable resource for the spiritual path.Because the goal is nothing less than the realization of our highest human potential, tantra seeks to transform every experience – no matter how ‘unreligious’ it may appear – into the path of fulfillment. It is precisely because our present life is so inseparably linked with desire that we must make use of desire’s tremendous energy if we wish to transform our life into something transcendental… 

Thus the logic of tantra is really very simple: our experience of ordinary pleasure can be used as the resource for attaining the supremely pleasurable experience of totality, or enlightenment.

The function of tantra is to transform all pleasures into the transcendental experience of deep penetrative awareness. Instead of advocating separation from worldly pleasures the way many other traditions do, tantra emphasizes that it is much more effective for human beings to enjoy themselves and channel the energy of their enjoyments into a quick and powerful path to fulfillment and enlightenment.”

Powerful stuff. The thing is, you must be thoroughly established in SR and completely overhaul your worldview for this practice to bear fruit. You MUST have a solid foundation set, a regular routine that is practiced daily, and have spent some serious time working with your mind, it’s desires, urges and emotions. If you have difficulty making it a couple months without PMO, tantra is likely not for you.. Yet.

While I can’t speak for Lama Yeshe, when he calls the path of renunciation “inferior”, I take it to mean that the path of tantra is more suitable for those of us still living in the world of everyday life, surrounded by temptations and mundane pleasures. We can’t all go full monk mode and live in an ashram, monastery or hermitage, dedicating our lives to spiritual practice, nor should most of us. 

If we begin our practice of Semen Retention with renunciation, starving the constantly hungry sex drive and asserting our rightful dominance over the dominion of craving that is the libido, we set a solid foundation for when the time comes to practice tantra. 

Tantra, Dual Cultivation, and Karezza

Just as true yoga has little to do with soccer moms in pink yoga pants, true tantra actually has very little to do with sex. Or masturbation. Or anything sexual at all really. 

Tantra is all about using your natural desires as a means for spiritual evolution.

Tantra can be translated as a “weave” or “web”, and comes from the Sanskrit verbal root “tan”, meaning to expand. Tantra is therefore the practice and philosophy of expanding consciousness.

As Georg Feuerstein states, “According to esoteric explanations, tantra is that which expands jnana,which can either mean ‘knowledge’ or ‘wisdom’.”

Tantra is a means of transcending ordinary reality by diving deep into and through ordinary reality. Every experience, be it sex, listening to music, getting into an argument or eating a slice of pizza is seen as a manifestation of the divine, and thus can be used for transcendence.

While that’s all well and good, us scalawags on this sub are mostly interested in the sexual aspect of tantra. Within yogic systems of tantra, sex is used not only as means of spiritual transformation, of cultivating immense energy and bliss, but also a means of worshipping the divine feminine principle of the universe, Shakti. Shakti, the divine feminine, represents all energy in the universe – prana, Qi, kundalini, electricity, fire, ATP within the mitochondria – all of it is Shakti. By worshipping Shakti via tantric sex, you are actively worshipping the very same energy within your own body that you’ve been cultivating and sublimating this whole time.

Sex transforms from just a small, momentary explosion of pleasure followed by a limp dick and regret into a science of extended bliss and self-transcendence.

Within Qi Gong, tantric sex or “dual cultivation” is less a means of worship and more of a way to simply increase Jing and Qi, to cultivate and circulate sexual energy. Further, you didn’t have to be a spiritual practitioner to use these techniques. The common folk were well aware of them, as well as *Jing-*boosting, aphrodisiac herbs, just as a means of sexual enjoyment and boosting overall health.

These practices differ from karezza and “coitus resveratus” in the fact that they are energy-based and used as a means for spiritual evolution. Karezza is simply having normal sex and not ejaculating. There aren’t fancy breathing exercises, visualizations, mudras or bandhas, and usually there generally isn’t any non-ejaculatory orgasm, in contrast to Taoist/tantric sex, where all of these aspects usually play a role. 

Regardless, the techniques provided are useful for any type of non-ejaculatory sex, and any type of non-ejaculatory sex provides great benefit for us on the Semen Retention path.

Benefits of Tantric Sex

Whether you practice yogic tantric sex, Taoist “dual-cultivaton” style, or just plain karezza/non-ejaculatory sex, you reap massive benefits. 

Let’s start with karezza. You simply have sex, taking your time and going slow enough that you don’t orgasm. You’re focused on the act of sex itself, without the goal of orgasming. There are two main benefits to be had from this style of love making. 

First, it frees up and liberates a lot of sexual energy, which, if you know what you’re doing, you can then sublimate and circulate throughout the body-mind complex. You can do this during or after sex, or not at all, just enjoying sex for what is – physical intimacy with a special lady friend.

Second, from a Taoist perspective, the act of sex allows you to absorb the female’s “yin essence” – the hormones, peptides and other goodies found in her vaginal secretions. Of course, this implies that you are having sex without a condom, which carries its own risks and caveats, namely it must be consenual, you should both be free of STDs and hopefully the girl is on birth control, in case you slip up and bust a nut. Sperm can be found in pre-ejaculate as well, so consider yourself warned.

As Daniel Reid unpoetically states in The Tao of Health, Sex and Longevity,

“In both men and women, sexual secretions contain many pure, potent, biochemically active substances: hormones, enzymes, proteins, vitamins and other elements. When female secretions are released into the warm, moist environment of the vagina during intercouse, they come into direct contact with the sensitive, paper-thin skin of the man’s blood-engorged penis. Body heat opens wide the pores of this stretched skin, and the rhythmic rubbing of vagina and penis causes biochemically significant amounts of female ‘essence’ to be absorbed by the male.”

He continues, “For men, frequent intercourse with infrequent ejaculation is the key technique for cultivating sexual essence and energy. Furthermore, retaining semen during intercourse enables a man not only to preserve and reabsorb his own essence, it also enables him to prolong the act sufficiently for his partner to reach full orgasm, thereby releasing her most potent secretions for his benefit.”

Tantric sex and Taoist “dual cultivaton” are both essentially the same, unless you factor in the act of worshipping the divine from the tantra side of things. You receive the same benefits as karezza, but tantric and Taoist sex is, in itself, a type of energy work and meditation. You actively sublimate and circulate the sexual energy that is created during the act of lovemaking, both during and after the act. This leads to states of extreme bliss, as well as the possibility of altered states of consciousness, although these things don’t have to be a goal and are not guaranteed.

