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Wellness Wednesday for February 28, 2024

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

  • Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

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A month ago I made a post exploring whether nicotine could be used to addict oneself to housework. Since then, I've received a number of private messages asking for an update. I happily report overwhelming success. Last month I couldn't have imagined making my home presentable. Now it's clean and organized from top to bottom (even my storage room and closets are tidy), tastefully decorated, and I've even hosted friends a few times, something I hadn't done in years. And the best part is it took absolutely no discipline. In the same way an alcoholic isn't using willpower to trudge a couple miles through the snow to the nearest liquor store, I just go into autopilot and let my addiction take over. I can't get over how absolutely life-changing this has been at the cost of zero effort. I'm not recommending this to anyone else, but if you're already addicted to nicotine please consider which habits and thought-processes you're reinforcing and which ones you'd like to reinforce.

I'm already addicted to Nicotine. Badly. I take maybe 100 hits of my vape daily.

I don't have issues with doing good things. My room is spotless, I lift, run and work 10-12 hours a day. But I do have a problem with doing bad things. I vape, masturbate, and waste time on the computer much more than I'd like. I'd like to make the list of bad things shorter before I make the list of good things longer (even though I will eventually get back to this).

Any idea how I can perhaps work in a negative reinforcement habit?

If you vape at or around your computer it's probably reinforcing the browsing and masturbation, I've spent a third as much time online since I started this and now I can't remember how I was able to spend all day scrolling. My best suggestion would be to avoid any nicotine during the things you're trying to avoid, and find better or neutral behaviors to replace them with so you can still vape. I'm not sure your specific problem with masturbation but I wouldn't be surprised if the gooning phenomenon were directly correlated with vaping.

TMI section: One part of this reinforcement I didn't mention is that along with the housework, I've started taking a hit right before and as I orgasm, but at no other point during masturbation.1 I used to like edging and opening tabs for hours but this has made me eager to finish quickly, saving me time and dramatically improving my sexual stamina. I'm also aroused more often and have more sexual fantasies while I'm out and about, which I consider healthy and preferable but might not be a goal of yours.

1 this is part of my longstanding efforts to give myself a sex addiction

I'm not sure your specific problem with masturbation but I wouldn't be surprised if the gooning phenomenon were directly correlated with vaping.

What is the gooning phenomenon? I learned of this term probably within the past couple years, and I just thought it was just zoomer slang for masturbating a lot, which men have been doing since the invention of hands. Is it just that people are now forming an identity around this as a hobby?

Is it just that people are now forming an identity around this as a hobby?

If you are having trouble filling out the "Other Interests" section of your resume...