The recovery time estimator I mention in the end of the video can be found right here.

Have you stopped using porn?

Or are you currently in the process of trying to overcome your porn addiction?

And now you're wondering if there are any ways you could potentially help speed up the recovery of your brain after quitting porn?

Well, if so, you're in the right place. 

Because today we are going to talk about how to recovery faster after quitting porn.

Let's get started...

How To Recover Your Brain Faster After Quitting Porn.

Scandinavian Bob here, hi.

Are you interested in speeding up the NoFap or porn addiction recovery benefits? Well, after spending 13 years in this community now, I’ve got a lot to say about recovery and how we can speed it up.

And today, I’m starting a mini-series here on YouTube, where each video will dive deep into one powerful tool that can help accelerate your brain’s recovery and boost your NoFap benefits.

So, if you’re serious about quitting porn or you’re on a NoFap journey, consider subscribing BECAUSE you do NOT want to miss this.

The first tool we are going to take a look at is physical exercise. 

How physical exercise can help your brain recovery after quitting porn...

Now, some of you may perhaps already know that this tool will help speed up your recovery, BUT did you know that if you do too much of it, it will actually not work?

Yes, I’m going to tell you why in just a second, but before I do, I want to reassure you that, yes, physical exercise can indeed be a powerful tool to help speed things up, IF you do it correctly.

Did you know that there are actual studies showing how exercise helps upregulate dopamine D2 receptors?

Exercise helps with upregulation of your dopamine receptors...

Yes and those receptors are exactly what addictions knock out. All addictions do that, not just porn addiction. 

Now, these receptors will grow back on their own when you stop using your drug of choice, but real research has shown that you can indeed speed things up by doing physical exercise. 

It also increases something called BDNF...

Exercise also increases something called BDNF, which is a protein that many experts refer to as “miracle gro for the brain”. It promotes  the growth of new neurons  as well as increases functional connectivity between brain regions.

Not to mention exercise also increases blood flow to your whole brain.

BUT did you know that if you do too much of it, it will actually cancel out the  positive effects on your recovery.

Too much exercise will cancel out the positive effects...

You know, I struggled with relapses for more than 7 years before I finally became free of my porn addiction.

That means that during my reboot I have had many different streaks. And I can tell you that I started seeing benefits much, much sooner on the streaks where I did physical exercise - compared to the streaks where I was lazy and didn’t do anything.

But here’s the kicker, I also had streaks where I was so eager to be good to my brain that I actually started overtraining.

And sure enough, on those streaks the benefits  took a lot longer to achieve, almost like on the streaks where I was lazy and didn’t exercise at all.

So the takeaway here is that… 

1. Yes, physical exercise will increase the speed of your recover
2. (But) If you overtrain, the positive speed increase will not happen

What kind of physical exercise is best for healing your brain after a porn addiction?

So, now you’re probably wondering how to know if you’re overtraining AND what kind of exercise is the best to do…

Well there are studies specifically made on addicts (meth addicts) who did 30 minutes of resistance training followed by 30 minutes of cardio 3 times a week. 

So in total 3 x 60 minutes of physical exercise per week.

And those people saw a significant upregulation in their dopamine D2 receptor density compared to the control group who didn’t do any physical exercise.

Is cardio in combination with strength training best?

Now, just because THAT study happened to look at a combination like described doesn't have to mean that particular regimen is the most optimal.

It just means that when they tried doing it in that particular way the results were positive compared to the group who didn’t do any exercise at all.

They have not looked into all possible combinations of exercise, but we do know that doing cardio alone without lifting works well too. 

So, we don’t know what the absolute most effective protocol would look like.

Now, the same goes with the amount of exercise they did, maybe doing a bit more cardio would be even better, we just don’t know, it could very well be the case.

Just as long as you’re not overtraining.

Which now leads us into the last question here...

How do you know if you’re overtraining?

Well, when I talked about my experience with different streaks during my reboot, I actually monitored my nervous system by measuring something called heart rate variability (HRV), with a chest strap and an app on my phone. 

But before you freak out here, let me tell you; you don’t have to get that fancy...

There are other, much  simpler ways to know, and I’m going to tell you in just a second, but for those of you who are interested in HRV and you’re wondering what that is...

Let me explain...

What is HRV and how can measuring it help with porn recovery?

It is when you measure the time in between your heart beats and there are then effective algorithms that can say how recovered or stressed your nervous system is. 

And no, this is NOT the same as measuring your heart rate. 

No, If you have a resting heart rate of 60 bpm, your heart beats on average once per second, but the beat-to-beat intervals, if zooming in on them closely, could for example look like this...

1.07 sec….0.90 sec….1.02 sec….1.03 sec…..0.92 sec …and so on

So, the average is going to be 1 bps, but each interval varies and the more variation there is the more recovered your nervous system will be.

Now a few years ago  I used to track my HRV with an app called Ithlete, but today I have a Fitbit smart watch that’s measuring it, and I’m not sponsored by any of these by the way.

Listen to your body…

Because some other way to know if you’re overtraining or not is to just listen to your body…

If your energy starts going down and if your legs start feeling heavy that’s a good sign to back off a bit.

You can also measure your morning resting heart rate.

"You can do this with just feeling your pulse on your wrist and counting how many beats you have per minute, and if your resting heart rate starts going up for many days in a row and you’re exercising hard that’s also a sign that you’re body is not recovering well."

You know exercise is supposed to lower your heart rate over time as you get more fit, so if it goes the other way, that’s a good sign to slow down.

If you're exercising in moderation - don't worry...

Now, it’s also pretty safe to say that if you’re just exercising in moderation, overtraining is not that likely to happen for you.

So do not worry that much about it, but at the same time, we are all different here...

For example, I use running to gain different benefits, and I have noticed that I have a much harder time recovering from my running sessions compared to how quickly I recover from lifting in the gym.

So, it is good to be aware of these things. 

Ok I hope you found this informative and in the next part of our series we will zoom in on how to use cold showers to speed up your recovery, so consider subscribing for that.

And oh hey guys, speaking of recovery, if you want to know how long YOUR recovery will take on average, you can use my FREE PMO recovery-time estimator by clicking on the image below...

Find out what the lenght of your recovery will be - using the recovery time estimator below...

Thanks for reading!

-Bob

Related posts...

• Part 2 of how to heal the brain after porn use can be found right here
• NoFap and porn addiction - how to speed up recovery
• What would happen if we had super low dopamine?
• 7 Things you can do to speed up NoFap / pmo recovery
• How to recover brain after porn addiction