How Can I Stop Using Porn as a Stress Reliever?

When you’re pain is great enough you will be able to start doing the good stuff.

That said, it’s dificult to do things when we don’t want to do it, so it’s like a trap. I deal with this a lot for advice given about my depression. People say “just do it” and I’m always wondering “how?? I’ve tried to just do it and I can’t!”

So I would say start slow. Meditation is only 1 of the many things I started doing.

When I first started I would stay in bed for 2+ hours after I woke up. Now it’s down to 25 minutes max. With meditation I do 10 minutes every day, in the morning and it’s pretty easy to do that little amount.

I also watch some YouTube videos about meditation or diet or exersize, which end up motivating me a bit to give it a try,

If I meditate for 10 minutes at 6pm on day one because I couldn’t get my sh!t together fast enough to do it in the morning, then that’s ok.

Another hugely helpful thing that keeps me self honest, reminds my of my problems and why I want to change, and gets me motivated is journaling. Every morning I spend 10 minutes writing down my honest feelings about my mood, my sexual thoughts, my cravings and exploring other parts of my mind, being as honest as possible. I usually walk away from this time humble and ready to continue my work for the day.

Something really dumb that helps me is to say “thank you universe for another beautiful day!” Every morning. It’s somewhat of a prayer that’s been working.

Start small, stay focused and remember why you are here. But also remember that you can’t stop yourself from relapsing just by selfwill alone. You need to do external things to change your life. Otherwise you would have stopped along time ago and wouldn’t have this struggle.

Good luck and stay strong!

 

@RobinCoenBrosFan , I think you're definitely making the right move by trying to replace porn with a healthier activity like meditation when it comes to relaxing yourself. I don't think you need to stay focused on meditating when you have urges to watch porn. I think the important thing is to make sure you develop a habit of meditating at least once a day. It doesn't have to be during a time when you're experiencing urges. Set a time for yourself to do it. My time is at 5 PM, right after I get off work. That's not a time when I typically have urges, but the fact that I meditate once a day consistently makes me more relaxed and clear-headed overall.

Another point: I think the idea of porn being a stress reliever is a myth. Porn doesn't relax you, it makes you more stressed out. It never truly satisfies you, and as soon as you get rid of the urge by watching porn, your addiction just comes back later asking for more. The only stress relief you get from watching porn is the relieving of your urge. Consider this analogy: let's say you decided to wear a really itchy shirt all day so that you could feel the relief of taking it off when you go to bed. Is that real stress relief? No, it's not. If you didn't wear that shirt at all, you would be more comfortable all the time. In the analogy, your urges are the shirt (they itch and burn in your mind all day) and porn is taking the shirt off at the end of the day. Trust me, you're not giving up any real stress-relieving activity by giving up porn. In fact, quitting porn is going to make you a less stressed out person overall.

I wish you the best of luck on your journey

 

To echo the others, I agree that porn doesn’t really relieve stress. If anything, it can be more stressful or it seemed to be in my case, looking for the perfect clips or types of porn or looking for new sites, etc. And what’s relieved is physical tension, not the mental stress you’re trying to escape.

 

When I’m stressed I try to use porn as a reward, like I deserve to feel pleasure because I’m so stressed out. I have been stuck in this cycle for so many years. I have had long term escape before but it always ends with me in the same place. I don’t know how to permanently break the mental cycle which draws me to porn.

 

I think alot of people believe that stress always has to be dealt with by relaxation of the body and slowing down the mind. Yes, this does has it's benefits and are awesome practices but mostly never works if you have too much energy. I believe by exhausting your body with exercise, or any other physical movement, like jogging or running and feeding your mind the right "foods", like an interesting book, or a good puzzle to solve, you will notice the stress is actually pent up energy. So next time when you feel this stress, it means you have too much energy. Release it in a productive way.

 

Learn to face the stress in healthier ways. But never consider to use P to help, short term, very short term it’ll be helpful, long term, you’ll be stressed

 

At the moment I am using nofap as a stress reliever