If you’re a skilled practitioner, you’re also able to cultivate bliss in such a way that you have multiple, full-body orgasms, without spilling your seed! Believe me when I say that this takes a lot of practice and, most difficult of all, finding a partner that’s willing to help you learn how to do this.

Taoists also speak of “solo cultivation”, which, as the name implies, is using masturbation in such a way as to cultivate and circulate sexual energy on your own. While it is less effective than dual cultivation, solo cultivation is a useful practice to not only learn to get the hang of the internal energy work that you use during tantric sex, but also to get the body used to getting close to orgasm before stopping and cooling off. It is essentially “tantric edging”.

I highly suggest that you have a solid 60-90 days of retention under your belt before you begin flirting with the idea of solo or dual cultivation. It’s also highly recommended that you are proficient in the sublimation techniques I’ve given in posts 2, 3, and 7, and that you become proficient in the techniques in Part 2 of this series on Tantra before you start messing around with edging or tantric sex.

May I also gently remind you horndogs that this is not a green light to go back to your sleazy ways of watching porn and scrolling through NSFW subs all day, every day. That will still fuck your brain up and drain you of tons of energy and dopamine, even if you’re doing “solo cultivation” practices. You still need to be “guarding the sense doors” the majority of the time.

To give you an idea of the power of these practices, after a few weeks/months of practice, you should be able to have sex or receive a blow job and make the conscious decision of whether you would like to orgasm or not. Having sex without orgasm always leaves me feeling invigorated and empowered, and I’m always ready for more, as compared to sex with release, which leaves me feeling drained and sleepy, with a few days of a “sex hangover” – basically just feeling lazy and less motivated. 

“The art of the bedroom consists of suppressing emissions, absorbing the woman’s fluids, and making semen return to strengthen the brain, thereby attaining longevity.” – Pien Chang’s Dynastic History of the Later Han

Mindset

Before you begin attempting tantric sex or even “solo cultivation”, you need to change your view of the world within and around you.

Remember, tantra is a way of viewing every experience as a play of the divine – everything becomes holy, no matter how mundane or profane. Those with a spiritual or religious bend can fit this way of thinking into their given paradigms. For those of us who are atheist or agnostic, simply view everything in terms of a purely energetic standpoint.

Everything you see around you, the world of physical matter, is just condensed energy. Nothing is “good” or “bad”, everything is just energy moving about in different forms, and thus everything can be used for self-transcendence, if viewed properly.

The spiritual aspirant views the world as a training ground, where he uses everyday experiences as a means to purify the mind and emotions. The semen retention practitioner should view sex and non-ejaculatory masturbation as a training ground for increasing and sublimating sexual energy.

See a beautiful lady walking towards you? Feel that sexual energy rise up, embrace it, and view it not as lust but rather as a powerful means for bliss and self-transformation.

Feeling horny? Good, the drive to be a man and create new life is still strong within you, the flame has not been extinguished. Reframe it as not just a means to fuck a girl, but a means to make love to existence itself and birth a whole new you. 

Realize that your attraction to a beautiful lady is really your male energy craving union with female energy – and she experiences the same in reverse. Yang craves Yin, and vice versa.

Read Reddit user u/redjohnagain’s The Earth is a Woman (Part 1).

If you’re having sex with a gal, don’t view her as just a soft and warm thing to come inside of. Her body is a temple, and you should worship it, not just with your cock but with your mind, using her body, energy and soul to help you create untold levels of bliss within. And fellas, don’t forget – you should be aiming to please her as well you scoundrel, don’t be so self-involved that you forget she wants to feel good too. 

And while we should never put women on a pedestal, we should always feel grateful for a chance to merge with that divine feminine energy we crave so much.

And in fact, any desire you feel for anything, and any experience you have, can be transformed for spiritual means. I’ll leave that to you to study as it goes beyond the scope of Semen Retention.

“Like the sun, which dries up everything, or like fire, which consumes everything, so the yogin enjoys everything but is not stained by sin.” Kula-Arnava-Tantra, 9.76

“One should cultivate desire by means of desire. One should cast desire into desire. Desiring by means of desire, abiding in desire, one should stir the world.” – Vamaka-Ishvara-Tantra, 4.46

“For a man to nurture his male powers, he must nourish his Yang essence by absorbing Yin essence. When men and women indulge freely in sex, exchanging their bodily fluids and breathing each other’s breath, it is like fire and water meeting in such perfect proportions that neither one defeats the other. Man and woman should ebb and flow in intercourse like the waves and currents of the sea, first one way, then another, but always in harmony with the Great Tide. In this manner, they may continue all night long, constantly nourishing and preserving their precious vital essence, curing all ailments, and promoting long life. Without this basic harmony of Yin and Yang, neither medicines refined from the five minerals, nor the most potent aphrodisiacs, will be of any use. If the vital essences are dried up due to excessive emission or complete neglect, they can never be revived.” Su-Nu Ching

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Overcoming Wet Dreams

I’ve seen multiple Reddit posts recently about people having issues with wet dreams and nocturnal emissions, so let’s have a little chat about the topic.

Repressed Sexuality

I think the biggest issue for a lot of guys on this path is that they mistakenly wind up repressing all sexual thoughts and feelings. This repression and bottling up of sexual feelings means that they wind up getting expressed when we’re no longer in control, oftentimes in an explosion of jizzum while we’re asleep. This is awfully frustrating when we’re putting so much conscious effort into not ejaculating in the waking world.

When you go on the semen retention path, it’s important to not have things in your environment that stimulate sexual thoughts. So we cut out racey accounts that we follow, avoid going out to bars with all the scantily clad girls, and we definitely cut out porn. But we’re left with one very fundamental thing that we can’t just “cut out” – our mind. You may have removed every possibility of seeing a sexually stimulating image, but controlling the mind and its desire for the female form is a bit trickier.

So many of us repress these thoughts, desires, and cravings. This is not the move! Just like letting little annoying things that your girlfriend does bottle up until it bursts out of you in an embarrassing display of frustration and anger, bottling up and repressing sexual thoughts/desires leads to, well.. A different kind of embarrassing explosion.

The trick is to allow these thoughts and desires to pop up, remaining aware yet detached. In Part 5 – The Alpha and the Omega, we discussed a type of meditation where you just remain a passive observer to thoughts as they arise, as if they were just ephemeral clouds passing through your mind. 

