Tips on Avoiding Edging / Learning Self Control?

I haven't tried it yet, but there's this thing called "sublimation". Basically you turn your 'sexual energy' (all those thoughts that are making you edge) into creative energy. It's how Monks practiced celibacy. Quite a while back, when I was deep into my addiction and not even trying to quit, I noticed that while I was spending huge amounts of time building a costume for comic con, I had a lot fewer sexual thoughts. Finding something to fill your time is a great idea anyways, because when you're busy you can't give into temptation. So learn to paint, build a sculpture, make a trebuchet, anything that you can put your creative energy into will be a good thing.

 

The key, like you said is to just stop. But it isn't easy to just stop, otherwise there would be no website. Form a positive habit that you go to whenever you feel an urge. Deal with your emotions one at a time. Figure out their root cause, and then address that. The advice in my signature is what works best for me though.

 

I've edged does that mean I've relapsed?

 

Unfortunately yes, but not as badly as you could have, so that's good. hop back up and keep trying. You can get through this.

 

Edging is not something I do much, but maybe what I've learned as I fight PMO will be helpful.

I find that certain moods are when I'm most vulnerable: when I'm bored, tired, frustrated, angry, lonely, hungry, "feeling entitled" -- you get the. Idea. The key is to learn to slow down and notice what that mood is. Then meet that need. Sounds simple, but it takes effort to slow down the PMO express.

 

I have this pattern where I wake up in the middle of the night and feel a urge for edging. My problem here is that I don't think clear and it is hard to tell myself "stop". I guess the solution is that I need to prepare myself for the temptation before I go to sleep?

 

That is the worst scenario for me too. I get woken up in the middle of the night by my urges and masturbate myself to death. This is our own fault, I believe. I've noticed recently that these nights only occur when there's too much tension in me from not having a clear-mind, not neccessarily unhappy, but because there is too much going on inside. Too much energy, you could say. Also, having seen naked girls and lusting after them is a factor too, as every arousal builds a tension in you that you are obliged to release through masturbation.
This is why I didn't play video games some hours before I slept last night. I also meditate now before sleep so my sleep would be wonderful. One other habit I must return to is that I used to do push ups everytime I got an erection and fantasized. If you detach lust from masturbation by having another reaction to lust ( a non sexual one like doing push ups), you make both disappear. As masturbation supports lust and lust supports masturbation.

 

Or just let it fade away, which it will eventually do. It's still best and easiest to just avoid it though.

If you go over the day in your head, and then relax yourself, that will probably help. If you do wake up though, don't stay in bed. Get up and walk away. Wash your face with cold water and don't go back to bed until you've distracted yourself from the urges.

 

Also does having a wet dream mean a relapse?

 

No. They are beyond your control, so I would definitely not count them. If you do something to cause them on purpose, then I would say it is.

 

You can look around, some people say they've found ways to reduce them.

 

Wouldn't you say that an edger already knows a great deal about self-control?

I was addicted to edging (not to orgasm and not much to porn). For the last few years, I've gone several weeks to several months between orgasms, all the while edging for multiple long sessions almost every day (even though I was fully capable of having an orgasm at any time). I had only eleven orgasms in calendar year 2014, and every one was an unintentional accident while edging.

Obviously, it takes a strong-willed man to refuse an orgasm that's about to happen. If you're an edger, you're that man! You know how to deny the strong desire for orgasm. If you want to stop PMO altogether (for a reboot or indefinitely), apply that same strength to refuse edging (masturbation) as well. Whenever I'd try to stop masturbating before I was an edger, I'd always slip up and give in to my desires. This time, once I decided to do a 90-day NoFap challenge in hard mode, I haven't relapsed once. It's now 77 days later, and I've decided to keep going after my 90 days are done. Surely, I still have urges/desires, but I tell them "no." I credit the knowledge and support gained through the NoFap community and the strength of will, self-control, and self-denial that I learned as an edger. How's that for irony?

 

That's awesome that you were able to pull pull some good out of a bad situation. And congratulations on almost 80 days. I can't wait until I'm at that point.
Just to clarify though, You're not suggesting edging as a way of building self control are you? I would think that cold showers, enforcing a bedtime, and other disciplines would work just as well, maybe better, and would still avoid the problem, while simultaneously improving your life.

 

Well, edging isn't exactly a thing to be suggested or not. It's the absence of a thing. It's masturbation without orgasm. Everybody is different. Some are addicted to the visual excitement of porn, some to the neurological high of masturbation, some to the emotional release of ejaculatory orgasm, and some to various combinations of these. It might just be, for some men who can't seem to avoid repeated relapses, that giving up them up one at a time could be easier than giving up all three at once. On the other hand, I think that most males cannot masturbate to the edge and then just walk away without the Big O at the end. For them, even trying to edge is a sure recipe for failure, and they'd be better off going cold-turkey (if that works for them). I'm not in any way suggesting that edging is not masturbation, or that it has any place during a no-PMO reboot; but it could perhaps be a helpful first step in preparation for one, for at least some men. A possible analogy might be to the use of nicotine gum or patches by smokers trying to quit. As a step toward becoming nicotine-free, they continue to indulge their chemical addiction temporarily while they first break the physical habit of smoking, then they work on quitting the drug. Of course, they have accomplished little if they make nicotine gum or patches a permanent substitute for tobacco. Likewise, I don't suggest edging as an effective permanent substitute for traditional fapping.

Surely such tactics work for some, and that's great for them; but one has only to read the sad stories of those who repeatedly relapse (despite heroic efforts) to know that they don't work for all. Because we're all different, one size doesn't fit all. If it did, a great many males would have successfully quit fapping as teens. Didn't we all try and fail as teens? I know that I did.

 

Well, it can't be an absence of something, since it's an action, but I get what you mean .
The true key, as I see it, is to adjust the way you look at pmo, sex, and people in general. Stop looking at things with a 'what can I get out of it,' and a 'I wish I could get back to it,' mentality. Once you've done that, things should be easier, and you just have to deny the neurological urges until your brain heals itself.
Building self discipline is necessary, but I would not suggest edging. And I'm pretty sure you didn't either, I'm just trying to cover all the bases.

 

I agree with Icyweb.