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Studio Toriumi

It is probably not about hormones. Something is still working.

Almost every claim that abstinence raises testosterone traces back to a single paper: 28 participants, no control group, and measurements that stop at day seven. That does not make the whole thing nonsense — people really do report their lives changing. The explanation just sits somewhere else. This page separates what is demonstrated from what isn't, and neither promotes nor dismisses the practice.

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The paper everyone cites, examined

Jiang et al. (2003), Zhejiang University. A peak of roughly 145% of baseline on day seven of abstinence, returning to baseline afterwards. 28 participants. No control group. No measurement past day seven. Behaviour was never assessed at all. What can be said is "a transient shift was observed once" — not that longer means higher, and not that anything about the person changes.

Three explanations that hold up better

Time returns — thirty minutes a day is 180 hours a year, and that alone accounts for a lot. Attention stops fragmenting — frequency of interruption matters more than duration, the same mechanism as phone notifications. Self-efficacy updates — having kept a commitment changes subsequent behaviour, regardless of what the commitment was.

Why the framing matters practically

Under the hormone theory, a single lapse resets you to zero and the day count becomes the goal. Under the time-and-habit theory, the hours you already recovered do not disappear. The second version is the one people actually sustain.

A calculator, because time is the measurable part

Enter duration, weekly frequency and years. It returns the total in hours and in waking days. Hormones can't be measured at home; this can. Nothing leaves the page.

Evidence graded in four tiers

Certain (time freed; compulsive sexual behaviour disorder being a real ICD-11 diagnosis) → reasonable (habit spillover, sleep) → weakly supported (sustained testosterone elevation, "dopamine receptor reset") → unsupported (deeper voice, hair, attraction, and anything selling a day count).

How to build a tracking app that isn't harmful

Nearly all apps in this category are streak counters, which is the worst possible design — one lapse deletes everything and the user leaves. Count cumulative time instead. Log the trigger rather than the act. Don't use "alpha" language. Keep the data on the device, and say so.

Where it stops being about willpower

ICD-11 lists compulsive sexual behaviour disorder with specific criteria — repeated failed attempts to stop, real harm to work or relationships, six months or more. Notably, it also states that distress arising solely from moral self-judgement is not sufficient for diagnosis. That distinction matters, because this field runs on guilt.

LanguageReading this in English

The full analysis, the evidence grading and the time calculator are written in Japanese. The calculator is numeric and works in any language.

How this site handles translation

We don't machine-translate pages and publish them as if they were written in English. When an English edition exists, it has been written in English. Until then, this page tells you honestly what is on the other side of the link.

Everything on this site is free and has no paywall, in either language.