You guys have been practicing this, right?

“Your goal is to identify as the passive witness to all these thoughts/images/feelings as they arise. They are like clouds, coming about on their own, evolving and changing on their own, and fading away.”

In regards to emotions, “I’ve found it helpful to reframe emotions as just flavors of energy that come into my field of consciousness, stick around for a quick sec, and then start fading away. They’re impermanent and only hold as much weight as you give them.”

So instead of repressing and shoving sexual thoughts and desires down into your subconscious, where they’ll simply explode out of your dick while you sleep, just remain detachedly aware of them. The goal is to learn to identify as that part of you that is pure awareness, and to view your thoughts and emotions (sexual or otherwise) as an interesting and amusing thing that seems to be playing out in front of you. 

In this way, sexual thoughts and desires get fully acknowledged, not repressed. The energy that makes them up is able to be expressed, without shaking your strong foundation of mindfulness. 

It can be tricky, cuz these types of thoughts are sticky – they have a tendency to suck you in and pull you and your Johnson along for a ride. That’s why this is a good meditation to practice with everyday thoughts and emotions.

Learning to identify as “the witness”, that impersonal but imperturbable aspect of pure awareness, will get you far in life, not just in retention. The more you identify with the witness, and less with your thoughts, emotions, and desires, the less you’ll be swayed by the ups and downs of life.

Lack of or Improper Sublimation

I reckon that many on this sub that are still struggling with nocturnal emissions aren’t taking their sublimation practices seriously. When you retain and begin building that sexual energy up, if you don’t actively sublimate it and circulate it throughout the whole body/mind complex, what do you expect is gonna happen? That energy needs to find an outlet somewhere, and it’s gonna take the route it’s most familiar with.

You don’t have to do the whole yoga/breathing exercise route I espouse, but it is exceptionally good for this issue, specifically siddhasana (Part 7) and the spinal breathing technique from Part 2 and Part 3.

Non-yoga sublimation techniques that would be best would be working out and cold showers or baths before bed, or even just an ice pack on the crotch. Journaling is another way to get those sexual thoughts and emotions expressed without them ruffling your feathers too much. 

Over-stimulated CNS

A big contributing factor is likely that many people experiencing wet dreams are going to bed too stimulated. This could be from too much caffeine late in the day, watching action movies or gaming right before bed, being overly stressed out, or not getting enough exercise. 

Exercise is key here. If you get a solid hour to an hour and a half workout 4-5 times a week, your body will be so busy rebuilding itself and recovering during sleep that it won’t have the energy or need to have a nighttime orgasm. If any of you brothers aren’t exercising you REALLY need to get on it! It is easily almost as beneficial as the semen retention path – the benefits are nearly endless and come quickly. It might not take you as far semen retention but it will improve every aspect of your life. Get on it fellas, whether it’s running, weight lifting, rock climbing, mountain biking, whatevs.

If you’re struggling with wet dreams, cut back on the caffeine/nicotine/adderall, especially later in the day. Avoid video games and movies that are over-stimulating before bed, at least until this issue resolves itself.

Practice some calming breathing exercises just before bed. Along with spinal breathing and alternate nostril breathing, you can practice either box breathing or 1:1:2 breathing.

In box breathing you simply breathe in, hold, exhale, and hold, all for an equal count. Breathe in 5 seconds, hold the breath inside for 5 seconds, exhale for 5 seconds, and hold the breath outside the body for 5 seconds. Repeat for 5-10 minutes.

1:1:2 breathing is similar, except you double the length of the exhale, and omit the external breath retention. So you’d breathe in for 5 seconds, hold for 5 seconds, exhale for 10, and then repeat.

Box breathing is a technique used by Navy Seals to calm down, switching their body from fight-or-flight mode into the relaxing rest-and-digest. 

1:1:2 breathing accomplishes the same thing. The sympathetic nervous system is activated when you breathe in, while the out-breath activates the calming parasympathetic nervous system. You can actually feel your heart beat faster on the inhale and slower on the exhale if you pay close attention. By doubling the length of the exhale, you double the amount of parasympathetic activation.

If you’ve worked up to it, you can also practice alternate nostril breathing in a 1:2 fashion, or a 1:1:2 fashion. The left nostril is the start of the cooling, calming energy channel, while the right nostril is the beginning of the warming, activating energy channel. By equalizing the breath in both nostrils in an alternating fashion, you balance the nervous system.

Kegels

Do your damn kegels! Do ’em all the time, whenever you have a second to think about them. Lots of quick, short holds, medium length holds, long holds. Practice reverse kegels too, as if you were trying to hurry up and piss faster than Sonic the hedgehog.

There are apps out there for you to follow specific routines, but I’ve never used them and don’t see any need to. If that sounds like your jam feel free to check ‘em out.

Kegels not only help to sublimate sexual energy up out of the genitals, it also helps prevent leakage, whether awake or asleep. It’s also a fundamental practice for Tantric sex, if you ever decide to go that route, so get reaaallll comfortable with em.

Set Intentions

What’s the easiest way to have a lucid dream? Go to bed and as you’re drifting off, program your subconscious mind to become lucid while dreaming. Ever had to wake up in the morning for something really important, and even though you forgot to set an alarm, you still woke up early for it? 

The whole thing about sleep is that “you” aren’t consciously there. However, by setting intentions before bed, you can program your subconscious mind to some degree. When you go to bed each night, set an intention to sleep through the night with no leakage. Don’t have a mindset of fear or worry that you’ll have an emission – you’re talking to your subconscious here, you’re talking to yourself – there’s nothing to fear. You’re on the same team, you are the same team.

Tell your subconscious firmly – not angrily – that these wet dreams are no longer serving you, and that your seed and sexual energy are now to be retained and used for self-evolution. Program your mind for a few minutes each night before bed, and then forget about it and drift off to sleep. It’s important to not obsess over it – just set the intention and let it go. Your deeper self will take care of the rest.

On Herbs and Supplements

Back in Part 6 – Cultivating Sexual Energy with Herbs, we discussed some herbal hacks for building and transmuting Jing, our sexual energy. If you’re having issues with wet dreams, I would make sure to avoid cistanche, as it’s not only spermatogenic, but is also a fairly strong aphrodisiac.

