Tag: semen retention

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Article at a glance :

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

Dopamine Zombies

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It’s a vicious cycle of productive badassery.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pressing on the Pain Side

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

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

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

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

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

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

From The Oatmeal

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

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

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

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

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

Sounds awful, right? 

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

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

In other words, we have to embrace the suck.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Check out Part 2 here

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Yoga Nidra – Self-Hypnosis to Overcome Issues w/ Semen Retention

Lately I’ve been diving deep into my yoga nidra practice and it is paying dividends, in semen retention and beyond. Thought I’d share my thoughts on this practice.

Yoga nidra means “yogic sleep”, and it’s based off of an ancient tantric technique known as nyasa. Nidra is a powerful method of deep relaxation combined with a type of hypnotic auto-suggestion. You listen to any one of a number of pre-recorded scripts that allow you to drop down into, and stay in, the hypnagogic state – that state in between the waking state and sleep. You may be familiar with this state – as you’re drifting off to sleep at night, sometimes you’re in this odd place where half of your mind is already dreaming about making some pancakes while unicycling, with the other half of your mind still awake and thinking, Huh, weird… It’s the twilight zone of the mind.

One of the features that distinguishes yoga nidra from other non-sleep deep rest (NSDR) techniques like hypnosis is the inclusion of something called a sankalpa, or resolve. You use this resolve to affect a big, major change in your life. Generally you want to think big here – even changes such as “I want to lose weight” or “I want to quit smoking” are usually too small. However, for those of us constantly struggling to stop masturbating to porn, or those of us struggling with wet dreams, we can permit a smaller, more targeted sankalpa for now.

What I’m proposing here is the use of yoga nidra and its sankalpa or resolve to help us start changing the mind and personality on a subconscious level. It’s generally well known that it’s difficult to change the mind with the mind – that’s why in yoga, we don’t start with intense meditation, we start with the body through yoga postures and the breath through breathing practices. The postures and breathing practices not only induce a state of calm alertness through which meditation becomes much easier, but changes the whole body/mind complex over time as well, gradually leading to a deeper understanding of ourselves and life in general.

The best part? There’s practically zero work involved, beyond lying down and listening to a short 10-20 minute script.

For your sankalpa, you can do smaller, more targeted resolutions if you’re really struggling with specific things. State them as if you already have fixed the problem, for example, “I am free from wet dreams” or “I no longer experience wet dreams”, or “I am free from porn and masturbation” or “I no longer indulge in porn and masturbation”. However, it’d be better to say something along the lines of, “I am a master of Brahmacharya/celibacy” or “I am in complete control of my sexual energy”.

These “big picture” resolves will not only fix the smaller issue you’re targeting, such as overcoming wet dreams, but will also help realign your whole mind, attitude and outlook to help fix other problems as well.

It’s important that your resolve be repeated with deep feelings of will, faith and conviction. Don’t just meekly repeat these resolves – feel the truth of them deep within your being. Make sure to not switch up your resolve, either – think about it ahead of time, pick one resolve that you really need to make, and then stick with that resolve until you see the positive changes in your life and the bad habit is eradicated.

In order to get the full benefits, you need to do this practice regularly. I tend to do mine in the afternoon around 2 or 3, when there’s a natural lull in energy and I’m feeling like I need either a nap or an espresso, or before bed. Every day would be best, but shoot for at least 4-5 times a week. Feel free to do it twice a day as well – at 10-20 minutes a session, it won’t take up much time. Try not to be too full after a big meal, and also be sure that you aren’t all jacked up on caffeine or other substances – you need to be able to dip down into a deep parasympathetic state.

In short, treat it like you would any other meditation practice.

I’ve been doing this practice regularly for about two months now, and the benefits have been tremendous. I get amazing sleep pretty much every night, I feel well-rested and relaxed throughout the day, it has sped up learning and recovery from the gym, and it’s greatly improved my meditation practice. My resolve isn’t retention related, but I can already see the change that it is bringing to my life in relation to my sankalpa.

I also experienced my first out-of-body experience because of it, but it happened only once and very much by chance, so I can give you no promises there.

Back in Part 3 – Strengthening Your Aura and Personal Magnetism, I spoke about how increased heart-rate variability, or HRV, does wonders to improve the coherence/feel/flavor of your aura, based off of some very interesting research from The HeartMath Institute. I used my Aura ring to measure my HRV during two different sessions of yoga nidra, and the results were pretty impressive.

In the first session my HRV increased by a modest 10 or so points, but in the second image, which was from yesterday, it quadrupled! Granted my beginning HRV was pretty low – I had to get up two hours earlier than usual and it was leg day at the gym, so I was feeling pretty beat. But regardless, the increase in HRV and the ramifications it has for one’s aura – and overall wellbeing – should be reason enough to begin incorporating this into your semen retention practice.

Check out the free app Insight Timer for hundreds of yoga nidra scripts, or just look on youtube. I generally stick to ones that are 15-30 minutes in length, although they range from 10 minutes to an hour or more. I haven’t explored many on youtube so I can’t vouch for any of them, but feel free to check them out for yourself.

These NSDR protocols have a lot of science behind them and have many benefits beyond just relaxation. You can use them after an intense study session to help encode the information you were going over, to help encode specific movement patterns (think learning a new lift at the gym, some new grappling technique in jiu jitsu, a new skateboarding/snowboarding trick, some sick dance moves, etc), to recover faster from workouts or to catch up on lost sleep. Check out Dr. Andrew Huberman’s second podcast episode to learn more.

Find one or two that you really like and stick with them, as your body and mind will grow accustomed to the person’s voice, the specific routine used and the flow of the practice. Here are the three I use most often –

https://insig.ht/gnz9TC0nYjb – 16 minute

https://insig.ht/9XXHkvWnYjb – 19 minute

https://insig.ht/Td67Wm3nYjb – 20 minute

Those interested can check out the book Yoga Nidra by Swami Satyananda Saraswati. Further information on nidra can be found on the website for the same company that publishes the book, yogamag.net.

“Sankalpa is a Sanskrit word which can be translated as resolve or resolution. It is an important stage of yoga nidra and a powerful method of reshaping your personality and direction in life along positive lines. If you know what you wish to achieve in life, sankalpa can be the creator of your destiny.

“The sankalpa takes the form of a short mental statement which is impressed on the subconscious mind when it is receptive and sensitive to autosuggestion during yoga nidra… The resolve you make at the beginning of the practice is like sowing a seed, and the resolve at the end is like irrigating it.

