Category: Ojas

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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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Part 4 – This is Your Brain on Semen Retention

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

For all you SR homies that aren’t as much into the esoteric and more into the down-to-earth, this post is for you.

Motivation

Think back to Post 1. I argued that retaining is a just a means to an end, that end being enhancing a type of energy called Jing. Jing is our vitality, which can be physically described as the sum total of our hormones, neurotransmitters, immune system and DNA integrity.

An interesting thing happens to a man during orgasm. Prolactin explodes onto the scene, and dopamine plummets.

Dopamine is that feel-good, tons of confidence, get shit done neurotransmitter. It’s key to confidence and motivation. We want dopamine, and we want it in abundance.

Prolactin is a necessary hormone even for men, just like estrogen is.. But it’s also the hormone responsible for breast growth and lactation in women. As guys, we want the bare minimum of prolactin floating around.

That sudden depletion of dopamine and surge in prolactin is why guys feel like they “lose their power” after “relapsing”. It’s a sudden diminishing of Jing.

Now the good news is, if you retain for 6 months and then have sex, you don’t go all the way back to square one. It sets you back, but not all the way to the beginning. Even better news, certain techniques can be used as “harm reduction” to prevent the loss of Jing and to quickly replenish it if this does happen. That is beyond the scope of this post, but I’ll get into this as we go deeper down the rabbit hole.

Back to hormones and neurotransmitters –

Low dopamine levels are associated with depression, low energy, lack of ambition, social anxiety, among others (Dailly et al., 2004).

Why does dopamine drop? Well, to make sure we attend to other aspects of our life, our brains come hardwired with a neurochemical mechanism of satiety. Prolactin, another hormone, surges right after orgasm, and is considered a reliable marker of such (Kruger et al., 2003). Prolactin works as a dopamine inhibitor, curtailing our sex drives once we consummate orgasm and providing us with feelings of satiation and sexual gratification. So the happy feelings impulsed by orgasm are carried along by prolactin. These secretions are relatively long-lasting after orgasm (Kruger et al., 2012).

Now prolactin doesn’t just curtail our sex drives, it curtails our drive in general. And studies have shown this dip in dopamine takes about two weeks to recover. That’s a looooong time to have reduced drive, energy and confidence..

When we practice semen retention, we’re trying to “stay hungry” and accomplish goals, but prolactin is a “neruochemical mechanism of satiety”. No bueno.Sweet, Sweet Dopamine

The problem is, jacking off and prolactin isn’t the only thing fucking with our dopamine system. Remember, high dopamine = lots of motivation, drive, desire, and confidence. This is why people love drugs like Adderall and cocaine, and why, if they have nothing better to focus on, they clean the shit out of their apartments. They’re on a dopamine high and gotta do something, anything.

But we live in a world that is beyond oversaturated with things that stimulate dopamine release. They’re massive time-wasters, and they fuck up our dopaminergic systems.

They hack into our brain’s reward system and prevents us actually getting things done.

Neurochemistry 101

I’ll keep this short guys. In the brain you have these chemical messengers called neurotransmitters. They fit into receptors, much like a lock and key. It’s important to remember that the brain and body are always trying to maintain homeostasis.

If the brain detects too much of a certain neurotransmitter, it reacts to maintain this homeostasis. If there is too much dopamine in certain parts of the brain, the brain first ceases to release more dopamine. If that doesn’t fix it, it de-sensitizes dopamine receptors. If that still doesn’t fix it, it starts removing dopamine receptors completely!

This is how addiction comes about. Look at the image below – see how amphetamine looks almost identical to dopamine? It fits right into that receptor, and over time your body down-regulatesdopamine receptors, meaning you need more and more of the drug to get high, and feel worse and worse when you don’t have it.

This is how porn in particular, and modern society in general, have been able to ensnare us in their clutches – they make our brain less and less sensitive to its own neurotransmitters. You need more and more stimulus (more exciting video games, kinkier and kinkier porn) to get the same dopamine release, and things that you once found interesting (books, sports, conversations with friends, whatever), are no longer stimulating enough.

  • Food is literally engineered by scientists to hack into our reward system. Why eat anything healthy and nutritious when there are Cheetos in the cupboard and Mountain Dew in the fridge? Why eat a nice, big salmon salad when I can just pop in a pizza that floods my brain with dopamine and endorphins and leaves me comatose on the couch afterwards?
  • Social media, with its fast pace, endless novelty in the never-ending scrolling, and system of intermittent reinforcement is addictive as hell. Why go through the work of actually hanging out with friends and family? God, you gotta sit there, actually listen to what they say, and then formulate a response? Not enough dopamine for me, I’d rather do the scroll of death or post a photo and revel in the brief, short squirts of dopamine I get with each like.
  • TV shows, immersive video/PC games, constant music playing.. Again, engineered to be addictive and hack into our reward system. Who has the time to learn actual skill sets? To learn how to play a musical instrument? To read a book? How many more pages do I gotta read till I get some damn dopamine?
  • And of course, our personal favorite.. We can have “virtual sex” at any time with an ever increasing variety of women with bodies that are just rarely found in real life. Why go out and try to meet actual women (and face possible “rejection”), when we can stay at home and get off to our weirdest, kinkiest desires? You know how long it’s gonna take to get my hit of dopamine by actually trying to learn to talk to girls?

I could go on and on here, but the point is that we’re constantly bombarded by things that trap us in this negative hedonic feedback loop. How are you going to accomplish anything when you can’t make it past your fuckin’ cell phone?

Now here’s a caveat – the less you partake in dopamine-depleting acts, the more dopamine your brain has for daily life, and the less you’ll crave these time wasters. This is why after a certain amount of time, you longer no miss porn. It doesn’t even sound appealing.

As time goes on, and your receptors become re-sensitized, they become that much more sensitive to dopamine. Things that are “less exciting”, but probably more beneficial, become more enjoyable. That’s a big win. That said, addictive behavior becomes that much more pleasurable. So you gotta be careful, because it could quickly spiral way out of control.

Our goal then is to re-sensitize our brains to our own natural production of dopamine, and use to it ravage our women and crush our enemies. I mean, uh, to accomplish goals and shit.