While schisandra is also spermatogenic, it has been used for thousands of years by Taoists and practitioners of the “bedroom arts” to help preserve and “lock in” sexual fluids. Its astringent and sour qualities are excellent for this purpose. Because it is a potent adaptogen, it will also help you to destress, and as we covered earlier, being overly stressed is likely contributing to nocturnal emissions.

Ashwagandha would be of use here as well. It increases GABA within the brain, which is our main inhibitory neurotransmitter, helping us to get deep, restorative sleep. It’s adaptogenic and also lowers cortisol, one of our main stress hormones.

Polygala would still be safe to use, and as it helps to build up the “Fourth Treasure”, our willpower, and opens up the “Penetrating Vessel”, allowing sexual energy to be transmuted up the spine from the sexual organs. Polygala on it’s own might be a bit too stimulating right before bed, however. Dragon Herbs has a great product called Will Strengthener which contains some supporting herbs (such as dragon bone – see below) that will help calm the nervous system. If you already bought straight polygala, just make sure to use it in the morning or early afternoon.

A few other things may be important to ensure deep sleep. I would avoid 5-HTP, tryptophan, B Vitamins and melatonin before bed, as these generally increase REM sleep, the stage of sleep where most dreaming, wet or dry, occurs. While we certainly don’t want to abolish REM sleep outright, those struggling with wet dreams probably don’t need anymore than they get naturally.

Magnesium improves deep sleep and is crucially missing from pretty much everyone’s diet, as we’ve done an excellent job of raping and leaving for the dead the soil of our farms here in the West. This is one of those few supplements I think everyone should be taking, especially anyone with sleep issues or anxiety. Magnesium glycinate, chelate, citrate or threonate are all excellent choices.

In Traditional Chinese Medicine, Shen–tonifying herbs are split into two categories – Shen-stabliizing and Shen-developing herbs. The stabilizing herbs help to settle our spirit, mind and emotions. They’re very calming and grounding. Shen-developing herbs, like polygala, help to bring positive emotions to the forefront of our experience. 

Most Shen-stabilizing herbs and formulas are very calming to the nervous system, particularly Pearl powder and the formula bupleurum and dragon bone. Pearl is just what it sounds like, pearls that have been ground up into extremely fine powder. This mineral rich powder helps to “weigh down” the electrical impulses of the nerves. 

Bupleurum and dragon bone is the most widely used anti-stress formula in TCM. “Dragon bone” refers to pulverized remains of fossilized animal bones, traditionally mastodon. Yeah, they go hard in TCM. Again, this mineral-rich compound is “heavy” in the sense that it calms the nervous system, and also has the same astringent property that schisandra has, helping to “lock in” sexual energy and fluids.

Bupleurum and dragon bone is “known for its ability to help stabilize addictive-compulsive behavior and is widely used in the withdrawal from the addiction to smoking, drinking, and a large variety of addictive drugs by both lessening the cravings for the drug and reducing the common withdrawal symptoms… It is said to improve willpower, strengthen the mind, and reduce anxiety, frustration, and anger.”

Dragon bone itself is useful for nocturnal emissions. As Ron Teeguarden states in The Ancient Wisdom of the Chinese Tonic Herbs, “It is often used in formulas to control seminal emission… It is often found in formulas designed to enhance male sexual performance. In this usage, it has a calming effect on the mind, preventing premature ejaculation, as well as the astringent action, which literally locks in semen.”

Recommended Products –

Drs. Best Magnesium Glycinate Lysinate

Jing Herbs Pearl Powder

Dragon Herbs Pearl Capsules

Jing Herbs Bupleurum and Dragon Bone Powder

Dragon Herbs Bupleurum and Dragon Bone Capsules

Dragon Herbs Will Strengthener

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Semen Retention and Testosterone

In my last post, we talked about increasing the amount of yang energy within, specifically through certain herbs. These herbs increase sperm production and libido, are anti-aging and many are also cognitive enhancing.

If we want more yang energy, we need to address the most fundamental yin and yang hormones within – estrogen and testosterone.

Prevalence of Xenoestrogens

Xenoestrogens are chemicals found in food and our environment that have estrogenic effects on our bodies, and unfortunately they’re freaking everywhere. They are part of a bigger problem, those of endocrine disruptors – chemicals and compounds that negatively affect our endocrine system and thus our hormone levels – and the practice of semen retention is largely the practice of fine tuning the endocrine system.

Xenoestrogens are ubiquitous – they’re found in plants, foods, pesticides, cosmetics, fragrances, medications, plastics and the liquids and foods contained therein, and even in the drinking water in some places.

Many xenoestrogens come from plants – these are known as phytoestrogens. In a perfect world, these are actually beneficial compounds, but considering all the synthetic chemical xenoestrogens, these are just one more source of estrogen in our environment. The biggest sources of phytoestrogens for most people are from soy products, the hops in beer, flaxseeds, sesame seeds, lavender, licorice, and hummus, if made with tahini. Hops contain one of the most potent phytoestrogens known to man – sorry my beer loving brethren.

As long as you aren’t chugging a ton of soy milk and double dry-hopped IPAs, phytoestrogens would be a moot point, but again, because of the overload of all of the other toxic xenoestrogens in our environment, I would keep these to a bare minimum unless you’ve done a great job of eliminating the other culprits.

The best way to detox excess xenoestrogens is to eliminate their intake, focus on burning up excess body fat, and regular use of a sauna.

Because xenoestrogens are fat-soluble, they get stored in your body fat, and thus burning up any excess fat will help to release them. Be sure to consume plenty of fiber, as the liver binds excess toxins to fiber to aid in their elimination. I’d recommend a monthly 24-48 hour green juice fast, except add a fiber supplement to the juices. I prefer just throwing in some chia seeds, although you could use Metamucil as well. Schisandra, my favorite herb for semen retention, is an amazing liver detoxifier as well, so I’d be sure to throw it in for those fasts.

Sauna use directly releases toxins through the skin, but it can be difficult and pricy finding one near you. If you can, I highly recommend it, as it has a host of other benefits as well. Check your local gyms – you are going to the gym, right?

Check out Dr. Anthony Jay’s page of products he uses, as well as his book Estrogeneration if you’d like to dive deeper into this topic.

Increasing Testosterone

Decreasing the estrogenic load on the body alone will work wonders on correcting hormone levels and boosting testosterone, but we also want to look into how to directly increase T levels.