“When the mind is clear, the sankalpa grows very well. If you first prepare the bed with fertilizer and manure, remove the weeds and grass, and then sow the seed, the plant will grow better… If you prepare the mind and sow the seed properly, then it will grow in your life and become a powerful directive.

“For success, the sankalpa needs to be planted with strong willpower and feeling. It should be planted when the mind is relaxed and ready to accept and absorb it. Such a state occurs during yoga nidra.

“Once the seed of sankalpa is planted deep in the subconscious, it gathers the vast forces of the mind in order to bring about its fruition. This deep and powerful seed will eventually manifest itself again and again at a conscious level and bring about changes in your personality and your life… This resolution must be backed by deeply ingrained willpower in order to be carried through… If you want to transform your life pattern, that can be done by the power of the sankalpa made during yoga nidra. If there is a negative tendency or habit in your life and you want to correct it, that can also be done through a positive sankalpa.” – Yoga Nidra, by Swami Satyananda Saraswati

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The Paradox of the Libido

What is our biggest obstacle to progress on the path of semen retention? Our unchecked libido. Our overwhelming need for release is what causes us to spill our seed, every time. It’s what drives us to spend so much time seeking sexual pleasure, sometimes through the pursuit of women, but oftentimes it comes in the form of mindless porn-scrolling and masturbation. 

If the libido is our biggest enemy, what is our biggest ally towards progress on the path of retention? Paradoxically enough, it’s also our libido! 

“How can this be?” I hear you say. As writer on all things stoicism Ryan Holiday puts it, the obstacle is the way. In fact, the libido is the source of all our fuel for self-evolution, and make no mistake, the only goal of true retention is conscious, directed self-evolution.

Libido – friend or foe?

It’s often better to simplify, simplify, simplify, but in this case, let’s take the concept of libido and expand upon it a bit. To most of us, the libido simply means our sexual desire. Possibly the most well known of all psychologists, Sigmund Freud, coined the term libido. He defined it as, “the energy, regarded as a quantitative magnitude… of those instincts which have to do with all that may be comprised under the word ‘love’.” According to wikipedia, he “also explained that it is analogous to hunger, the will to power, and so on insisting that it is a fundamental instinct that is innate in all humans.”

Freud’s disciple and world renowned psychologist Carl Jung goes one step further, identifying it as the totality of psychic energy, not limiting it to just sexual desire. “It is the energy that manifests itself in the life process and is perceived subjectively as striving and desire.” In this sense, it can be thought of as the psychic desire to achieve, the psychic desire for better and more. For most of us, this desire for achievement rarely goes beyond sexual desire or the desire for status, power and wealth.

This “totality of psychic energy, striving for and desiring better and more”, is very analogous to the concept of kundalini within Indian yogic schools of thought. This kundalini energy lies dormant at the base of the spine, and no matter what style of yoga you practice, and whether you know it or not, the goal is the same – to rouse and awaken this sleeping energy and move it up the spine, through all the chakras until it connects with and comes to reside in the 7th, highest chakra. This is the end goal of all spiritual pursuits. Your goal may not be spiritual enlightenment but trust me when I say that no matter your goal, you want this psycho-sexual-spiritual energy working for you, not against you.

Alchemical painting of a tamed, libidinal serpent

Most of us are essentially walking around like spiritual zombies. Our kundalini lies dormant and our chakras remain in a sad state, operating at a bare minimum. Look around here in the west – we’re all fat, cranky, stressed, tired, lazy and grumpy, never mind all the needless masturbation. If we can’t keep up our physical bodies, which we all can see and agree exist, how do you think our energetic/spiritual bodies look? Most of us don’t even believe in such things. 

And as a quick aside, I’ve said before that if the concepts of chakras and kundalini turn you off, just use them as metaphors. Whether they exist or not is irrelevant, all we care about is learning to tame, control, harness and build up our sexual energy, right? Just do the practices and the results will follow.

Harnessing the Libido

So this libido, this kundalini, this psychic energy that desires “better and more experiences” lies dormant. It actually isn’t completely dormant, it’s just barely operating.. After all, we all do have a libido. That energy, for most of us, never makes it past the second or third chakra. Most of us are stuck operating somewhere in the limbo of the first three chakras. The first chakra is concerned with survival; the second with sense of self/ego and the desire for sex; and the third is concerned with personal power, status, and your place in the world. You can look at the chakras as stages of life or levels of maturity – most of us never make it past wanting more sex, status and power for ourselves.

Makes sense, doesn’t it? Our first concerns are simply to survive. After we’re comfortable on that front, we generally want to go out and make it in the world, and hopefully find a nice lady or two or ten to pair up with. Some of us never want to settle down and just want more and more women. We are obsessed with sex, status, wealth and power – that’s not hard to see is it?

Imagine the central channel and the chakras as a hose with a very powerful stream of water flowing through it. This hose has 7 junctions where water can flow out, and our goal is to get it to flow fully out of all 7 junctions. Unfortunately, most of us never make it past the 2nd, maybe the 3rd junction, and the water isn’t flowing, it’s a mere trickle. See, that channel where the energy is supposed to flow through has blockages. Those junctions are shut, hardly open at all. What energy does flow through this channel is a far cry from the amount that should, and it rarely makes it past the first three chakras because we rarely act from a place of higher consciousness.

Most of us are never concerned with anything other than “me, mine, and those people I can fuck or use to further myself.” Sad but true. Chakras or no chakras, this is what the majority of people obsess over.

This is why the libido isn’t actually the enemy. It’s the most powerful tool we all have for self-evolution and for achieving all of our desires. The problem is for most of us, our libidinal energy is stuck. Our libido never makes it past our cock and balls. Our libido is stuck here, and that’s why most of us are obsessed with sex, finding more women to conquer and with hoarding more wealth, status or whatever.

Further, that energy that is flowing is a mere trickle of what it should be. Whereas if the channels were cleared, and the junctions opened, and the energy increased.. Oh boy, it’s a whole different ball game.

Your libido is NOT the reason you can’t stop jacking off – it’s because you haven’t learned to increase and circulate this energy!

While a bad idea in the beginning, as you progress on the path of retention, you actually want to increase your libido, because once you’re able to move it past these lower centers that are only concerned with sex and egoic needs, you’re able to truly make some very satisfying and rewarding progress in life. At the very least, you don’t want to be squandering your sexual energy on porn and frivolous masturbation.