The True Meaning of Brahmacharya

“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” – Blaise Pascal

I would argue that preserving dopamine is as important as preserving semen. Really.

Semen retention is the doorway to realizing this. Semen retention is step one.

People think Brahmacharya is just celibacy. The word literally means “to live in higher awareness”. What does this mean in relation to semen retention? Yes, retain. But you must also not squander your dopamine, just like you wouldn’t squander your seed.

You are in the market, but not to buy anything.

This is a very important concept, and is the true meaning of Brahmacharya. It means you are immune to the seductions of the world, and those seductions come in the form of enslavement to dopamine.

You have controlled your lust for sensual pleasure, sensual pleasure meaning pleasure derived from any of the senses! One who has command over his mind and its lust for constant stimulation – that is a true Brahmachari.

It goes far beyond celibacy.

If you can’t get through a few pages of a book without going crazy with the itch for dopamine, you need to work on this.

If you can’t go even 20 minutes, never mind an hour, without checking your phone, your Snapchat, your texts.. You need a lot of work here.

Can’t go a couple days without gaming? Need to work on this.

If you can’t eat a home cooked meal without enjoying the flavor, and coming away satisfied, you need to work on this.

Perhaps most terrifying of all.. can you just sit and be still with your thoughts for five minutes? Ten? No phone, just you and yourself? Go to the local park, leave your phone at home, and just watch the world go by for 15 minutes. It will be torturous. Now ask yourself why the hell simply being is such a painful thing? I dare you to try out a float tank some time.

Addicted to Comfort

We’re addicted to the good feelings dopamine provides us, but we’re also addicted to our modern comforts. We’re weak, weak little babies, and the slightest discomfort makes us cry for mommy.

This is where Stoicism and guys like David Goggins and Jocko Willink come in. According to Stoic philosophy, “the path to eudaimonia (happiness, or blessedness) is found in accepting the moment as it presents itself, by not allowing oneself to be controlled by the desire for pleasure or fear of pain, by using one’s mind to understand the world”. Stoicism doesn’t mean running from pleasure, but it does mean not mindlessly chasing it or shirking from a little discomfort.

Everything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of laziness, fear and discomfort, and it would do you well to remember this. Conquer those three, and you’ve conquered yourself.

If y’all aren’t familiar with David Goggins yet.. Y’all are missing out. The guy went from a self-proclaimed pussy to probably the toughest guy out there, being the only member of the U.S. Armed Forces to complete SEAL training (including two Hell Weeks), the U.S. Army Ranger School (where he graduated as Enlisted Honor Man) and Air Force Tactical Air Controller training. Then he went on to break a fuckton of records, including the Guinness World Record for pull-ups, completing 4,030 in 17 hours.

Peep the dude’s athletic accomplishments here.

Funny thing is, he started off as a self-proclaimed pussy, clocking in at 300 lbs.

Regaining dopaminergic tone only takes you so far – you’ll only be motivated to do things in order to get that dopamine hit, and that’s powerful, that gets the ball rolling, but it only takes you halfway. You gotta push past discomfort to be truly outstanding, or to be “Uncommon amongst uncommon men“, as Goggins put it. Motivation is what gets you started – discipline is what keeps you going.

Figure out ways to practice and embrace discomfort, and, key to this practice, reframe it as something positive. You gotta heat iron to 2750 degrees and then beat the living shit out of it forge a sword, so use the heat of discomfort to make the mind malleable and then beat the shit out of it with difficult endeavors to forge a mind that isn’t weak, that doesn’t constantly chase after the tiniest empty pleasures and mortal comforts.

“You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.” – Marcus Aurelius

“Don’t expect to be motivated every day to get out there and make things happen. You won’t be. Don’t count on motivation. Count on discipline.. Discipline equals Freedom” – Jocko Willink

“I had to build this callused mind, and I built it through suffering… I wanted to be a man who detested mediocrity.. This motherfucker is gonna keep coming after whatever the fuck is in front of him.” David Goggins on JRE #1080

Tapas – Toughness Training

Each time you say no to a useless urge that pops into your head, you level up. You build up personal power. It’s that simple. Any time you practice something that is good for you, but that is difficult and that you don’t want to do, boom, you level up again. This is callusing the mind. Do this enough times, and one day a Warrior is born.

In yoga there is a concept known as Tapas, or spiritual austerity. Just as heating ice turns it into water, and heating water turns it into vapor, Tapas is the inner heat that sublimates the energy we conserve by retaining into pure, fiery drive. The word tapas literally means “to burn”.

Any time you say no to an urge, or welcome and embrace discomfort in search of growth, you level up. It’s that simple. That is what tapas is all about.

Stop chasing empty stimulation.

Embrace discomfort.

Practices

So what is one to do?

  1. Cut out empty, short-lived dopamine highs.
  2. Train your brain to have to work for its dopamine hits.
  3. Practice beneficial discomfort and adversity.

Dopamine “Fasting”

Set a time limit on your phone for your biggest time wasting apps. You have to use some discretion here. I first had mine set for 15 minutes, and I’d only allow scrolling for 15 minutes in the morning, and 15 in the evening, and that was for Instagram, Facebook and Reddit combined. Nowadays I just pop on each app in the morning to check notifications, then log off. I also don’t allow notifications from any apps except for Reddit, and that’s only so I can keep up with you fellas. That way I’m not constantly getting updates on my phone, draining my precious attention and dopamine. Check out the app Forest.

Cut out junk food and eat as much home-prepped, whole foods as possible. A lot of people only find snacks, fast food and restaurant food palatable. Their tastebuds have desensitized and they basically get no dopamine released from actual food. Time to change that.

Practice intermittent fasting – You gotta break the chains to food in general! I have a 8:16 feeding window – all my calories are consumed within 8 hours. This means I don’t eat until 10 am, and wrap up eating at 6 pm. Considering I’m asleep most of the fasting time, this is simple. Tons of other benefits, look it up.

Try occasional 24 hour fasts – Once you’re comfortable with IF, try out the occasional 24 hour fast. Eat a big breakfast, and then a big lunch. Stuff your face up until noon, and then no calories until noon the following day. Your first couple times you can drink some bone broth if you’re really hurting.