  1. Lift heavy weights
  2. Get plenty of quality sleep
  3. Eat properly
  4. Destress and lower inflammation
  5. Certain supplements and nutrients

Lift Heavy Weights – this is hands down the easiest and quickest way to raise T levels, both acutely and over the long term. When you begin lifting weights, you send a message to your body that you need to start getting stronger and increase muscle mass, and testosterone is how the body accomplishes these goals.

Not only will lifting weights increase the release of testosterone, but it also increases the sensitivity and expression of androgen receptors throughout the body. See, testosterone is meaningless if it has nothing to bind to in order to exert its effects, and androgen receptors are the binding site. If your receptors aren’t sensitive to androgens, aka testosterone, it doesn’t matter how much testosterone you have floating around – it won’t activate the receptors.

Lifting weights is the one-two punch for increasing androgen levels and sensitizing androgen receptors. The best lifts to increase T levels are heavy, compound lifts, such as squats, deadlifts, bench presses, overhead presses and rows. Check out StrongLifts 5×5 for a guide on how to get started. Make sure to start off with light weight and proper form, or else you’ll get injured and have to take time off. The StrongLifts site has videos to learn proper form.

Hill sprints are another excellent way to increase androgens and androgen sensitivity. Simply find a 30-ish foot hill and sprint full speed up it, 4-7 times. That’s it. Make sure to warm up before hand with a light 5 minute jog and some high knees before hand, and give yourself a few minutes to recover between sprints. You can sprint on flat ground too, but it’s a bit less effective and harder on the joints.

David Goggins

Get Plenty of Sleep – this is just as crucial as lifting weights. Multiple studies show the correlation between a better nights sleep and between higher levels of testosterone. A study of 531 men found that those who only slept 4 hours a night had 60% less testosterone than those who slept a full 8 hours a night.

To improve your sleep, the most important thing is keeping a regular sleep and wake up time. Set a bedtime that is 8-9 hours before you want to be waking up, and stick to it. Keep your room as dark and cool as possible. Avoid caffeine after 3 pm, and limit alcohol consumption to one or two drinks max.

Make sure to avoid blue and bright light before bed, and get a hefty dose of bright light first thing upon waking up, either from a bright lite or from just a quick stroll outdoors. Avoiding blue light at night and getting bright light in the morning are key to entraining your circadian rhythm. Blue light blocking glasses can be very helpful for those of us who enjoy watching tv/gaming/have computer work to do before bed. Install f.lux or use the built-in red shift feature on newer phones.

Supplements such as magnesium glycinate (T booster!), glycine, 5-HTP, ashwagandha (T booster and cortisol reducer!), and melatonin can all be helpful in getting a good night’s rest.

Eat properly – quick quiz – what is testosterone made out of? If you answered cholesterol, you were spot on. Cholesterol is converted into pregnenolone, which is the precursor to all steroidal hormones, including testosterone and estrogen. Moreover, cholesterol is a key component of every cell within the body, with the brain taking a whopping 25% of all of the body’s cholesterol.

Cholesterol is not the villain it was once made out to be, either. I’m not saying you should be pounding hamburgers for every meal, but you should absolutely not be avoiding foods like grass-fed beef or eggs from pastured chickens.

Not only are sex hormones made out of cholesterol, but they have a fatty acid backbone. As such, it stands to figure that a low-fat diet would be deleterious to testosterone production, and indeed this is what the research shows. The graph below shows what happens when researchers lowered the fat intake of subjects from 40% of total calories consumed to 25%, and then back up to 40% – we see a clear drop in T levels.

different types of fatty acids and serum testosterone levels

It’s important to note that not all fats are created equally though – saturated and monounsaturated fats are best for testosterone production, while polyunsaturated fats have a negative impact on T levels. This is because extracted polyunsaturated fats are highly unstable and therefor likely to be oxidized and rancid upon consumption.

This means fats such as vegetable oils, most seed and nut oils, fried foods and processed foods using these oils are a hard no-no on a T boosting diet. Corn, peanut, soy, canola and other extracted oils are off limits, and should be from just a regular health standpoint as well. Grass-fed butter, olive oil, coconut oil, red palm oil, macadamia nut and avocado oil are your best bets, but make sure they aren’t coming from plastic bottles! Conventional factory-farmed meats, dairy and eggs are higher in polyunsaturated fats as well, because they’re fed cheap soy and corn feed – another reason to try to get as much free-range, organic animal products as possible.

fatty acids and testosterone

Increasing saturated fat and monounsaturated fats increase T, poly lowers T

As for carbs and protein, as long as you’re getting adequate amounts of both, your testosterone levels shouldn’t be impacted much. Again, the types of foods consumed still have an impact. Gluten may increase prolactin levels, something we on the semen retention train are trying to keep to a minimum. Grains and products coming from grains are doused in estrogenic pesticides, so make sure the grain products you’re buying are organic and low in gluten.

Make sure that the majority of the foods you eat are organic, and try to have the meats and eggs you consume come from free-range animals. We just went over how deleterious pesticides are to your endocrine system. Meat, milk and eggs that come from non-organic, factory farmed animals are laden with these same pesticides, as it’s used on the corn and soy feed that they are forced to consume, never mind the antibiotics that have to be used, growth hormones and even injected estrogens to increase animal growth.

The best diet in my eyes is one that is pretty close to paleo, meaning lots of organic, non-starchy green veggies, grass-fed/free range meats/poultry, eggs, wild caught fish, fresh seasonal fruit, some nuts/seeds/tubers, and plenty of herbs and spices. I can’t recommend a whole foods, nutrient-rich diet enough.

Finally, it’s important to have a balanced caloric intake. Being overweight kills T levels, considering excess body fat is actually estrogenic. On the flip side, consuming too few calories results in lowered testosterone as well. It should be made very clear that this does not apply to those who are restricting calories in order to drop down to a healthy bodyweight, but more in the sense of someone who is constantly under-eating or who is constantly burning the candles at both ends, working out too much and not eating enough.

Speaking of burning the candle at both ends…

Destress and lower inflammation – this is a huuuuge killer of testosterone in today’s world. Basically, testosterone and cortisol, our main stress hormone, have an inverse relationship. More cortisol means less testosterone, simple as that.