And guess what? If you’re still wanting to make it in the world, gain some status, lose your virginity or find a partner, you still need to harness this libidinal energy! There’s nothing wrong at all with these things in and of themselves, it’s just when people get STUCK there and they never progress past it that it turns into an issue.

Keep that in mind as you practice semen retention – these practices, even ones that seemingly would have no effect on raising this sexual energy up to higher levels, are all intended to awaken your chakras and raise the libidinal kundalini energy up as high as it can go. All the practices are designed for conscious self-evolution, not just to become an enlightened being, but also to be used for you to achieve all your dreams and passions in life.

It’s the greatest asset we all have, so stop draining it into your crusty sock on Pornhub in your dark bedroom.

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Get Your Head Straight

I wrote this piece as a reminder to myself on what the proper mindset to have on this path would be, although these principles apply to any discipline in life.

Fall in Love with the Process

One of the most important lessons I’ve learned in my short time here on this earth is to be process oriented, not goal oriented.

Obviously we need to be setting new goals, working to accomplish the ones we already have, all the while constantly tweaking and refining our methodologies.

The problem is, once most people set their goals, they remain myopically focused on just the goal. Let’s say you want to look like Brad Pitt in Fight Club. In your mind, this is the ideal physique, and if you could just look this way, all your problems – with the ladies at least – would be solved. You watch Fight Club four times a week, you research Brad’s training program, you cut out pics of him shirtless and bloody in that dungeon of a basement. No homo, of course.

You switch your diet up and start eating “healthy”. You hate the food, but you keep the fantasy in your mind of you looking shredded, bruh. You start hitting the gym. It’s gruesome, tiresome, and frankly kinda embarrassing how weak you are, but you think about all the ladies you’ll get once you’re ripped. Hell, maybe you even start taking Muay Thai or Jiu Jitsu to get a “fighter’s physique”, whatever that is.

And then you quit after two months. What gives? You wanted so badly to look ripped, to be a badass, to get all the ladies. You still want that, in fact. So why did you quit?

You quit because you were goal-oriented, not process-oriented. You did shit you hated in hopes of achieving some far-off goal, instead of learning to love the healthy habits that will get you there.

What you should have been doing instead was falling in love with the process.

Finding a workout program that is both challenging and rewarding, and loving the slow change you start to see in your physique.

Finding bomb recipes of healthy foods and learning how to prep and cook them exactly how you want them to taste.

Learning to love how it feels to go to bed just a little hungry, because that physical hunger will transfer over into your personality, and you’ll become hungry for life itself.

You learn to find pleasure and joy in bettering yourself for yourself, not so you can bang every girl in your social circle.

“You do not rise to the level of your goals – you fall to the level of your systems.” James Clear, Atomic Habits

Same applies with Semen Retention. Learn to love the daily discipline, the daily growth, the daily challenge. Don’t do this for some grand prize that is months or years away. All you have is the present moment, the here and now. Revel in the fact that each day you’re improving yourself, each day you’re better than the day before. 

You might not notice many changes or benefits at first, although some of us do. Again, don’t be focused on and looking for benefits. Trust the process! You can’t transform your physique over night, or even in a month or two. It takes many months, if not years, to build a truly impressive physique. Day by day you may not notice much, but month by month? You can begin to see your body change.

Same with semen retention. Some people might feel amazing after a week of retention, some not so much. Everyone will notice vast improvements after a few months though. Think long term, not short term. Think end game.

And if you slip up, reframe it as a learning experience. Whatever caused you to slip up, well, you’ll be better prepared next time.

Set a goal and then fall in love with the process – don’t chase results. 

Change Your Identification

After learning to love the process, we must learn to overhaul our identity. 

Let’s keep someone wanting to lose some weight as our example. They set a goal – to lose 50 pounds. They may have the best workout plan available, the best trainer money can buy, and they’re following their diet to a T. 

After a few months, lo and behold, they’ve lost the weight! And after a few more months, they’ve gained it all back, and then some.

Why? They didn’t fundamentally change who they were. In other words, they were still a person who used foods for comfort, who loved relaxing at home binging Netflix and eating Rocky Road ice cream, who hated the effort of working out, who never learned how to prepare healthy food in an appetizing way. To be a bit blunt, they were still just a fat person in a fit person’s body.

“Behavior that is incongruent with the self will not last… You may want better health, but if you continue to prioritize comfort over accomplishment, you’ll be drawn to relaxing rather than training… The ultimate form of intrinsic motivation is when a habit becomes part of your identity.” – James Clear, Atomic Habits

Keep that quip in your mind at all times – “If you continue to prioritize comfort over accomplishment, you’ll be drawn to relaxing rather than training.” For us, training doesn’t mean so much physical training, but training our mind, our emotions, desires, fears, habits.

James goes on to say,

  • The goal is not to read a book, the goal is to become a reader.
  • The goal is not to run a marathon, the goal is to become a runner.
  • The goal is not to learn an instrument, the goal is to become a musician.

Therefore, our goal is not to hit 30, 60, or 90 days. Our goal is to become a man in harmony with and in control of himself, including his sexual desires. Once we become that man, 90 days (and beyond) will come easy. 

We need to fundamentally change how we view ourselves, and how we view sex and women in general. 

We must transform from pleasure-seeking monkeys that mindlessly smash our dopamine buttons into men who love striving for what’s best for ourselves. 

We need to learn how to view sex as a means of self-transformation, not as the end-all be-all, granddaddy of all pleasures. 

We need to view temporary, voluntary celibacy as a necessary practice for self-growth. 

And we need to start viewing women as actual people, as friends, as fascinating partners for personal growth, not just as warm bodies to come inside of or notches on our belts.

Avoid Quick Fixes

Studies on delayed gratification show that kids who chose to put off a small but immediate reward in favor of a bigger reward that they had to wait for went much further in life than kids who took the quick fix. It was shown that the ability and preference to delay gratification is correlated with academic success, physical and mental health, as well as social competence.

The obvious ramification for us is to not watch porn and beat our meat into a sad, chafed state. We put off these tiny, fleeting, empty pleasures in our quest to become the ultimate version of ourselves. But putting off the small, meaningless pleasures in favor of the big wins applies far beyond semen retention. Start practicing delaying gratification in all aspects of your life.