Fast for everything else – I highly suggest social media / gaming / Netflix fasts. Do one whole day with no screen time whatsoever. Then do a week. Every year take a whole month off. I can feel y’all cringing – if it makes you cringe thinking about it, then you know you need it. Do the same thing with whatever other addictions you have. You will be amazed at all the stuff you can accomplish when you cut back on social media, gaming and other time-wasters.

Start reducing consumption of booze, nicotine, caffeine, and other drugs. Again, this just floods your brain with dopamine. You’re burning through your Jing each time you drink booze, smoke a cig, pop an Adderall or drink a Redbull. You don’t have to quit, but reduce consumption of these things in general. Keep track and just slowly reduce.

Use nicotine/caffeine/booze for a purpose. Tie your addictions up to useful actions. I’ve whittled my caffeine use down to only before a workout or when writing. It’s become a tool, instead of an addiction. Smoke cigarettes? Start changing your habits so that you mostly smoke while you’re accomplishing some goal, or only as a reward. Love craft beer like me? You gotta earn that shit, son.

Practice “sitting still, doing nothing” – This is one of the ways Taoists refer to meditation. I’m a big fan of meditation, but even most forms of meditation involve doing something, focusing on something, visualizing, etc. Sitting still, doing nothing, and just being should be your litmus test for how well you’re beginning to progress on the dopamine recovery path – if you can just sit and be comfortable for 10 or 15 minutes, you’re well on your way.

Earn Your Dopamine

In Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Total Recall – My Unbelievably True Life Story, he spoke about how as a child in Austria, his father used to make him do pushups each time he entered the kitchen, earning his meals. This always stuck with me.

A lot of people think that as guys, we have to earn our keep. This needs reframing.

As guys, we GET to earn our keep, and how glorious it is.

Set goals each day – start with 3, make ’em small, and stick the fuck to ’em. You want to achieve that “Winners Effect“, where success begets more success. We want to rewire our brain to meet challenges head on, to live off the highs of accomplishments, not mashing buttons while staring at a screen, endless scrolling of social media black holes, or beating our meat.

Put a price on things – 15 pushups each time you open the fridge. 20 air squats any time you leave the house. 20 burpees before any screen time that isn’t productive.

Easy Peasy or Worst First? A matter of personal preference here – some like accomplishing their biggest/least fun goal first and getting it out of the way. Other’s prefer to ride the high of smaller accomplishments and let that lead into bigger daily goals. Find which one works best for you.

Leverage your addictions – Set it up so that you can only take part in your biggest time wasters afteryou accomplish one of your goals for that day. That said, don’t accomplish one goal and spend the rest of the day lounging on Netflix.

Practice Adversity

Start waking up earlier – “The test is not a complex one: when the alarm goes off, do you get up out of bed, or do you lie there in comfort and fall back to sleep? If you have the discipline to get out of bed, you win—you pass the test. If you are mentally weak for that moment and you let that weakness keep you in bed, you fail. Though it seems small, that weakness translates to more significant decisions. But if you exercise discipline, that too translates to more substantial elements of your life.” – Jocko Willink

Cold showers – Lots of you guys are already doing this, and it has tons of benefits beyond toughness training. Cold exposure increases norepinephrine 200-300%, meaning an instant energy and motivation boost. It’s even been studied for its effects on depression. Start hot and end cold, do contrast showers, cold the whole time, or ice bath style.. However you wanna slice it, this is a great way to get used to being uncomfortable.

Exercise – if you already do it, great. You lift but hate running? Start running. You run only? Start lifting. Don’t exercise at all? Get the fuck on it.

Meditate – If you don’t meditate.. I just don’t have words. Your mind is the medium through which you interact with the world, and therefore shapes your entire existence. The mind is how you

  1. Perceive the environment around you
  2. Perceive your internal environment (emotions)
  3. Get shit done

Meditation is the science of mastering your mind. If you’ve mastered your mind completely, you can get whatever you want done whenever you want it done, and will feel good doing it. There are a million ways to practice meditation. Find one you like and do it every single damn day. Period.

Embrace the Suck – doesn’t matter what that suck is. Hate your math class? Nut up and just do your homework. Hate running? Time to start. When you start to get the feeling of straight UGH just thinking about it, recognize that as positive thing. That becomes the trigger for success! Befriend that feeling. Just remember, it will help you build that “calloused mind”, and you’ll get some dopamine upon completion, which is exactly what we want.

Feel the fear and do it anyway – This one might not be applicable for every single day, but if something scares you, that’s your cue to go ahead and do it. Don’t think, just act. Reframe it as excitement – in fact, fear and excitement are nearly identical internal states. We don’t run from discomfort, we welcome it. We don’t run from fear, we meet it head on.

In a nutshell, force yourself to do something you don’t enjoy doing, but that is beneficial. And when your mind tells you to quit, keep going until you reach your predetermined goal.

Recommended Reading ~

The Oatmeal – 5 Stages of Caffeine Intake

The Oatmeal – The Terrible and Wonderful Reason I Run Long Distances – comic but very relevant

The Winner Effect – how winning begets more winning

Discipline Equals Freedom – Jocko Willink

Can’t Hurt Me – David Goggins

Total Recall : My Unbelievably True Life Story

Recommended Viewing / Listening

Bill Hicks – It’s Just a Ride – not relevant to this topic, but one of my favorite clips and relevant to life in general

Goggins on JRE #1080

Jocko Willink on JRE

How to be Comfortable Being Uncomfortable – 43 Weird and Wonderful Ways to Build a Strong, Resilient Mind

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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

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How Sublimation Works

This post is yoga and Qi Gong heavy, and provides a context and background for how sublimating sexual energy works. If you aren’t a fan of these frameworks, feel free to skip this, as it’s purely informational. However, it will go a loooong way in explaining how this sexual energy we cultivate gets sublimated for higher purposes.

Why do we retain semen? Do we want big, fluffy balls that ache for sweet, sweet release? Maybe some of you degenerates do, but what we really want is to cultivate our sexual energy, our Jing, and to harness and sublimate it so that we can accomplish our every wish, goal, and desire.

Western science has no term for this “sexual energy”. The libido exists, we know that much, but how does one harness and sublimate the libido in order to, say, start a business? To get in shape? To accomplish one’s goals? This isn’t something Western science has an answer for.