The best ways to destress? Get plenty of high quality sleep, make sure you get lots of low intensity movement throughout the day, plenty of fresh air and sunlight, eat anti-inflammatory, nutrient dense foods, and make sure to have a practice designed to lower stress specifically. Yoga, breathing exercises and meditation are obvious choices, especially since they help sublimate sexual energy.

Certain herbs are excellent at lowering stress as well, known as adaptogens– ashwagandha, tulsi, reishi mushroom, and phosphatidylserine are excellent options, but remember, these are secondary to the real heavy hitters listed above.

Stress and inflammation go hand in hand, and the more inflamed you are, the lower your T levels are gonna be. Along with the things suggested in the previous paragraphs, avoid excess Omega 6 fatty acids (which are primarily found in vegetable oils, which you already should be avoiding), and consume plenty of Omega 3s, especially those found in cold water, fatty fish and fish oil. Herbs and spices are great anti-inflammatories, so include plenty of turmeric, ginger, cayenne, rosemary, sage and whatever other herbs you enjoy. Organic dark berries, dark chocolate and organic teas are excellent additions to help lower inflammation.

Supplements such as a strong turmeric/curcumin complex, boswellia, and fish oil or krill oil will work wonders.

Target nutrients and supplements – Pivotal here is the fact these should only be bothered with if you’ve got your other T-boosting ducks in a row – nothing is gonna make up for a shitty diet, a stressful life and being overweight and not exercising. That said, there are a couple important supplements to consider when trying to boost T levels.

Aswhagandha – lowers cortisol and increases testosterone; potent adaptogen, increases sperm production.

Zinc, boron and magnesium – this trifecta of minerals are crucially important for T levels – a deficiency in any one of them will lower testosterone and increase estrogen. More does not equal more testosterone, we’re just making sure we aren’t deficient.

Vitamin D – did you know that, like sex hormones, the body makes vitamin D from cholesterol? It is also technically a hormone itself, but is also crucial for optimum testosterone levels – 3332 IUs of the vitamin for a year resulted in a 25% uptick in T levels as compared to a control group. It’s dirt cheap – I recommend 5000 IUs if you aren’t getting enough sunlight, which is pretty much all of us.

Vitamin K2 – a crucial vitamin to be taking if you’re taking Vitamin D, as it helps to make sure that the calcium absorbed gets deposited in the bones and not in arteries. It’s also crucial in the conversion of cholesterol into testosterone, and mice fed the vitamin saw a whopping 70% increase in testosterone levels! Small amounts can be found in some fermented foods like natto, in wheat germ and hard cheeses, and in grass-fed dairy products, but it’s best to supplement.

Iodine – another mineral that, if deficient, lowers T levels. Critical for thyroid health as well, which affects testosterone. I personally don’t take it as an isolated supplement, but make sure to consume plenty of seaweeds, particularly nori wraps and kelp flakes, although you can supplement if you so choose. Shoot for around .5 – 1mg. If you’re on thyroid meds, talk to your doc, or just eat seaweed a couple times a week.

A good multi – this one linked is the best I’ve found for an affordable price. You get more than enough zinc and selenium, a fair amount of D3, a decent chunk of iodine, and all the rest of the vitamins in their bioactive forms. I would definitely get the additional K2/D3, iodine and boron though.

Key Takeaways

As men, we definitely drew the short stick in terms of being born in such a toxic time – xenoestrogens and other toxins abound, porn and sexualized ads and tv shows are everywhere. It’s up to us to make sure we counteract this craziness.

Avoid plastics and synthetic, chemical-laden cosmetics; try to eat as organically as possible, and get your meat from free-range, pastured animals; do monthly 24-48 hour fasts with some fiber thrown in there; destress and consume anti-inflammatory foods; get plenty of deep sleep, and consider some targeted supplementation, and you can see, and FEEL, your testosterone levels start rising in a matter of weeks.

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Cultivating Sexual Energy with Herbs

An interesting thing happens when we first start on this semen retention journey – the world becomes juicy. Things go hi-definition, things seem to pop and glow on their own. Music becomes richer, the air feels crisper, emotions are deeper – we feel more alive. 

And the women, goddamn.. The best analogy I can give is the difference in the way food tastes when you’re not so hungry vs when you’re starving. It’s the same meal, but tastes so much better. A similar principle is at play for me every time I looked at the female form – same girls but damn do they become more attractive. My whole life, and all of my senses, upgrade by a solid 15-20% when I build up this sexual energy. 

The ladies, much to my surprise, seemed to notice this increase in sexual energy as well. I was getting much more attention than usual. Tons of glances from random girls. My female friends were much more cuddly – fine by me. Being a bartender, I got much more attention and tips from the female patrons. You guys are all familiar with this effect – we just exude this sexual charisma.

Now I could rationalize this in all sorts of ways – it was the Baader-Meinhoff effect, or pheromones, or maybe my testosterone had somehow increased leading to me having better posture, confidence and charisma. Maybe. But it didn’t account for girls I hadn’t seen or spoken to in months suddenly sliding into my DMs. It was like I was just broadcasting this sexual energy throughout the cosmos. Life was good, my friends.

The thing is, at this point I wasn’t practicing strict semen retention, I had merely cut back. I was building this powerful sexual energy through consuming certain herbs, and damn were they potent.

The Connection

We know how all of this stuff works. How increasing one’s Jing via semen retention leads to an increase in Qi within the body, creating a magnetic aura. Being in such a high energy state is simply attractive – people want to be around you because you literally radiate energy. And if you practiced meditation and had strong positive vibes, all the more attractive.

Part 3 went into detail on what our auras actually are, on how to strengthen them and how to make them particularly magnetic. This post is about how to make our auras even more magnetic to women.

There are three effects at work when it comes to energetic attraction, the first two of which we’ve already covered –

  1. People with less energy are attracted to those of with ample amounts of energy – this is why people and even animals and puppies get attracted us while retaining – we have a ton of energy, and that feels good for others to be around. This is also the principle behind people following obviously dangerous cult leaders – the cult leaders have strong auras. We on the semen retention path naturally attract others.
  2. People are attracted to those with very high frequency energy. Someone who is genuinely loving, caring, giving and nice is welcome anywhere, and people are sad to see them go. Lift others up, even if with just your presence, and you’ll be in high demand. Someone with lots of Shen is like this – they may not even have abundant sexual energy, so their aura may not be super strong, but the energy they give off is so positive that people love to be around them. 
  3. In terms of sexual attraciton, yang attracts yin, and yin attracts yang. We haven’t touched on this yet, but this is the sexual attraction we experience when we retain. This is exactly the same as the negative and positive polarities of a magnet attracting one another. As men, we generally have more yang energy, and women naturally have more yin. So when we retain, not only do we build up the energy of Jing, Qi and Shen, but because we’re men, we also build up yang energy. This naturally, easily and powerfully attracts women.

