It’s time to celebrate lads — No Nut November (NNN) 2023 has officially ended!

The idea behind NNN is simple. All you have to do is abstain from ejaculating for the entire month of November.

Successfully executing the challenge, on the other hand, is far harder.

But, despite the idea of not being able to get down and dirty with your partner, your favourite toy, or simply through the power of your own hand not sounding all that appealing, millions of men took on the challenge.

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Since its conception in 2011, NNN participants have credited abstaining from ejaculation with improving their mental health and clarity and giving them increased self-confidence.

And, there’s always the hope that it will boost sperm count and health, increase testosterone levels, and help you perform better in bed.

But, just how valid are the claims?

Last year, Dr Rena Malik explained that the benefits of not ejaculating could help boost your fertility when you finally do have sex, but overall there wasn’t much of a reason to do it, especially not for 30 days.

She explained that while there aren’t any huge health problems caused by participating in No Nut November, it doesn’t really help much either as you’ll miss out on the benefits of masturbation.

She said: “There’s a number of benefits to masturbation including better sleep, decreased heart rate, decreased stress and a lot of increase in feel good hormones.

“People can get a lot of pain and discomfort in their pelvic floor, or their testicles.” Hello blue balls!

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As for feelings of improved mental health and increased self-confidence, there may actually be some truth there.

The self-discipline required to make it through 30 days without orgasming proves to participants that they can set a goal and achieve it.

Dr Boback Berookhim, a New York-based urologist and men’s sexual health expert, told DailyMail.com: “From a philosophical standpoint, having control over one’s various bodily urges does have a benefit in terms of self-discipline and self-control and kind of improving one’s general sense of self over time.

“Does that mean that that person needs to abstain from sexual activity for a month? I’m not convinced but to each his own. It’s certainly not going to be harmful.”

So while claims of incredible health benefits are dubious to say the least, those who’ve completed No Nut November by not, you know, completing, should be proud of their achievements and definitely schedule in some alone time over the next few days.

Today is the last day of November – for most of us that means we’re thinking ahead to our advent calendars or trying to come up with ideas for a tiny plastic elf.

However, for some fellas it marks the last day of No Nut November – a challenge which, as the name suggests, sees men restraining themselves from sex and masturbation for a whole month.

Those who take part claim that resisting the urge to knock one out can bring benefits such as increased focus and mental wellbeing and preventing erectile dysfunction – although there’s little evidence to support those claims and some experts even reckon it could be bad for you.

Erectile dysfunction expert Doctor Alexis Missick, from pharmaceutical company UK Meds, told the Daily Star that masturbation is actually beneficial and No Nut November might not be doing blokes any favours.

She explained: “Masturbation actually has beneficial effects on testosterone levels and libido, almost like a positive advocate loop. By masturbating, it can delay the time to ejaculation, almost like building stamina and routine.

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“It can also reduce some of the psychological issues such as low self-esteem and performance anxiety, that would increase the chance of erectile dysfunction. The reverse in true – refraining from masturbating could worsen premature ejaculation and indirectly erectile dysfunction.”

And Dr Missick isn’t the only expert who has urged men not to take part.

Dr Rena Malik took to her YouTube channel to explain that not ejaculating could help boost your fertility when you finally do have sex, but overall there wasn’t much of a reason to do it, especially not for 30 days.

She explained that while there wasn’t really huge health penalties to participating in No Nut November, it didn’t really help much either as you’ll miss out on the benefits of masturbation.

YouTube/Rena Malik, M.D.

Dr Malik said: “There’s a number of benefits to masturbation including better sleep, decreased heart rate, decreased stress and a lot of increase in feel good hormones.

“People can get a lot of pain and discomfort in their pelvic floor, or their testicles. A lot of you guys have heard of ‘blue balls‘.”

Other health experts have also previously weighed in on the potential side effects of No Nut November, and they aren’t in favour of it either.

Dr Karan Rajan explained that while you might want to spend a month without masturbating, your body is still producing sperm and needs a way to get rid of it from time to time.

While many of us are having a sudden crisis about how quickly the year has gone, and others are up in the loft getting out the Christmas decorations, some people are marking the first day of November slightly differently.

That’s because for a select group of people, today marks the beginning of No Nut November. And in case you’ve never heard of that before, it certainly doesn’t mean abstaining from snacking on peanuts, but from ejaculation.

The viral challenge sees men ‘encouraged’ to quit having sex or orgasming from masturbation for the whole month. Yeah, fun.

But while you might think it’s a bit of a laugh, a urologist has revealed the three main concerns she has for people taking part.

The expert has reasons why it might be a bad idea. (RenaMalikMD)

No Nut November’s impact on relationships

Dr Rena Malik speaks about No Nut November in one of her YouTube videos as she lays out some potential problems.

“One is that when you’re going through this process if you’re trying to really focus on having orgasms without ejaculation you can get very fixated on that prospect, you can get very fixed on edging,” she says.

“It can be very hard to have a relationship, a very meaningful important sexual relationship, with a partner because you’re fixated on yourself.”

No Nut November’s impact on mental health

“It can also cause a lot of stress and anxiety to go through no nut November.”

That’s because Malik claims there’s ‘a number of benefits to masturbation’.

This includes haing ‘better sleep’, decreasing your heart rate, ‘decreased stress’, and a real ‘increase in feel-good hormones’.

It could make things painful down there. (Getty Stock Images)

No Nut November’s impact on physical health

“The other thing I worry about is that people can get a lot of pain and discomfort in their pelvic floor or their testicles,” the urologist says.