So we must acknowledge that this energy does in fact exist, and that it can be increased, harnessed and then transmuted for higher purposes – whether or not Western reductionist science has discovered or been able to measure it. This is why we turn to Qi Gong and yoga, practices aimed at developing and sublimating this energy, practices that have stood the test of time.

The mind exists, but there is no one, single physical correlation of the mind. You can’t reduce memory, thought, feeling, visualizations, desires, emotions to neurons and neurotransmitters. We must admit that, while likely connected and related, they aren’t one and the same.

Likewise, our sexual energy, our Jing, is related to hormone levels, neurotransmitters and more, but it is not just these things. And then there is the issue of what are we sublimating this energy into? Something physical? Something spiritual? Drive, charisma, intelligence, wisdom and ambition, these aren’t things that you can reduce to single, physical components.

So let’s turn attention away from the reductionistic view of the body/brain/mind complex, and look at a more holistic, energetic approach.

The art of cultivating and transmuting Sexual Energy

Taoism

Within Taoist Qi Gong, which literally means “energy cultivation”, there is what is known as the Three Treasures, that of Jing, Qi and Shen. Jing is the basis for Qi, which is likewise the basis for Shen. Jing is the essence out of which Qi, energy, arises, and which in turn can further be sublimated into Shen, or spirit.

Rest assured, all the benefits you’ve noticed and heard about while practicing semen retention fit within the paradigm of the Three Treasures. You feel strong-willed and have a lot of drive? That’s cuz you’ve increased your Jing. You seem to have some sort of aura and much more energy? You’ve got more Qi, baby! And people seem magnetically attracted to you? That’s Shen at work, son.

From a Qi Gong perspective, we want to cultivate our sexual energy, or our Jing, so that we then have a surplus of energy, or Qi, to work with. We then use this Qi to cultivate different aspects of Shen for personal evolution.

Jing is our deep sexual energy; if we cultivate Jing but don’t sublimate it, we become robust, strong, immune to disease. We can take a beating and keep on ticking. Someone with deep Jing has strong passions and drive.

To look at it materialistically, we start by increasing Jing by retaining semen. This positively alters our hormone levels, giving testosterone a boost and increasing dopamine, due to the decrease in prolactin. The increased testosterone and dopamine help increase our drive and determination to get things done.

Qi is our bioelectric, ionic energy, related to our mitochondrial health, ATP, and moment-to-moment energy. This field of Qi is what your aura is. Cultivate enough Qi and fatigue just doesn’t exist. You’ll need less sleep, can physically and mentally do a lot more work, and you will have a strong aura and energetic presence. You walk into a room and the room notices.

Through Qi Gong, yoga and pranayama, we improve our mitochondrial health, and purify and regulate our endocrine and nervous systems. This is the domain of Qi/Prana. By controlled breathing exercises, we improve the oxygen flow to the cells and therefor improve their energy output. We also increase the mitochondria’s tolerance to carbon monoxide, which increases mitochondrial antioxidants and even helps us grow new, stronger mitochondria. The yoga postures help squeeze, tone and regulate the various endocrine glands, such as the adrenals and their release of adrenaline and testosterone, and even the pituitary gland, the “master gland” of the endocrine system.

As I stated back in my third post on Reddit, our Qi/Prana is what makes up our aura. The heart puts out an electromagnetic field that is detectable up to fifteen feet away, and this is what gets strengthened when you start retaining, and especially when you start doing energy practices.

The Heart's Magnetic Field

Shen is the mental/spiritual aspect of Qi. When Shen is properly cultivated, one is naturally happy and content, kind and compassionate, and full of wisdom. Someone with developed Shen can apply their minds to any task and accomplish it with ease, seeing as they are so bright and intuitive. Life becomes a breeze, both easy and joyful, for those who have properly developed their Shen.

Qi Gong and yoga have profound effects on our neurotransmitter levels, or Shen. Yoga drastically increases levels of the calming neurotransmitter GABA. Interestingly, people who kept a regular meditation habit had higher serotonin levels at baseline than those who didn’t, and everyone in the study, experienced meditator or not, experienced higher serotonin levels post-meditation. The proof is in the pudding.

Yoga, Chakras, Kundalini

This same process of sublimation happens within yoga, only it isn’t spelled out quite the same way. Within yoga and Ayurveda, Jing is known as Ojas and Qi is known as Prana. Shen doesn’t have an exact correlate in yoga, but we could use the terms tejas, inner radiance, sattva, meaning pure, and prajna, meaning wisdom, as rough translations.

Within yoga, the goal is to awaken the kundalini, the libidinal psycho-spiritual energy at the base of the spine, and to raise it up through the chakras on the way to enlightenment. Kundalini is itself a type of Prana or Qi, but has its differences. This could be the topic of numerous posts, so for now, just realize it is the grandaddy Prana and it does have a libidinal aspect to it, meaning it is affected by semen retention.

The role of Ojas actually plays a rather minor one in yoga. It isn’t discussed much, because the focus is more on kundalini itself. But remember, the real goal for these practices is spiritual enlightenment, but we are more focused on sexual energy, on Jing and Ojas. Regardless, whether you practice Qi Gong or yoga, the same thing is happening – you’re increasing your Jing/Ojas, your Qi/Prana, and your Shen/Prajna.

There is also much more importance given to chakras and nadis. You can think of chakras as both storehouses and transformers for Prana, and each chakra has different attributes and powers, and relates to different aspects of the mind. This is crucial, because you want to learn how to awaken certain chakras based on what goals you want to accomplish. Same goes for nadis, the channels through which Prana and kundalini flow.

This is how sublimation works in yoga – you build up this sexual energy, this Ojas, and use it to increase Prana. You use this Prana to then start awakening the chakras and opening up the energy channels, to allow the kundalini energy to flow upward, both to the brain and to the different chakras. The chakras are related to different aspects of the mind, so by activating different chakras, you increase different capacities of mind. You sublimate Ojas into Prana, and then use that Prana to activate certain chakras and their corresponding mental attributes.