This is how I was able to build up sexual energy and attract ladies without retaining more than a week or two in the beginning – I was taking potent herbs that boosted these energies within myself.

Yin, Yang and Sexual Attraction

Yin and yang are two opposite but complementary forces within all of us and all of creation. We’ve all seen the yin yang symbol – within the yin is a kernel of yang, and within yang, a kernel of yin. They are two different parts in the same cycle of energy.

Yin energy is naturally cooling, receptive, yielding and contractive. It is the part of the cycle in which energy is assimilated and stored.

Yang energy is naturally warming, dynamic, expressive, expansive. It is the part of the cycle in which energy is used up and expressed for a certain purpose.

Women are generally more yin in nature. They receive sperm, and then assimilate all the energy needed to grow that baby within them. They generally are the ones waiting for the man to come approach them, although this has a societal aspect to it as well. Women are generally more cautious and less likely to take risks. They are more caring and nurturing. In tribal societies, women usually gathered food and stayed in the village, nurturing the young.

Men are generally more yang in nature. We shoot forth our frothy, funky foam into the female. We generally are the ones to approach the woman in a social situation. There’s a reason men are more likely to die young, because we are prone to doing stupid shit – we have more yang energy than we know what to do with. We are generally more aggressive, both in terms of going after what we want and in terms of physical aggression. In tribal societies, we were the ones going out and hunting game.

So why do we seem to magically attract the ladies when we begin a semen retention practice? Why do other guys seem to suddenly respect us so much more? Not only do we have an abundance of high vibration energy, but that energy is extremely yang in nature. And we can enhance this energy even further with the right supplemental herbs.

Yin and Yang Herbs

Remember above how I said yin is the part of cycle where energy is stored and assimilated, and yang is the release and expression of this energy? This means that, especially in the beginning, you want to be focused more on building yin Jing, setting up a solid foundation for when you take more yang herbs. 

When we retain semen, we are inherently increasing our yang energy. It increases testosterone and dopamine, two very yang substances, and decreases prolactin, a very yin substance. This naturally makes us feel quite amazing – that’s yang Jing at work. By using yin herbs, we build a bigger foundation or capacity for even more yang energy. 

If we want to cultivate insane amounts of sexual energy, we need to focus on cultivating yin Jing first. Yin is the ground out of which yang energy can do its thing. Yin herbs aren’t estrogenic, they don’t increase prolactin or oxytocin, and they won’t make you girly. They simply build up sexual fluids and deep, restorative energy – yang herbs get all that energy heated up and moving around, so we can more easily express it.

These herbs are the fastest way to cultivate sexual energy, other than having tantric sex, which most of us just aren’t ready for. Going back to the leaky bucket analogy, semen retention increases our sexual energy, our Jing, by plugging up our biggest leak; yoga, breathing exercises and visualizations, herbs and tantric sex directly increase this energy, turning the faucet all the way up.

The Easiest Sexual Energy Hack 

Jing-boosting herbs help bolster our hormone and neurotransmitter levels, improve our fertility, increase sperm health and sperm count, enhance blood flow and circulation, and are great for the immune system. They’re anti-aging, and many are powerful cognitive enhancers. 

For all those that doubt that these herbs can have any effect on this practice, reread that last paragraph – they increase sperm health and sperm count. Pretty key considering this whole sub is based off of retaining semen. 

The more powerful yang herbs are also extremely potent aphrodisiacs, so if you’re already struggling everyday with temptation, leave these for later.

To get the most out of these herbs, you need to have a strong digestive system and balanced endocrine system. If your digestive system is weak, you won’t be able to absorb some of these compounds. In fact, Daniel Reid devotes a whole chapter in The Tao of Health, Sex and Longevity to improving the digestive system. So step one is to make sure your digestive system is cleaned out and working in tip top shape. 

Next, if your hormones and neurotransmitters are all out of whack, these herbs won’t be able to work their magic, because they work directly with the endocrine system, with your hormones and neurotransmitters. It will take forever to see results if you’re constantly in fight or flight mode, your body dumping out loads of adrenaline and cortisol every day. 

It’s important to note that because they work with your endocrine system, they also take time to fully kick in. These aren’t extracted synthetic chemicals, they are tonic in nature – they need some time to build up in the system. Some of them you may notice in a few days, but many take a few weeks.

The best way to purify the digestive tract is simply by doing a few fasts – a couple 2-3 day green juice fasts would be sufficient. If fasting just won’t work in your schedule, I suggest eating lots of fiber and tons of greens for a week or two. Things that heal the digestive tract, such as homemade bone broth, collagen, marshmallow root or colostrum (which is a potent Jing-boosting substance!) are of great help here too.

The best way to get your nervous and endocrine systems in good order is to just practice de-stressing. If you’ve cut back on stimulants, social media and gaming, and have been doing yoga and meditation like advised, and get ample, high-quality sleep, you should be good to go.

Quick Warning

Some of these yang herbs are insanely potent. Those of us with months, even years of retention under our belts gotta be careful, cuz these things increase our sexual energy to insane heights. There is a high likelihood of you spilling your seed if you try to start off with the more potent tonics.

Remember being a teenager and sporting a chub all day long, ogling over every pubescent pair of tits you saw? It’s this, and then some. I have tried more than a few formulas that started off with me feeling great and getting all sorts of attention from the ladies, but that quickly left me surrounded by empty bottles of Jergens, dick chafed, utterly defeated.

Some of these herbs you’re going to learn about will kick your ass if you’re not careful, but they can also be a boon if you slip up – you’ll be able to gain your sexual energy back much faster. I have a very potent damage control formula just in case this does happen, or in case you plan on a special occasion to release.

In all things, we seek balance, and especially so here. Yang herbs are a ton of fun, but they must be preceded by and balanced with yin herbs. 

On to the good stuff, boys.

Getting Started

Keep in mind that you get what you pay for with these herbs. Cheap herbs are absolute crap and since the majority of this stuff comes from China, you run the risk of getting contaminated product. Luckily I’ve been at this for a long time and know which companies put out quality products. These herbs also must be taken on an empty stomach – first thing waking up or a couple hours after meals.

