Basic concepts to get:
1- Consider all hormones effectively sitting at "0"
2- Hormones, especially sex hormones, generally work in “pulses” through the day
3.1- Dopamine makes you “Awesome,” this is the feeling right as you orgasm, also released when you win a poker hand, beat a video game, or have a first bite of chocolate
3.2- Evolutionary perspective: This hormone is meant to encourage goal seeking behavior, chasing a girl for sex, chasing a deer for food, or playing with sticks until you make a fire
3.3- Dopamine inhibits Prolactin
4.1- Prolactin makes you “content,” this is the feeling right after orgasm and just feel satisfied
4.2- Evolutionary perspective: Prolactin REDUCES goal seeking behavior. It is basically meant to keep you from expending too much energy chasing after things. The important point here is that dopamine spikes causes residual prolactin spikes.
4.3- Prolactin inhibits sex hormones (that would be testosterone for guys!)
Basically, dopamine tells you when you tried something and it worked, and prolactin tells you "keep doing what you’re doing."
So as you go through life seeking dopamine release, and not succeeding (say…dating different girls), the lack of prolactin makes you keep trying different things.
Once you DO find something that works (say…getting a girlfriend and having sex on a regular basis), the prolactin spikes up, and you feel content. This makes you settle into a relationship, stop looking for different girls, and stop desiring radical life changes.
Masturbation throws this off because you’re tricking your body into thinking you are in a happy/content/successful state, when you really aren’t, and the REST of your body recognizes that.
fap doesn’t cause hairloss, but it can, in some people, accelerate it by F’ing with your harmones