If you want more charisma and personal power, focus on the third chakra. More peace, compassion and feelings of love, do heart chakra practices. If you want to have great powers of speech and persuasion, focus on the 5th chakra, the throat chakra. This is how you sublimate sexual energy for higher purposes.

As a side note, within Qi Gong, nadis are known as meridians, and chakras are very similar to dantians, or “elixir fields”. Pragmatically speaking, they are the same.

So if we approach things from a strictly Taoist perspective, we want to increase all Three Treasures, and as Jing sublimates into Qi and then again into Shen, we start evolving. From a yogic point of view, we want to learn to increase Ojas and prana and gain control of kundalini and awaken chakras – again, personal evolution. Two different maps and methods leading to the same goal.

The Tao of Yin and Yang

We’ve all seen the yin yang symbol. Yin represents “feminine” energy, yang “masculine” energy. Yin is receptive, contractive, cooling, calming. Yang is expansive, warming, opening, invigorating. A very important thing to remember is that yin entails the accumulation and assimilation of energy, while yang is the use and expression of that energy made manifest.

The implications here should be very clear – as men, we are more yang, females are more yin. We are naturally attracted to yin energy, and as we retain and cultivate our Jing and yang energy, we naturally attract yin energy in the form of females. It’s that simple.

As we go about the process of semen retention, our aura, our pranic field, grows bigger, stronger, and more yang in nature. This in itself makes us more attractive, on a vibratory level. Because this Jing that we’re cultivating is very yang in nature, it means that women, filled with yin energy, are even more drawn to us. Just like a positive electromagnetic field attracts a negative one and vice versa, we too, with our strong yang energy, attract females with their abundance of yin.

Have you ever met a woman who is just so mysteriously attractive, but you can’t put your finger on it? She’s cute, sure, but there’s something else going on.. That something else is her abundant yin energy. You have cultivated the same type of energy, except obviously it’s yang in nature. This is the reason women start to seem magically drawn to you.

Sushumna, Ida and Pingala

Within yoga there are three main nadis or channels through which prana flows. Sushumna is the most important channel, and it goes right up the middle of the spine, going from the base chakra all the way up to the 7th and highest chakra. This channel is closed and dormant in almost everyone, but it is crucial that you purify and awaken this channel, so that you can begin moving Prana and kundalini through it to the chakras.

Ida and Pingala are two channels that crisscross up the spine, intersecting the chakras in an opposite, intertwining fashion. They end at the sixth chakra, the third eye.

Image result for pingala ida sushumna diagram | Chakra, Kundalini, Kundalini yoga

Ida is yin in nature, associated with lunar energy, and is cool and feminine. It starts at the left side of the base chakra, rises up the spine crisscrossing the other chakras, and terminates out the left nostril.

Pingala is yang and is Ida’s opposite – it is associated with solar energy, is warm and energizing, and is more masculine in energy. It follows a mirror imaged course as Ida, starting from the right side of the base chakra, crisscrossing each ascending chakra, and ending out the right nostril.

Just as Qi Gong seeks to balance yin energy with yang, yoga seeks to balance Ida and Pingala. When it does so, Sushumna opens up and allows prana and kundalini to flow upward to higher chakras.

This is why I’ve stressed the importance of spinal breathing and nadi shodhana, alternate nostril breathing. These practices balance Ida and Pingala, balance and energize the chakras, and open up all the nadis, allowing prana/qi to flow freely, and for us to direct it as we see fit.

The Takeaway

So in Qi Gong, we seek to cultivate all Three Treasures, Jing, Qi and Shen, and to balance both Yin and Yang energies. In yoga, the goal is to build up Ojas and Prana, purify and open the 3 main energy channels, as well as to awaken all 7 chakras, so that we can raise Prana and kundalini energy upwards.

When we retain semen, we immediately start increasing testosterone and dopamine, and reduce prolactin. When we start doing yoga, pranayama and/or Qi Gong, we begin increasing our pranic field (aura), improve our energetic output via the mitochondria, and begin to tone and regulate our endocrine system. Finally, all of these practices, especially meditation, help to increase our Shen through increasing neurotransmitters such as GABA and serotonin.

We can further enhance this process by working with specific chakras and their corresponding faculties of mind – a topic for a later post.

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Diet for Semen Retention

A lot of people wonder what the best diet is for semen retention. One that increases testosterone? One that lowers the libido? Vegetarian? Vegan? Paleo? Carnivore?

Read on, my brothers.

Traditional Recommendations

Yoga and Ayurveda are two traditions that speak about using Brahmacharya, or sexual abstinence/semen retention, as a means for spiritual growth. They recommend a vegetarian diet, especially in the beginning of spiritual practice. The bulk of the diet should come from grains, fresh vegetables and fruit, sometimes eggs, and plenty of dairy products.

It’s important to remember the cultural backdrop of ancient India – most were Hindu or Buddhist, and as such they practiced ahimsa, non-violence towards all creatures, and thus many were vegetarians. They also considered cows to be sacred animals, so they certainly weren’t eating much beef, but they definitely found dairy products to be beneficial. Dairy provided some animal protein as well as healthy fats and Omega 3s, considering the cows were allowed to roam freely and ate their natural diet of grasses, not soy and corn feed. Dairy was considered sattvic, meaning it produced peace and tranquility.

It’s important to note that the dairy they consumed came from healthy, stress-free cows, allowed to roam and eat as they pleased, and the milk products were non-homogenized and un-pasteurized, meaning the fats and proteins within weren’t denatured. Long story short, this was much higher quality dairy than you’d find in the plastic-leaching gallon jugs in the super market, coming from stressed out, sick cows fed an unnatural diet that is high in pro-inflammatory Omega 6 fatty acids, filled with denatured proteins and fats.

A lighter diet, one that is lower in meat intake is actually very beneficial in the starting stages of semen retention, and is exactly what I would recommend when starting out. In the beginning it helps to decrease sexual urges, and lower meat intake will do exactly this. I remember once, despite not being Catholic, I gave up meat for Lent – my girlfriend wasn’t too pleased with the resulting drop in libido.