Schisandra – builds Jing, increases sperm count, and has the special property of “locking in” Jing

This herb should be the cornerstone of your Jing-building protocol. It actually increases all Three Treasures, Jing, Qi and Shen, and is one of only a handful of herbs to do so. It is slightly yin, but most importantly for us, it has an astringent quality that “locks in” Jing. Its astringent quality helps conserve fluids, and in the case of schisandra, this means it helps conserve semen, combating wet dreams and other leakages. When/if you start practicing tantric sex, this herb will be an essential part of that practice.

Schisandra is said to vastly increase the “Water Qi in the sexual organs.” Increasing “water Qi in the sexual organs” means exactly what you think – it increases sperm production in men and vaginal secretions in women. More than one study points to this fact, with another summarizing that schisandra “promotes spermatogenesis by upregulating abnormal sex hormones and decreasing proinflammatory cytokines (interleukin-6; TNF-α).” 

It has a bevy of other benefits as well, helping improve deep sleep, detoxifying the liver, improving skin quality, and because it is an adaptogen, it helps reduce fatigue and keep it at bay. This is the cornerstone of my Jing-building routine, and in fact, many Qi Gong practitioners start with taking 10 grams of this herb for 100 consecutive days to build a strong base of Jing and Qi. Why stop at 100 days? 

Ashwagandha – builds Jing, is mildly yang, and lowers levels of cortisol, a major Jing-leaking hormone

Ashwagandha actually comes to us from Ayurveda, India’s traditional system of healing. Within Ayurveda, it is considered an Ojas rasayana – rasayana meaning a rejuvenative. It’s sometimes called Indian ginseng.

Ashwagandha improves thyroid and testosterone levels, making it slightly yang in nature. Many people notice a slight increase in sex drive, but not anything overpowering. Very suitable for us in the beginning stages of semen retention.

Like most Jing-building herbs, it increases spermatogenesis, improves hormone levels and boosts cognition. Its best attribute for us on the semen retention path? It’s one of the few proven herbs to lower cortisol, a stress hormone that is a huge leak of Jing.

Most of us are chronically stressed out and it shows. We try to make up for our lack of energy (which is caused by stress) by overusing stimulants, further draining our bodies – we in this sub are well aware of this vicious cycle. Ashwagandha is so powerful for us because it helps bring cortisol, our primary stress hormone, back into a normal range. This would give anyone an advantage in today’s world, but for the gang on the retain train? Stress is the biggest waste of Jing other than emission, and this herb shuts stress right down. Now we’re not only retaining semen, but cutting down on stress with ashwagandha and then further locking in our sexual energy with schisandra. Amazing.

Ashwagandha also boosts levels of the calming neurotransmitter GABA so it’s great for anxiety, as well as brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), which helps to heal damaged neurons and help us to grow new connections within the brain. Ashwa has a ton of other benefits too, as listed in the previous study linked.

Cistanche – improves male hormones, increases dopamine, steroids for the brain, may enlarge the male appendage 

This is possibly my favorite yang herb. Cistanche is a flowering herb found in the desert plateaus of Mongolia – in fact it’s said that cistanche was consumed daily by Genghis Khan, who, as we all know, did a whole lotta fuckin.

It’s commonly referred to as “the stalk enlarger” (hint, hint) in China, and in The Essence of Medical Prescriptions, a tenth century medical text, cistanche was found in 80% of the formulas used to help male impotence and infertility. It improves blood flow and enhances erection quality.

One study found that cistanche increased sperm count and sperm motility, nearly tripling sperm count! It concluded “serum level of progesterone and testosterone in rats was also increased by CTE administration… Our results suggest that the increase in sex hormone levels could be mediated by the induction of testicular steroidogenic enzymes.”

Multiple studies show it enhances cognition via increases in BDNF, glial cell-line derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF), and nerve growth factor. It’s basically steroids for your brain.

Two companies joined forces with Peking University to study Cistanche, with many interesting results. They found that cistanche increases the body’s production of SOD (one of our most powerful endogenous antioxidants), improves the plumpness and appearance of the skin, increases amounts of neurotransmitters (like dopamine), improves learning and memory, and (shocker!) is a potent aphrodisiac.

Desert Hyacinth (Cistanche tubulosa) · iNaturalist
Cistanche Tubulosa

Polygala – anti-depressant, increases will power, directly transmutes sexual energy

Now this herb actually doesn’t help increase Jing at all, but it’s a powerful tool in our toolbox all the same. 

Polygala is one of the most powerful Shen tonics available, and is known as the “will strengthener” within Traditional Chinese Medicine. Ancient Taoists said that if there was a fourth treasure, it was will power, or Zhi. Polygala is said to directly increase one’s will power, a very crucial thing for us on the semen retention path.

Polygala opens up the Penetrating Vessel, the energy channel in the body that runs up the spine, from the base chakra and sexual organs up to the crown of the head and the brain. This is the very channel that sexual energy gets sublimated into, and is why we practice alternate nostril and spinal breathing. 

Polygala also directly connects the energy of the lower chakras to that of the heart chakra, or connects the “Kidney” to the “Heart”. Within TCM, the Kidney is the seat of Jing, of sexual energy, with the Heart being the seat of Shen. So polygala directly sublimates Jing into Shen, sexual energy into its higher form – love – and that frequency of love saturates our auras.

Polygala is also a potent anti-depressant, with the constituent Yuanzhi-1 increasing dopamine, serotonin and norepinephrinetwice as effectively as the prescription anti-depressant Cymbalta. It increases neuroplasticity, increasing both BDNF and nerve growth factor within the brain. 

A 2014 study comments on its effectiveness as an anti-depressant herb and on its ability to abolish anhedonia, aka our utter lack of motivation to get anything done.It’s also one of the few herbal remedies that most people notice almost instantly, providing a nice mood lift and a smooth supply of energy.

Summed Up

We in this community are well aware of the enormous potential just waiting to be tapped into by every man, if he could just learn to retain his seed. This is the beginning of reclaiming our manhood, and these herbs help build even more of that deep, sexual energy.


Recommended reading –

The Tao of Health, Sex and Longevity by Daniel P. Reid

The Ancient Wisdom of the Chinese Tonic Herbs by Ron Teeguarden