While you’ve of course heard all about ‘blue balls’, Malik adds that there’s ‘very little data on this in scientific literature’.

“It’s called epididymal hypertension,” she explains, “and the reason being is that during arousal you get increased blood flow to the testicles, as well as everything else.”

Usually, this then decreases when you ejaculate but if you’re sticking to no nut November then that ‘increased pressure stays around’.

“For some people that can be quite painful and it can last for quite a big period of time.”

And it can have a bit of a lasting impact as she continued: “We also sometimes see men who have elevated pelvic floor tone in those who don’t masturbate or don’t ejaculate for long periods of time.

“They’re building up all this stress and tension in their pelvic floor that can result in pain.”

While she points out there’s not really any data on this, she recommends that men who suffer with this should ‘masturbate two or three times a week’ to help with the pain.

Alternatives to No Nut November

In her opinion, a ‘much healthier option’ is to go ‘No Fap’ for November – avoiding porn.

She says watching a load of porn ‘has a lot of potentially dangerous side effects’, particularly if you’re watching ‘violent’ or unrealistic content.

“It can actually really affect your brain and the way you perceive sex and the way you have relationships with other people,” she explains. “So, if you want to try something new for November try to hold off on pornography rather than holding off ejaculation.”

A relationship expert has laid out a ‘love cycle’ which he believes explains why so many relationships fail.

Not to be a gloomy sort, but most relationships ultimately don’t work out in the end. What can begin as an experience filled with love, tenderness and joy that makes you feel ways you’ve never felt before can all end in heartbreak.

They say it’s better to have loved and lost than never loved at all and that’s a very persuasive argument, but as to why so many relationships ultimately don’t work out it can be hard to fathom.

Each one perhaps feels like it falls apart for unique reasons, but relationship coach Stephan Labossiere said he thinks he knows the answer.

Speaking to the Jay Shetty Podcast, Labossiere described something he called the ‘unhealthy love cycle’ in relationships between men and woman which could go on to ruin relationships throughout a person’s life.

First love is amazing, but a relationship expert said it could kick off the ‘love cycle’ that could harm future relationships (Getty Stock Photo)

First love experience

Labossiere said it all stemmed from the ‘first love experience’ that people had and the impact it had on their subsequent relationships.

“They’re at their most loving, they’re just out there, they go all the way in,” he said of women in their first relationship, and how it kicks off the ‘unhealthy love cycle’.

“But that typically happens at a younger age, at an age where men are not mature enough to handle those kind of emotions, that level of commitment, so on and so forth.”

So step one on the ‘love cycle’ is experiencing first love when you have no prior taste of it or context for it, and sadly at an age where you’re unlikely to have the wisdom to navigate that properly.

The next step seems to be heartbreak and deciding you’re never going to get hurt in the same way again (Getty Stock Photo)

Getting hurt

The next stage on this cycle is the pain that comes with the end of the first love.

He said: “So she gets hurt, after she gets hurt her moment is saying to herself ‘I will never let this happen to me again’.

“So now the woman starts to consciously or subconsciously choose men who are, I don’t want to say lower than her, but essentially a man who does not take her there.

“He’s good enough to be with but ‘I’m not that vulnerable with him, he can’t hurt me like that first love hurt me’.”

Labossiere says this then leads into the next stage, and the problems that throws up.

Stephan Labossiere spoke about his ‘love cycle’ and why many relationships don’t work (YouTube/Jay Shetty Podcast)

I can fix him…

The relationship expert said the ‘dynamic usually leads to picking a person I can fix’, and often times it doesn’t work out.

He claimed this was an attempt to seek out someone they can ‘make better’ and in turn will ‘appreciate and respect them’.

He then said that this love cycle could result in the man ending up cheating ‘because you chose a man that you could never be the woman that he needed’ and ‘he can never be the man that you needed’.

Labossiere said that once a partner you’ve been trying to fix ‘gets what he needs from you to build himself up’ or when the ‘smoke clears from being infatuated with you’ you’re left with a relationship that’s not giving each other what they want.

The relationship expert claimed that trying to find a ‘fixer upper’ could lead to them cheating (Getty Stock Photo)

We’re not really right for each other

It all sounds a tad pessimistic really, but Labossiere said that this could produce a relationship where each half wasn’t giving the other what they needed, so they’d be more susceptible to temptation elsewhere.

“He’s safe, but he doesn’t fulfil her, he doesn’t satisfy her, he doesn’t excite her in any kind of way,” the relationship expert said for how these relationships sputter out.

He said he believed ‘the safe choice is almost always the wrong choice’ and claimed it was ‘a function of people trying to choose these fixer-uppers’.

It’s all over but the crying…

The next and final step is recognising when the relationships is done and dusted, with the podcast host asking how you know when it’s time to end a relationship.

Labossiere said he thought ‘society needs to change their thinking’ about the end of relationships and explained that the end doesn’t mean it couldn’t work out under other conditions.

He said: “Letting go doesn’t always mean it can’t work out later, it’s just that it cannot work out under these circumstances. Some people say ‘I feel like they’re the one’, maybe they are!

“But maybe the time is not right and it’s letting go that will allow you both to do what needs to be done in your own personal lives that will allow you to come back together and have something way more amazing.”

His main signal for it being time to leave a relationship is if you’re trying to make it work and your other half is ‘unwilling to put in the work necessary’.