Less meat means less zinc, and a ton of zinc goes into sperm production. You also aren’t getting all of the stress hormones found in the meat – factory farmed meat comes from animals that are treated horribly, and are killed extremely inhumanely, many hung upside down with their throats slit and left to bleed out. Where do you think all the adrenaline released when the animal gets slaughtered winds up? In the muscle meat. This is also one reason why hunters try to kill an animal swiftly, with one shot, so that there’s no time for adrenaline to be released, tainting the taste.

You also will be avoiding all of the excess inflammatory Omega 6s in the factory-farmed animal fat, as the feed they eat is comprised mostly of corn and soy. Further, one of the ways the body deals with environmental toxin overload is to store it away into fat. That delicious, marbled rib-eye is loaded with chemicals your body then has to deal with – no bueno.

A further consideration to eating less meat in the beginning is that meat is high in the amino acid L-tyrosine, a precursor to dopamine and adrenaline. One of the main side effects of dopaminergic drugs such as amphetamine, cocaine and even dopaminergic anti-parkinsons drugs include a huge increase in libido, as well as risky behavior. We’re trying to make the body relaxed and calm, not revved up and prone to giving in to its every impulse.

Conversely, foods lower in protein and higher in carbs are considered more sattvic than their rajasic meat and spice alternatives. I suspect a large reason for this is the effect carbs have on increasing serotonin, a calming, contentedness inducing neurotransmitter within the brain.

Ayurveda also recommends a blander diet, one without much black pepper, garlic, onions and other members of the allium family. I haven’t found a ton of information backing these claims up, other than garlic containing allicin, which may increase blood flow to the genitals, and spicy foods “irritating the urogenital tract”. If anyone would like to cut these foods out from their diet and report back, leave a comment below.

So while starting off with semen retention, you should try to make the diet clean, light and calming. Don’t overeat, cut back on meat in general, go organic with all food if possible, and cut back on rajasic or stimulating foods.

The Modern Take

That’s all well and good for the beginner, but what about when we’ve gained some semblance of control over our monstrous libido? This is when we want to start optimizing male hormone levels.

Go organic – Ever heard of xenoestrogens? These are chemicals in our environment and food that act like estrogen within the body, and they are fuckin’ everywhere. Pesticides, herbicides and fungicides in food, ingredients in medications, birth control in the water supply, natural and synthetic perfumes, chemicals found in tons of plants like soy, lavender, even our precious hops in beer – these all have estrogen-mimicking properties within the body.

That’s why I have a big issue with people who say the phytoestrogens in soy products pose no harm to modern man. Maybe if that were the only xenoestrogen in our lives, this would be true, but the estrogens within soy products are on top of all of the other xenoestrogens in our environment! There’s a reason testosterone levels and sperm counts have been dropping steadily for decades, and I suspect this is the main reason.

Xenoestrogens are an example of endocrine disruptors, chemicals that fuck with our body’s production of, and receptivity to, hormones – the very things we are trying to optimize. Remember, we’re cultivating our sexual energy, our Jing, and hormones fall under the category of Jing. Common endocrine disruptors include chlorine, fluoride, bromide in baked goods, PCBs, BPA and other plastic chemicals, phthalates, flame-retardants, even electromagnetic fields and blue-light can disrupt our hormone levels! That new car smell we all love so much – you’re basically bathing in toxic endocrine disruptors.

So, if you can afford to, eat organic. Know about the dirty dozen and clean fifteen, and start buying more natural cosmetics, soaps, deodorants and toothpastes. Hitting the sauna is the best way to detox these chemicals out of your body, along with fasting, both intermittent and multi-day fasts.

Reintroduce clean meats – If you’re naturally inclined towards eating meat, start reintroducing it. I can’t recommend enough buying wild-caught fish, pasture-raised farm products or even hunting animals yourself. Animals that live healthy, long, natural lives, eating their natural diets are always higher in nutrition and lower in artificial chemicals and endocrine disruptors. Ever seen the difference in the color of a caged vs pasture-raised egg yolk? The caged one is a pale, runny yellow, while the yolk from the pasture-raised chicken is deep orange with a membrane that is tough to break.

Pasture-raised meats and wild-caught seafood are a good source of amino acids, zinc, taurine, creatine, carnitine, cholesterol and healthy fats, all of which are important for male health. Saturated fat and cholesterol are not the demons you were raised to believe they are, and in fact are crucial elements for the body to create androgens. No cholesterol, no testosterone.

Eat Jing building foods – Foods that enhance Jing and Ojas are always super nutrient dense, foods like egg yolks, liver, heart, oysters, clams, sardines, anchovies, and fish eggs (caviar/roe). These foods are jam packed with vitamins, minerals and other nutrients, which are crucial Jing-building substances. Fattier cuts of free-range/pastured/wild-caught animal products fit in here as well.

We retain sperm to increase Jing, this sexual energy, right? Well, females have Jing too, and much of it is found in their eggs. So anytime you consume eggs, which have all the nutrients needed to create a baby bird, you’re consuming Jing-building nutrients. Even better is roe, as it contains a plethora of Omega 3s, especially DHA in phospholipid form.

Consume plenty of greens – Greens are not only very nutrient dense, they are crucial to the body’s detoxification pathways. If you just can’t manage to get in the habit of eating greens, add spinach or wheatgrass powder to your fruit smoothies, or take a concentrated greens supplement such as VitaMineral Green or Green Vibrance. Better yet, micro-algae such as spirulina and chlorella are both cleansing and help build Jing.

Keep it anti-inflammatory – Most scientists agree that we should be consuming Omega 6 and Omega 3 fats in a 4:1, or less, ratio. The Standard American Diet unfortunately has most of us at a 10:1 or even 50:1 ratio. Though they are both necessary, the problem here is that Omega 6 fatty acids are pro-inflammatory, while Omega 3s are anti-inflammatory. The source of all the extra omega 6 fatty acids? Extracted vegetable oils, which are already rancid. The best source of Omega 3 fats? Cold water fatty fish, such as tuna, salmon, sardines, mackerel, caviar, roe, etc. We should consume other anti-inflammatory foods as well – spices (especially turmeric), herbs, polyphenolic-rich berries, green tea, dark leafy greens, dark cacao, etc.