This all goes back to Stoicism and learning to embrace discomfort like we discussed in Part 4 – This Is Your Brain on Semen Retention. To make it anywhere in life you must break free from the shackles of comfort and immediate sense gratification. You must learn to ignore the near-infinite amount of tiny distractions so that you’re able to focus on the big goals in your life.

These tiny distractions, which give you nothing but miniscule and ephemeral hits of dopamine but no true satisfaction, drain you of the will to accomplish your actual goals, which are the source of true satisfaction. Brush these distractions to the side. Stand up tall and delay that immediate, flimsy-ass satisfaction in favor of chipping away at your actual goals. The feeling of satisfaction gained from accomplishing something real and challenging is 1,000 times greater than the empty stimulation from browsing Reddit or dicking around on the same video game you’ve played one hundred times before.

More importantly, the sense of gratification and accomplishment of achieving a hard-earned goal creates a positive feedback loop, leading to you wanting to accomplish other big goals. Success begets even more success.

Starve the weeds of distraction at the roots, embrace discomfort and forgo the empty stimulation that fritters away your psychic and mental energies – that is the deeper meaning of Brahmacharya.

Within yoga, the practice of tapas, which literally translates as “heat” or “to burn”, is the practice of austerities. These austerities are the fire that burns away the dross of the mind. This can take on many, many forms, from extended fasting, to braving the heat and the cold, to even the practices we’re currently doing – yoga postures, pranayama, and meditation. One simple form that I practice every day is simple delaying of gratification. 

You get a text from a cute girl – most guys open it immediately and read it, even respond immediately. Or, you can notice that urge in your mind, leave your phone where it is, and check it and respond in 15 minutes. Not only have you built up some willpower, you’ve also created a bit of tension as the girl sits around wondering, “Why hasn’t he responded yet?” Congrats, you remained in control, you just leveled up.

You open the fridge and immediately reach for a soda – do you follow through with this unhealthy desire? Or do you turn it down and reach for something healthier? Boom, leveled up again.

How many times a day do you pick up your phone to check if you have any notifications, even though it’s been sitting right next to you and you know you don’t? Ignore that impulse, master your mind! 

QUOTE: "If you are irritated by every rub, how will you be polished?" --Rumi | Rumi quotes, Irritated quotes, Cool words

The above is one of my favorite quotes of all time. Life presents you with an excellent battleground to learn to train and master your mind – use it wisely.

Be mindful of those nigh subconscious urges to waste time, overcome them, and spend that time wisely. Those little distracting urges are like weeds in your mind – starve them out. These little wins add up, and then when you have the urge to masturbate, guess what? You’ve got so much positive momentum going that it’s a cinch to turn that urge down too.

When have you ever gone to bed feeling happy and content from browsing the internet and masturbating all day? Compare that to the feeling of going to bed knowing you spent the majority of the day productively, and maybe you threw in some Netflix or gaming there at the end. Very different feeling.

Each time you say no to these tiny impulses to distract yourself from existence not being stimulating enough, each time you choose something that builds your skill base or knowledge instead of the mental masturbation of the internet, it’s like you’re doing a mental “rep”. It’s a workout for your mind and your willpower. Enough of these tiny wins every day and you’ll become unstoppable.

“Through tapasya, you are trying to set in motion a process of metabolism, by which all the habits that create weakness and obstruct the awakening of willpower, can be eliminated. You must know what your necessities are. Your life has to be made simpler. You have to make a choice, that’s all. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. Either you want samadhi (success in meditation) or you want sensual life. To some extent you may be able to continue, but there comes a moment when you will have to make a departure from sensual life…

That is why tantra is practised. Its purpose is not to indulge in drinking, meat eating or sexual life, but to transcend your addictions. This is an important aspect of spiritual life. Mind is a very good advocate; it always argues for the senses. But in fact, even if you let your senses run riot, that doesn’t bring you happiness. So it doesn’t matter what the mind says. Go on with your tapas.” – Swami Satyananda Saraswati

“Worship of the gods, the twice-born, the teachers and the wise; purity, straightforwardness, celibacy and non-injury – these are called the austerities of the body.

Speech which causes no excitement and is truthful, pleasant and beneficial, the practice of the study of the Vedas – these are called the austerities of speech.

Serenity of mind, good-heartedness, purity of nature, self-control – these are called mental austerity.

This threefold austerity practised by steadfast people with the utmost faith, desiring no reward, they call sattwic (pure, wholesome) austerity.” – Bhagavad Gita, 17:14-17

Expect No Reward

I was speaking with another Redditor who became interested in yoga through the practice of semen retention. We got on the topic of the myriad different forms of yoga, and I mentioned karma yoga, the path of unselfish action. Basically, your every action is done with complete awareness, as an offering to God/the Ultimate/the Universe/your Highest Self, and is done without any expectation of award. 

You do the dishes with complete awareness, and you do them because they need to be done, not to please your wife in hopes that it’ll lead to your one night of sex this week. You do your job at work with complete mindfulness, and not with the hope of getting a raise, but because it’s your damn job. 

While I’m not trying to push this practice on anyone, I think the aspect of not expecting rewards is very beneficial for us on the path. Many of us hear about semen retention and all the nearly magical powers that can come along with it, and all the benefits it can bring, and so we start expecting these things, right off the bat in some cases.

In my eyes, this is the absolute worst way to go about things. You’ll constantly be second-guessing every little aspect of your life, looking at everything that happens to you under a giant magnifying glass, wondering if this is because of this benefit you heard about, or if that was because of that other benefit. 

If a girl looks your way, is it because of your magnetic aura?? Or was she just looking around the room and noticed you were already looking at her? 

You wake up and you’re feeling kinda blah today. Are you flatlining?? Or did you forget that not every day is gonna be the BEST. DAY. EVER?

If you’re constantly on the lookout for, and striving after, any of these seemingly magical benefits we get from SR, you’re just shooting yourself in the foot. It’s kind of like befriending a wild animal, or your neighbor’s cat. Just do your thing, don’t chase after the cat. When the cat is ready and comfortable around you, she’ll walk up, sniff at you, maybe rub up on your leg. If you try to pet her, she’ll just run off, so just keep on doing you and ignoring her.

The same thing applies to any “powers” gained from the path of retention. Maybe that girl was looking at you cuz your aura is growing all huge and magnetic – great, no biggie. As some obscure band from the 60’s was fond of saying, “Let it be”.

