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:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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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.
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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.
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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).
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
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There's no good intro for this, so here goes: what does the Motte know about erectile dysfunction?
(context: new partner, thankfully very understanding and skilled, first in a while, 4-5 encounters so far. generally fit and healthy, porn probably once a month or so, masturbation slightly less than daily. noctural erections are robust, but occasionally kinda weak during masturbation and difficult while standing. debating whether to medicate and see if tapering off works or just keep going and see if it eventually kinda clicks.).
Everyone else has covered the best advice, so let me ask: Do you ever have a strange, difficult-to-describe sensation in and above your perineum, that comes and goes, and/or difficulty getting started when you urinate? You may have heard of BPH (benign prostate hyperplasia). It's basically a periodic inflammation of the prostate, of varying degrees. By the age of 70 about 80% of men will have this to some degree. There are treatments and you will note the word benign because it is not cancerous (though cancer of the prostate can present with similar symptoms.) Erectile dysfunction can have all sorts of psychological reasons, though--I think in some ways as men we would prefer it to be a physical ailment. Maybe not.
I'd agree with ask your urologist (get a urologist, not a GP, for this.) Be as frank as possible, this is his job (or her job). Personally the veil has been lifted for me regarding Andrew Huberman and I can't take him seriously, but that doesn't mean his vid on this topic with Attia (who I like a bit better) isn't worth watching. It might well be.
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Zinc once a day, every day. If you're meeting your partner that day, also take a ginseng supplement (and also natural aphrodisiacs: dark chocolate and red wine). Try cutting out masturbation for a few days.
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Attia and Huberman have incredible long podcasts on this. Here is a small blurb, but their male sexual health videos are worth listening to over the whole 3 hours.
tl;dr: Medical intervention is good and recommended. It works best when done early rather than letting the psychological element build up.
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I had some brief run-ins due to psychological hangups, mostly stress, not being immersed, meditation fixed it so would recommend you give that a shot and reduce stress, if it still persists, visit a doc immediately, do not self-medicate.
Better boner; one of the lesser known siddhis.
100 percent lol, the best resource on sex is this book called the sex god method by daniel rose and he explicitly recommends meditation to fix performance issues. It helped me out and should help you out. ED in most cases for young men is a psychological issue.
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How old are you? The rule of thumb is that if morning erections are happening, it's a psychological problem and not one related to circulation. (look up the postage stamp test) Are you on any other meds?
I'm 32. K2/D3 and coffee, maybe a standard drink every two weeks, that's it.
I appreciate the offer, but it is a throwaway, and I'm happy to have this discussion out in the open for the benefit of the next guy.
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Step one would be refraining from masturbating and directing that drive towards your new partner.
If nocturnal erections are trouble free could you arrange your encounters around that somehow?
Noted, both ideas worth a try. We both have a hell of a time sleeping with the other one in the bed (general issue, not partner-specific) but that can be worked around.
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What’s your exercise like? Do you do any kind of cardio or weights? If your noctornal ones are fine than you probably don’t need medication.
Lift twice a week, run 3-4x, cycle 2-3x, probably average about one of those pretty hard. I could probably deadlift 405 and run a 20min 3mi today, though it would hurt.
I am a little worried about the bike, but I started having issues when I'd been off it for couple months, I've never had numbness or pain on the bike, and I've always been pretty conscious of fit and saddle choice, so I don't think that's it.
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Those of you that live closer to the pole than the equator, how do you handle winter gloom?
Same way you handle the oppressive summer heat, try to take the opportunity to do the nice things that make sense.
In summer it's things like barbecues and days in the park. When it's cold and dark that means staying in where it's warm, warm clothing, thick blankets, strong drinks, rich food and pretty lights, etc. No amount of bathing in simulated daylight is going to cheer you up if you're cold and eating an imported salad.
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Count the days until spring and try to keep it together.
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SAD lamp 40+ minutes right after getting up in the morning.
If a SAD lamp is not enough, you can try also tuning your lighting even more. The Rationalists™ version is sometimes called a lumenator.
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Progress Update -
I am now close to 6 hours of work daily which includes math(mathacademy), frontend(learning web design by jennifer niederst robbins) and backend (boot.dev). This is maybe the first time I have been able to do STEM-related stuff for over a month regularly without spinning my wheels. I will aim for 6-8 hours daily by next week, I would earlier have impossible aims like working 12 hours a day for 7 days a week which was quite stupid. I have two accountability partners who keep a track and I cannot thank them enough for it.
Meds and stuff -
I started incorporating 5-minute micro sits in my day besides my main sit of 24 minutes. My concerta prescription got renewed, still 36 mg, enough to make a difference, my psychiatrist noted that I came off less fidgety than when I first met her over a month ago. The med is important because it helps in everything, when I was off last week, reality felt a little blurry, now I can listen to music again and feel calm.
Miscellaneous -
I was quite stressed recently due to my previous co-founders and finding ways where I can stay friends with them but move on to other things in life. In hindsight, I was wrong to LARP as a founder for over a year when I lacked any basic hard skills. In case anyone here wishes to work as one in tech, I hope you have good technical chops, I did not and ended up being the least potent guy since we never did have even a pre-alpha product nor did I get paid a dime which I don't blame them for. They meant well, I don't wish to burn bridges with them. This sounds trivial but kept me up for the past few days. People get really pissed if you try things a different way, I don't want them to give me any input for the next 2-3 months but don't know how to say it.
An even weirder thing is telling people who meet me "what I do". I am not alone in this, a former high school buddy recently came back to my town from Delhi and he went to the Yale Law equivalent here. Life will be alright, just need to keep working for now, see ya guys next week.
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