Extracted fats – If you are using extracted fats to cook with or to use as dressings, you have to be very selective. You want to make sure they are either saturated fats like butter, ghee or coconut oil, or monounsaturated fats like olive oil, macadamia nut oil, avocado oil, etc. What we don’t want are extracted polyunsaturated fats. Because there are many links in the fatty acid where a carbon molecule isn’t saturated with hydrogen, there are multiple points in the chain where light, oxygen and heat can oxidize the fatty acid, turning it rancid. This means extracted vegetable oil that you buy in the store is already rancid. Don’t even get me started on deep fried foods.

Structural differences between saturated, monounsaturated and... | Download Scientific Diagram

Bottom Line

In the beginning, it’s good to lighten up on the diet, cutting back on meat or eliminating it completely, making sure to not overeat, and cutting back on stimulating herbs and spices.

After you’ve reigned in your passions and urges, reintroduce clean meats. At all times, strive to consume organic, nutrient dense foods, with lots of greens, phyto-nutrient rich foods, and staying away from endocrine disruptors as much as possible.

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Semen Retention – The Art of Cultivating Jing

Alright friends, time to let you in on a little secret. Semen retention is nothing new. This isn’t a fad that grew out of NoFap. This is a hardcore practice that has been studied and honed, passed on from teacher to disciple across the ages.

Like all powerful and transformative practices, it has usually been kept somewhat secret. Celibacy is no secret. The concept of Brahmacharya within Hindu and yogic thought is well known. Solo and “dual-cultivation” within Taoism and “tantric sex” are also well-known, if misunderstood.

All of these things have but one goal – the cultivation of sexual energy, and its sublimation for self-evolution. This was what my first post on r/semenretention was all about.

However, the art of cultivating and transmuting this sexual energy – that knowledge has almost always been handed down from guru to disciple.

What exactly is this sexual energy? The closest you’ll find to a definition within Western science might be the libido, but you sure won’t hear about Freudian psychologists telling you to abstain from masturbation in order to transmute the energy that builds up towards accomplishing your goals.

In yoga and Ayurveda, however, we hear about how Brahmacharya, or purity in thought and action via celibacy, increases an energy called Ojas. Within Taoism and Qi Gong, that energy is referred to as Jing. You can find equivalents in almost all spiritual traditions.

The goal, then, is not semen retention for the sake of semen retention, but the cultivation of sexual energy, of Jing, of Ojas.

Western science has found very little benefits to abstaining from ejaculation other than a quick and light increase in testosterone, and preventing the release of prolactin during orgasm from dampening our dopaminergic tone. If you tell almost anyone what you’re doing, that you’re abstaining from jacking off to increase your energy, build charisma, accomplish your goals, you’ll swiftly be laughed at.

If you say the same to a yogi, a Qi Gong practitioner, probably even a martial artist, they’ll say “Welcome to the club”.

Most importantly, the traditions of yoga, Qi Gong and more have perfected the art of cultivation and sublimation of this energy beyond just semen retention! This is huge. This means that there are multiple modalities to further enhance this sexual energy in addition to just retention. That’s why I’ve created this site, to share this knowledge.

So what actually is this sexual energy, this Jing?

First off, Jing is less of an actual “thing” we can extract from the body, and more of a collection of factors – it is known not by its parts, but by its conceptual whole. Can you go up to someone and pull out their “toughness”? Can you point to something within the body that is a persons “drive”? No! Both are complex, ever-evolving and interwoven systems of smaller components, some physical, some mental.

So…. what are the components making up Jing? It can best be summed up as one’s “robustness/vitality”, but it really can’t be pinned down so simply.

Physically speaking, Jing encompasses ones immunity to disease, hormone and neurotransmitter levels, the integrity of one’s DNA, one’s virility, one’s youthful appearance and one’s longevity. An 18 or 19 year old teenager who can do two-a-day workouts for football, masturbate multiple times a day, stay up late partying and wake up early the next day, ready to go without so much as a coffee or Red Bull – that is someone with a lot of Jing.

Jing goes beyond the physical, however. Jing encompasses ones drive, motivation, physical and mental endurance and fortitude.. Someone with a lot of Jing is able to accomplish a lot, and also take a beating and keep on ticking.

This is part of why we start feeling so great when we start on this path of retention. We build strength from within. It’s like we’re finally getting a nutrient we’ve been starved of for a long time.

Jing is also the basis for our Qi and Shen, our energy and spirit – and these collectively make up what the Taoists refer to as the Three Treasures. The other two treasures come into play when we talk about other aspects of semen retention – for example, the reasons your aura starts to increase in strength and attractiveness is because the increased Jing starts to spill over, increasing your Qi and Shen.

Again, you don’t have to use these terms. You can just say that your sexual energy creates magnetism and makes your aura big and strong. Same stuff, different words.

Daily life drains Jing, and when it has fully burnt out, you die. Anything to excess damages Jing, especially masturbation for men. Any wise person who knows about the concept of Jing does all they can to preserve it and to increase it.

And that’s where the good news comes in, my friends. You may have needlessly spilt a lot of seed over your years, and that’s a waste, to be sure. But you’ve since given up the cycle of urge -> frivolous and spasmodic masturbation -> self-pity and shame. You’ve plugged what’s likely your biggest leak of Jing.

And you’ve found this site, which is dedicated to increasing Jing – something that isn’t talked about much elsewhere online. You’ll learn about so many other methods to rapidly and potently increase your Jing, your sexual energy, your motivation and drive.

This is for everyone that stopped masturbating, did some cold showers, felt the benefits, and they wanted more. Don’t be scared off by a little yoga or some foreign terms and concepts – these practices are non-denominational and freaking powerful.

And remember, X-rays weren’t formally discovered until 1895, the double-helix shape of DNA wasn’t discovered until 1952 – but all these things and more have existed for millions of years. Modern science is a beautiful, beautiful thing, but just because you can’t easily extract a “Jing” and test it in peer-reviewed, double-blind studies doesn’t mean it isn’t something we can’t cultivate right now. We can’t prove that the mind exists, but we all agree that it does, and we use meditation, therapy and many other modalities to strengthen and control it. Instead of wasting our seed, let’s start retaining it, cultivating this energy, and putting it to good use.

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Start Here – Semen Retention 101

New to the art of Semen Retention? First step is.. Drum roll please…….