This is for YOU

Don’t do any of this for anyone other than yourself. Don’t walk this path to attract and seduce females. Don’t practice retention in the hopes of gaining the respect of other guys, or, worse yet, to intimidate them. 

Practice SR for one reason and one reason only – self mastery. If you can conquer your sexual desire, you’ve slayed perhaps the biggest dragon of your psyche. A better analogy is you’ve tamed that dragon, and now have the most powerful ally in all the kingdom.

Semen retention is for you, and you alone.

“For a man to conquer himself is the first and noblest of all victories.” – Plato

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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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Yoga and Semen Retention

I wanted to give a little bit of background on why I focus so much on yoga and Eastern practices in general, as well as a bit of a background on them themselves. For those with no interest in the topic whatsoever, this post still has valuable conceptual information for all on the retention journey.

Why I Talk So Much About Yoga

Some of y’all might be wondering why I talk so much about yoga, about Taoist practices and Eastern thought in general. Not only is it foreign for those of us in the West, with odd words and concepts, but the concept of yoga itself is very feminine here. Say “yoga” and it immediately conjures up images of soccer moms, pumpkin spice lattes in hand, wearing yoga pants and thinking they’re getting a real workout. I get it! That’s what I thought too before I really learned about it. Google “sadhu” or, crazier yet, “sadhu aghori” if you’d like to see how some yogis actually look.

Aghori Sadhus

Here’s what yoga actually is though – it is a spiritual science for achieving mystical experiences. Yoga comes from the Sanskrit root “yuj”, which means “to yoke”, “to merge” or “to unite”. It’s the science of merging the “little i” with the “big I”, of the ego with the highest level of consciousness, of the self with the Ground of All Being. Yoga was created and perfected over thousands of years for one purpose and one purpose only – to help the practitioner achieve mystical experiences and eventual enlightenment. 

Yoga isn’t religious. While it did come about in ancient India, it is not a Hindu, Buddhist nor Jain practice, and it in fact predates these religions. It is a standalone practice. Just as Christians pray, but prayer isn’t only for Christians, yoga developed in India, but it is for everyone.

The postures you see in yoga, the asanas, are only the tip of the iceberg within yoga. Within one form of yoga, Ashtanga yoga, they are just one of eight limbs, and, amongst other things, are used to prepare the practitioner for deeper states of meditation. We in the West have commoditized yoga, prepackaged it with lotus flowers and pastel-colored yoga pants, and sold it to bored women who were looking for a way to exercise without really breaking a sweat. That’s what we do here in the West – bastardize things for monetary gain. 

True yoga is, in actuality, arguably the most hardcore thing you can do in this life – to overcome your limited ego and peel back the veil of reality, to see what is actually going on behind the curtain. 

Now, that isn’t our goal in this sub – this sub is about hacking and utilizing one of the most powerful forces available to us – our sexual energy – via the retention of semen, in order to accelerate our successes in life. 

Well guess what? Yogis have known about this for millennia and have perfected all sorts of techniques and methods to not only retain semen, even during sex, but to harness, amplify and transform this energy into rocket fuel for spiritual evolution. Why do you think celibacy is required of monks and nuns of almost all spiritual traditions? Conserving this energy is a powerful tool for self-transformation.

Some of you may have heard about this in the form of Brahmacharya, literally “God-like conduct” or “conduct leading to God”, but which is often translated as mere celibacy. But again, that is just the tip of the iceberg. The more powerful and esoteric practices within yoga must either be learned from a guru, a teacher, or from the right resources, which are few and far between.

Here’s the important thing to ask yourself – why do we experience benefits from semen retention? The benefits aren’t just having great, big balls full of sperm, as fun as that is. There’s little to no benefit from the sperm and semen itself. We experience benefits because we’re beginning to hack our nervous and endocrine systems, as well as our mental programming.

Let me reiterate that point – all the benefits of semen retention stem from beginning to hack our nervous, endocrine and mental systems! Put a big fuckin’ star next to that point in your mind.

Retention starts a positive cascade of hormonal changes, beginning with reversing the rise in prolactin and drop in dopamine caused by ejaculatory orgasm. It begins to build energy (prana/Qi) within the nervous system, increasing the size and strength of your aura. And retention is obviously, first and foremost, a mental discipline, which only increases your mental fortitude in all aspects of life, as you’ve slain possibly the biggest dragon there is – sexual desire. (As an aside, ever wonder why there are so many depictions of slaying/conquering dragons or serpents, both in the East and in Western alchemical depictions? It symbolizes man overcoming the reptilian part of his brain, which is in charge of our primal urges, the most insidious of which is the urge to procreate.)

Yoga is nothing but a systematic and scientific method of further hacking all of these systems. It powerfully improves endocrine functioning (hormones) through all the postures squeezing and massaging the endocrine glands; pranayama is the direct increasing and manipulation of prana/Qi/bioelectrical energy within and around the nervous system; and meditation is the practice of training and strengthening the mind. Never mind all of the advanced mudras, bandhas and kriyas used that many never hear about. 

All of that said, these sorts of practices are not limited to yoga, and may exist in some form in other spiritual sciences as well. Every religion has their mystical traditions – Kabbalah within Judaism, Gnosticism within Christianity, Sufism within Islam, and the many yogic and tantric practices within Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism. They likely all have some form of sexual sublimation practices. 

I speak specifically so much about yoga in particular for a couple of reasons, but the main one is that it has the most information available and it is extremely detailed and thorough. It is very much alive and still being practiced for its true purpose the world over, especially in the East. 

Taoist practices come a very close second – there’s almost as much info available, and the info available is complementary to what I’ve learned from yoga. There’s much more info about tantric sex and the use of herbs coming from Taoism/Traditional Chinese Medicine than from yoga/Ayurveda, but in my eyes, yoga has much more detailed maps and techniques for “solo cultivation” of sexual energy. So I choose to blend the two, and trust me – it is incredibly powerful.

The final reason I focus so much on yogic practices within this community is this – these techniques simply blow anything else clean out of the water. Cold showers, working out, goal-setting and accomplishing, all of these things are FANTASTIC practices for us on the path of retention. And in fact, they should come first and foremost, before trying any of this more advanced wizardry. There’s no point trying to amplify and circulate this sexual energy you’re building up if you aren’t taking care of the foundational sublimation techniques, of taking basic care of your body, of journaling and self-reflection, of setting goals and actually sticking to them. 