Stop watching porn and masturbating! If you’re currently booed up, you should talk to your lady and explain that by not coming, you can focus more exclusively on her wants and needs. It will be very difficult for the novice to have penetrative sex without orgasm at first, but keep at it.

After that, you’ll want to stabilize your mind so as to prevent overwhelming urges and “relapses”. Many guys aren’t prepared for how powerful these urges can become – our boy Josh Hartnett knows.

Then, you’ll want to start sublimating this sexual energy so it isn’t locked in your cock and you’re able to use it for kicking ass in life. This is JUST as important as not succumbing to coming – no sense building up this sexual energy if it just stays in your balls.

Finally, you’ll want to start further building and enhancing this energy to use it for higher purposes, but that will be a topic for later posts.

Calming the Mind to Prevent Relapse

  1. Get off of tempting platforms – If you’re going to keep social media platforms, make sure you aren’t following users who post a lot of tantalizing photos.
  2. Exhaust yourself each day – I can think of no better way to get your mind off of getting off than to just be exhausted. Long ass runs, heavy sessions in the gym, tons of work/school work; no matter how you slice it, if you’re too beat to beat it, it’s a win.
  3. Modify your diet – Make it light and a little bland. Cut back on meats, especially red meat and shellfish. They’re high in zinc and carni-nutrients, loads of which go into your loads. Cut back on the allium family (garlic, onions, leaks, etc) and spicy foods, as these are traditionally said to increase libido and “irritate the uro-genital tract”. This only needs to be done in the beginning, when you’re beginning to find your strength. Despite not being Catholic, I gave up meat once for Lent. This meant I unknowingly also gave up my sex drive.
  4. Practice fasting – This goes hand in hand with point three. Look into intermittent fasting, where you only eat your food in a 16 hour window. Try out the occasional 24 hour juice or bone broth fast. Fasting can really help to reel in the libido in the beginning.
  5. Take calming herbs and supplements, and avoid stimulating ones – Herbs such as reishi mushroom, polygala and lion’s mane really help to calm the mind and curb desires. Avoid libido boosters and stimulants, such as ginseng, maca, coffee and adderall. Alcohol should be strictly off limits for the first couple months.
  6. Start meditating – While desires do have a physical (hormonal) component, you interact with them via the mind. The stronger and more pure your mind is, the less lust rears its ugly head. Start with 10 minutes of calm-abiding or metta meditation each day.
  7. Cultivate the Yin within – To put things in to Taoist parlance, masculine energy is yang, female energy yin. We’ve all seen the Yin Yang symbol. By practicing semen retention, we start cultivating yang energy – we increase our drive, and women take note of this masculine energy. Because we become much more yang, we need to balance it out by cultivating yin within ourselves. We can do this with yin herbs, things like goji berries, dendrobium or peony. We can also spend time in nature, preferably the forest or ocean, or working with our emotions, either through music, metta and compassion meditations, and by practicing generosity.

Great, so now you’ve calmed your mind a bit. What about starting to transmute that energy? Sublimation is just the act of turning one substance into a higher, more valuable substance. So we sublimate this sexual energy into drive, motivation, accomplishment – in short, we channel this sexual energy towards achieving our goals.

Transmutation Basics

  1. Do kegels – Do em while driving. Do em while at work. Do em while making intense eye contact with your boss so he knows who’s really in charge. This will help prevent wet dreams, it helps prevent that sexual energy from leaking out, and kegels build a base should you ever want to have sex without emission.
  2. Start a mental discipline – I personally think meditation should be a part of every mans semen retention protocol. Journaling, reading, thought exercises, and even playing chess are good additions as well – basically anything that is “heady”. The point is to keep the mind engaged and not thinking about the female form, and then building up mental power and discipline.
  3. Read elevating texts – David Goggin’s Can’t Hurt Me, Jocko Willink’s Discipline Equals Freedom, Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich, Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations, Seneca’s Letters From a Stoic are all great choices. If you wanna throw a little spirit in there, check out Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching, The Bhagavad Gita, The Bible, Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha, or Ram Dass’ Be Here Now.
  4. Work out – You’re going to start having a surplus of energy from retaining – put it to good use by building up your physical body. Working out is as much a mental discipline as a physical one, so you’re really killing two birds with one stone here. Doesn’t matter what you do, but it must be sufficiently challenging, which means as you get better at x, y, or z, you’re going to have to keep upping the intensity or switching to other types of working out.
  5. Cold showers – A lot of guys are fans of the cold showers/baths in the semen retention community, and I’m one of them. Most people don’t realize the immense benefits of cold immersion, how it increases epinephrine by up to 300% (fat loss, energy, drive and motivation), decreases inflammation in the body and brain, releases cold shock proteins which actually help to repair the brain/blood brain barrier, boosts immunity and more. Cold immersion also helps to lock in jing, as the body shunts blood and jing towards the organs and brain and away from the extremities.
  6. Journal – Keep track of how you feel and the progress you make. As the old adage goes, “What doesn’t get measured, doesn’t get managed.”
  7. Yoga – What do you think of when you think of yoga? Soccer moms and new-age women practicing their sun salutations, or maybe some honey bunnies in skin-tight yoga pants? I can’t blame you at all, for that’s how far yoga has been bastardized in the West. As for me, I think of ash-covered sadhakas who have been up all night in the cemetery, meditating on death. I think of sages and seers who’ve reached the pinnacle of human evolution. I think of people who have mastered the art of semen retention and with it, perfected self-evolution…

The physical side of yoga, all the asanas, or postures, help to massage and tone the endocrine glands, those glands in your body that secrete hormones like testosterone and that produce sperm and semen. Breathing practices helps to further calm the nervous system and are probably the single best way to transmute sexual energy for higher purposes, and meditation brings it all home – when you have a powerful mind under your control, there’s just no stopping you.

Now certainly, you don’t need to become an ash-covered yogi. I’m just trying to point out that abstaining from masturbation, cold showers and lifting weights will only take you so far. If you want to stop there, by all means, please do.

If you’re interested in taking Semen Retention and, by extension your whole life, to the next level, to beyond anything you thought was possible.. You’ve come to the right place.

Just make sure you’re ready, because beyond a certain point, there’s no turning back.