There are so many guys out there that are experts in these things and are doing the good work of sharing their advice with others. These guys are killing it with advice on these topics, and I think they are just as, if not more valuable due to their foundational nature, as all these yogic things I talk about. I saw there was little in the way of these powerful energy practices in the community, and these practices which have been a fascination of mine for years, so that has been my focus. 

I’m not trying to convince anyone to become yogis or Taoists, and certainly not trying to change anyone’s religion. You can practice semen retention without ever hearing the word “yoga”. These are simply powerful internal practices that, if done correctly and regularly, will take semen retention to insane heights, and have the potential to radically transform the quality of your life.

“Absorb what is useful, reject what is useless, add what is essentially your own.” – Bruce Lee

Posts in the Pipeline –

Advanced Sublimation Techniques

Building Sexual Energy w/ Herbs pt. 2

Intro to Tantra

Recommended Reading

The Perennial Philosophy by Aldous Huxley

Asana Pranayama Mudra Bandha by Swami Satyananda Saraswati

The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are by Alan Watts

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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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The Mind – The Alpha and the Omega

What got you into semen retention?

What is your end goal here? It might look different for everyone, but one thing is for certain – we do it for self improvement.

We abstain and we retain, so that we one day may gain, blessed be thy retention.

Most likely you realized that all the porn, masturbation, maybe even all the sex wasn’t really that fulfilling. In fact, it may have been noticeably contributing to your depression. So you picked up semen retention and lo and behold, it was just what you were looking for. A boost in energy, charisma, confidence and more. But we don’t stop there. We want to transmute this energy we build up. Cold showers, working out, projects, breathing exercises, meditation. Time to dig deep into your most valuable asset to the semen retention game, and also your biggest enemy – the mind.

It is my belief that our key to success in this world is the mind – it is the Alpha and the Omega, it is the beginning and the end. Every single thing in this world, be it internal, such as thoughts, feelings, memories, desires and fears; or external, like your friends, your family, your enemies, the environment – you interact with EVERYTHING through the mind. And everything in turn affects the quality of your mind, your energy levels, your emotional state.

Why, then, are we not spending as much time as possible to strengthen and cultivate our minds?

We think we have control over our minds, but we don’t, not fully at least. Try to sit calmly for just ten minutes, no phone, no distractions.. It’s maddening. Why? Your mind is weak, my friend.

Someone says something that you don’t like and suddenly your world plummets into darkness, rage, despair.. Or the converse happens. Something good happens and suddenly you’re elated and thrilled. This is a poorly developed mind, this is a mind that is at the mercy of the external world. A weak mind.

How about the internal world? When something upsets you, are you able to transform that anger into compassion, or to at least to neutralize it? Are you able to enjoy something pleasant, be it a relationship or even simply the high of an orgasm, and not be attached to it, knowing that it won’t last forever? No? Your weak mind is to blame.

We think we’re in control of our minds, but as anyone who has ever meditated will quickly tell you, those thoughts just keep on coming, and distraction abounds within your own mind, even when you ask it kindly focus on just the object of your meditation.

Your mind is weak, my friend. It’s time you start strengthening it.

You have some goal in mind, something you want to accomplish, but you’re afraid. Guess what? Emotions are part of the mind, and if your mind is weak, you’re at the mercy of your emotions.

You have some goal in mind, something you want to accomplish, but it will take a lot of work, an overwhelming amount of work. Guess what? Motivation comes from within, from the mind.

You have some goal in mind, something you want to accomplish, but you don’t know how, you don’t know where to start. Guess what? A powerful mind is able to sit with and chew on problems until they begin to break down, and the mind eventually wins.

The mind is the Alpha and the Omega. It all starts and it all ends in the mind. It’s the most powerful tool you have and yet, it can be your worst enemy, if you don’t train it.

The Body/Breath/Mind Connection

If the mind is so goddamn important, why didn’t I start all these posts with it? Well, quite simply, while it is the most important facet here, it’s also, for most people, the most difficult to train. That’s why we start with the body and the breath. If I tell you to raise your right hand, you can do that easily. You can change your breathing patterns easily as well. If I tell you to not think of a green dragon, well, you just failed. If I tell you to sit and focus on the sensations of the breath to the exclusion of all other thoughts, you’ll fail. If you’re pissed off and I tell you to just be happy, good luck.

Here is a little secret – the body and the mind are not separate, the mind is just a more subtle aspect of the body. I actually prefer to think of the body as a more gross, physical extension of the mind. But the point is, they are different aspects of the same thing and they influence each other.

When an emotion such as anger affects your mind, what happens to the body? You clench up, blood pressure raises, you get hot and bothered, your face may even get red. The reverse is true as well – you can change your mental state and emotions via changing your posture.

A bit more subtle than the effects of emotions on the body is their effect on the breath. If you’re afraid, your respiration increases. If you’re relaxed, it is slow and deep. Wim Hof style breathing amps you up – box breathing calms you down.

The breath is the bridge between the conscious and the unconscious mind – you breathe roughly 20,000 times a day without consciously trying to, but it is always there for you to consciously take control over. Through the breath, we can access deeper layers of the mind. This is part of why pranayama is such a crucial tool for us.

This is also why in yoga they start with the physical postures, then the breathing exercises, and then finally they move on to meditation. The goal of yoga is just to master the mind. We start with the most easily controlled aspect of this triune, the body. Then the breath. Then the mind.

So yes, the physical postures and breathing exercises of yoga or of Qi Gong help to cultivate our sexual energy, our Jing, but they also help us start to control our mind. That’s what we all really want, right? All of your success in life comes from having this powerful mind that helps you to accomplish your goals, and if you train your mind well, you’ll have access to positive emotions all along the way. This is the natural next step of semen retention.

Facets of Mind Training

When we start mind training, we want to focus on two areas in particular –

  1. Concentrative power
  2. Taming and transforming emotions

We want a mind that is pliable, strong, and most importantly under our control. We want it to do what we say when we say it, and we want it to be strong and not easily swayed by our emotions. This is where concentration meditation come in.

How is David Goggins able to put himself through tortuous 100+ mile runs, again and again and again? How was Einstein able to sit with a particular problem and just mull it over for days, weeks, years on end, until the universe relented and gave up its secrets? They built up strong minds, minds that had great endurance, did what they wanted them to do, and weren’t easily distracted.

Along with developing a strong mind, a mind that is obedient, we want to reel in our emotions, our cravings, our urges. We don’t want them to overpower us, and we want less of the negative emotions, more of the positive ones.

By starting our retention journey, we’ve already begun to shift the dynamic towards more positive emotions and experiences, and less negative ones. Now we’re going to add on to that and speed up that process.

And remember, because you’ve built up this energy and you’re starting to increase the power and magnetism of your aura, your emotional state is constantly being projected, and loudly. Make sure it’s a state of positivity.

Concentration

The goal here is to build a powerful mind that does what you want it to, when you want it to. One of the best ways to do this is through concentration meditation practices.

In concentration meditation we narrow the field of awareness down to a very limited area, usually with the goal to exclude other thoughts and sensations. It makes no difference what we pay attention to – a candle flame, a cross, a mantra repeated mentally, a visualization, a sensation of the breath or within the body – it can literally be anything.

We focus on that one thing, say the sensation of the breath at the tip of the nose. Then a thought or sensation pops up – the goal is to recognize this and bring the mind back to the sensation of the breath. Then a thought pops up again, but this one was juicier, and it takes us off into a daydream. Eventually we realize this and bring the mind back to the sensations of the breath at the tip of the nose. We bring the mind back again, and again, and again.

A lot of people think they can’t meditate because they keep getting distracted, thoughts just keep popping up. Well, that’s half the point. You thought you were in control of the mind, but those damn thoughts just keep coming at ya. As long as you bring your awareness back to the object of meditation, over and over again, you are succeeding in meditation!

Each time you notice that your concentration has lapsed and you bring it back to the object of meditation, that’s like a rep. Each millisecond you stay with the object, boom, that’s a ton more reps. This is how you make the mind strong, give it the ability to focus on what you want for as long as you want it to.

Another thing that this meditation does it creates calmness. This calmness is a respite from the constant planning, thinking, daydreaming, worrying, craving modalities of the mind. If you stick with this process, you’ll not only create a very strong and obedient mind, but you’ll generate contentedness within. This is why in Buddhist traditions it is called śamatha meditation – it means “calm-abiding”.

Emotions and the Nature of the Mind

When we begin learning about how to tame our emotional mind, it helps to understand a little bit of how our minds work in the first place. We’re going to focus on two aspects of the mind, that of unsatisfactoriness, as well as craving/attachment and aversion. We also need to realize a fundamental truth about all mental phenomena, be it emotions, thoughts, images, feelings, bodily sensations, any and everything – they are impermanent.

Later in the series we will discover how to straight up transform our emotions, turning things like lust for women into fuel for our own personal evolution.

Unsatisfactoriness

The mind is naturally inclined to seek out pleasant emotions and sensations, and run from negative ones. This is the basis of what drives human behavior. But why does the mind do this? Why does just sitting still cause us such torment and misery? It’s the most natural thing possible, to just be… Yet it’s excruciating for us. Why is this?

The untrained mind is always unsatisfied. Why do we turn to porn and masturbation every time we’re bored or need a hit of dopamine? Evolutionarily speaking, this is good news – if we were content from the get-go, we never would have made it past just another species of great ape. Taking this to the extreme, if we never felt displeasure and were always perfectly content, there’d be no drive to reproduce, even to forage for food. Our discontent with the present and drive to have things be even better are what allowed us to progress so much as a species.

Problem is, now we can’t turn it off. Discontent has become our default mode. The goal in all spiritual sciences is to learn how to flip the switch, so that no matter our external circumstances, on the inside, it’s alllll good, baby. This doesn’t mean we get so high on our own supply that we give up on life, but that we’ve trained the mind to be content with what it has.

It is not the man who has too little, but the man that craves more, who is poor. – Seneca

Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants. – Epictetus

Take a page out of Stoics’ books and start developing contentedness. Sublimate that sexual energy up to the mind and develop concentrative calm-abiding.

Impermanence

All mental phenomena is, by its very nature, fleeting and intangible. Purely mental aspects, such as thought, memory, visualizations, these all arise in the mind for a brief time and then fade away.

Emotional phenomena are the same – how many cycles of emotions do you go through in a day? Frustration while stuck in traffic, joy while playing with your dog, anger, sadness, lust – these all arise from a given circumstance, abide for a bit and then fade away.

Even physical sensations are the same – you may have chronic back pain but if you really pay attention, you’ll notice certain times when it isn’t present, until you move at least. The high of an orgasm, we know that one is over real quick.

The point is, every single aspect as perceived by your awareness is impermanent – it arises due to certain conditions, abides for a short time, and fades away. If you get your mind very strong from concentration practices, you’ll notice that even very persistent sensations flicker in and out of existence. But we don’t need that strong of minds to realize that the good feelings, these are fleeting. The bad feelings as well.

Craving/Attachment and Aversion

Now because we haven’t cultivated contentedness, because we start out with a mind that is never satisfied, our mind has these two modes of being – craving/attachment and aversion.

We naturally crave “good” experiences, be it good thoughts, good emotions, good bodily sensations, whatever. When these arise, we naturally become attached to them. We get a girlfriend and she makes us sooooo happy – until she dumps us. Because we were attached to her, or more specifically the good feelings she gave us, we suffer because we no longer get those feelings.

We also naturally have aversion towards “bad” experiences, be it emotions, thoughts, bodily sensations, whatever. We’re on the way to work and encounter traffic – it might not even make us late but it’s frustrating. Or we ask a girl out and she says no – we experience a sense of suffering because it wasn’t what we wanted.

Contrast this with a mind that knows everything is temporary. Your mind will still enjoy your relationship with that girl, but if she decides to end it, it isn’t so bad anymore. You knew the relationship would end one day, today is that day. You might still be bummed but it isn’t a crushing loss.

And why do we go out and seek whatever is pleasurable, and run from what isn’t pleasant? Because we’re starting out from a mind that is untrained and, by default, discontent.Freedom from the Cycle

How do we break free from this cycle of discontent -> craving/attachment -> aversion?

First off, we learn to still and focus the mind through concentration-type meditations. As the turbulent mind calms down, it finally experiences some peace. That peace builds and builds, and carries over into our daily life.

Next we keep in mind that all mental phenomena are impermanent. Experiencing something good right now? Great, enjoy it, but realize thoroughly that it won’t last – that will help lessen your attachment to it, so that when it does end, you don’t suffer so much.

When you encounter something displeasing, remember that it won’t last! Think of every bad event that has ever happened to you. 90% of them likely have zero effect on you right now, in this current instant. Whatever the nightmare, it ended, and here you are, still standing.

Think back to every Christmas you’ve ever had as a kid – how badly you wanted that Playstation 2, lego set, whatever. You wrote letters to an imaginary fat man, hoping you’d get it. Maybe you even prayed to your creator for it, thinking how happy it would make you. And then, the big day came.. and you got it! Your prayers were answered! And now it’s probably in the trash somewhere, or stored away in the attic. You slowly lost interest in every Christmas gift you’ve ever wanted because your mind constantly needs more, it’s never satisfied. Much easier to just build contentment from within.

Every girl you’ve ever crushed on and wanted so desperately to date, and then when you finally did, it eventually ended.. Now you’ve broken up, and she no longer is a source of happiness, she’s probably even a source of unhappiness. Or maybe you’re still together, maybe you’ve even managed to keep up a happy-ish relationship – but there are still occasional fights, she still occasionally annoys you, and you’d damn well be lying if you claimed you never thought of another girl, even if briefly. No matter how great the relationship, it is never 100% pure joy.

Remember this – happiness, pleasure, pain, sadness, they don’t exist “out there”, they exist within the mind. You run from girl to girl, experience to experience, drug to drug, toy to toy, job to job, video game to video game, and you can never quench the thirst of the mind, it never is satisfied. Celebs who “have it all”, the money, the women, the parties, the status – many are depressed, commit suicide, become addicted to drugs, because their minds are the same as ours.

The untrained mind is never satisfied. Whenever it gets what it wants, the joy it experiences peaks and then slowly, surely begins to fade. This is the nature of an untrained mind.

Putting it all into Practice

Calm-abiding meditation

In some traditions, concentration meditations are called “calm-abiding” meditation. This is because as the mind slowly calms down and distractions start dropping to the side, as it becomes one-pointed and starts generating energy, joy naturally arises.

Imagine the relief a kindergarten teacher feels when they finally get home after a long day of teaching. All those annoying brats no longer bugging them, they can just sit back and relax. That’s how the mind feels when it’s no longer bombarded by thoughts, cravings, fears, emotions, worrying about the future or dredging up the past.

The untrained mind is unsatisfied – but the trained mind.. Ahh, the trained mind is naturally satisfied.

The joy and calmness you build in meditation seeps over into daily life as well. So while you build a strong, powerful and obedient mind, you also make your aura that much more attractive, you’ve increased your Shen that much more, you’re that much more magnetic.

The instructions are very simple – pick something as your meditation object, set the intention to focus on just that object, and if the mind gets distracted, gently bring it back to said object. Repeat this formula again and again and again.

Your stretches of concentration on the object will slowly increase, and the day dreams will become less and less. You’ll start to wonder why just paying attention to your breath can create such pleasant feelings. You’ll also notice a sense of calm and contentedness in your day to day life if you keep up with this practice, as well as a mind that is focused and obedient.

Simple instructions for meditation on the breath can be found here.

Mindfulness of thoughts

This simply involves remaining detachedly aware of thoughts as they pop up into your head. You can be seated for this, eyes open, eyes closed, walking, hiking, whatever. Just be aware how a thought will arise on its own, stay for a short while, and then fade on its own. It may have a feeling attached to it, it might not. It might have an image or usually a vocalization along with it, though possibly not.

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

Try not to get attached to any thought without retaining a sense of being a detached observer.

Mindfulness of emotions

In your day to day life, notice how any given external event elicits a feeling and/or emotional response internally. Stub your toe, anger and pain arise. See pretty girl, lust arises. Pretty girl smiles at you, giddiness arises. You realize she was actually smiling at the guy behind you, giddiness fades and disappointment arises. So step one is being mindful and noticing how any given event elicits an emotion or feeling within you.

The second step is really paying attention to how that feeling or emotion feels. What’s its flavor? Does it have a color? Does it arise somewhere in the body specifically? You want to recognize this feeling and then take a big, deep dive into it and reeeallly get to know it. Label it, experience it fully, completely, let it saturate your whole mental bandwidth.

Finally, pay attention to how long it lasts. It might hit you like a ton of bricks, and then slowly fade away. It might start as just a tiny note, and then get louder and louder. It might come in waves, intense for a bit, fading away, becoming intense again. Most of the time, no matter the feeling or sensation, it sticks around for anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes and then starts fading away.

This is how we can take meditation off of the cushion and into the real world. We no longer confine meditation to just sitting at home in our dark room – if we maintain mindfulness, our whole day becomes a meditation.

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

One last bit – it is much easier to go through life accepting reality as it is, rather than to have expectations of reality. The world doesn’t owe you anything. More importantly, people don’t owe you a damn thing either.

If you set your expectations high, you’re bound to be let down most days. Just accept reality plainly, as it is. Your day went well? Great. Your day was shit? Well, that’s life.

You do all you can to improve your life, to improve yourself – that much is in your control. The weather, the news, current events, traffic, your boss being a dick, a girl not texting back – none of that is in your control, so don’t place your expectations on any of it.

Accept more, expect less.

Obviously, hold some expectations for people. If you’re in a relationship, you should expect that she is faithful. Obviously don’t just let her go out on dates with other men. You should expect to be respected by your boss, but first you’ve got to have earned that respect, and sometimes your boss may be a bit of a prick.

Finally, when negative feelings arise, don’t resist them. When a negative feeling arises, we tend to shirk from it, to try to escape it. This resistance makes it that much worse, because we can’t just make it go away, not yet at least.

Negative emotions and sensations are kind of like a Chinese finger trap – the more you try to pull away and resist, the stronger they latch on.

The next time you feel bummed, don’t try to run from it, dive deep into that feeling. Pull it in close and get to know it intimately. Analyze it and break it down as much as possible, noticing exactly where you feel it, how it feels, how long it lasts. You’ll notice that, by and large, it is just another sensation, just like hunger is a sensation, pain a sensation, heat a sensation.

We make things a thousand times worse when we resist whatever we are experiencing.

Suffering = Pain x Resistance – Shinzen Young

Pain is inevitable. Shit will happen. Suffering is largely optional.

Don’t chase after and become attached to what is “good” or pleasurable – it won’t last.

Don’t resist what is “bad” or uncomfortable – it won’t last.

Develop inner contentment – this is your secret. People will wonder why you’re so cool, calm, collected, content, and happy. That is true magnetism.

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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.