How to better control inappropriate thoughts?

Learn about meditation. Fapping to porn is an addiction similar to alcohol or drugs. Those in treatment programs use meditation to clear and train their mind. Try an app called Smiling Mind. Just try 5 minutes a day to begin with!

 

Yeah I would bet on meditation. Although I've never been consistent with my meditation game, I've read countless accounts of former porn and smoking addicts who've controlled their cravings by daily meditation.

 

I have been meditating daily for the past several months, but have never applied it actually when I needed it the most. During the time of urges, I just give in without second thought.

 

I made a thread explaining how to get rid of or control intrusive thoughts.
Here it is: https://forum.nofap.com/index.php?t...r-control-your-ocd-thoughts-read-this.316458/

 

For me trying to resist the thoughts doesn't work so I think about them and embrace the thoughts and then they disappear

 

At the end of the day we are human so male or female we will get thoughts. Meditation has helped me focus. I just apply a very focused routine to my life now so I have minimal time for the internet minimal time drinking partying just fill your life with tasks lol.

 

Nah, don't think about them and embrace them. You just can not think and embrance certain thoughts, someone who suffers from OCD would be devastated by that.

I suggest you read my thread on how to get rid of or control intrusive thoughts:
https://forum.nofap.com/index.php?t...r-control-your-ocd-thoughts-read-this.316458/

 

Tl;dr
Five seconds is way too long. During reboot, the instant you recognize a thought as sexual, kick your conscious thoughts into gear and think of something else.

The Ultra Long Version
You can't control intrusive, impulsive thoughts. That's your brain naturally prompting you to engage in behavior it has previously found rewarding. Your conscious self no longer finds the thought-fantasy-PMO trail rewarding, so your conscious self needs to cut off that trail as soon as you become conscious of it. My trick is to have a line of thought pre-loaded, so it's easy to switch to when something else intrudes. Yesterday I focused on patience; its value, how to practice it, how to apply it to myself as I work through a difficult process, and how to apply it externally with the people in my life. Today I am focusing on kindness; what is it, what is it not, how can I practice it with masculine expression. You can choose self improvement, day planning, philosophical exploration, think about your hobbies, anything you find worthwhile that will derail you off the cycle you've grown accustomed to, which you have now identified as detrimental to your development.
Another strong consideration is your brain is, at the most basic level, not necessarily asking for PMO. It's asking for dopamine, and PMO is simply the most reliable way it has learned to get it. Dopamine is a legitimate need. Giving your brain a little dopamine in a non-PMO way is an excellent way to retrain those neural pathways and connect the dopamine response through a healthy route. Take a moment to acknowledge your victory when you dodge an unhealthy thought, and on the other side, don't stress over getting that impulsive thought in the first place. Spend some time working out, staring at nature, deep breathing, or doing something you know makes you feel satisfied. If you have someone in your life you can hug, do it. All of these things are clinically proven to increase dopamine levels. If you have a barrage of unhealthy or unwanted thoughts, it can be helpful to think outside them. Instead of engaging with them on their own terms, think about why you are having them, and why they are so intense. It's because you are doing a hard thing to make your mind more healthy, and be a better person than you were yesterday. It's possible to do it, and you are strong and persistent enough to get it done, if not today than tomorrow. Think about what you can do to calm them down (the stuff mentioned above), and put your plan into action.

I want to note, I have ADHD (lots of impulsive thoughts) and have trained myself to use deep, elaborate fantasy as a coping mechanism (I now write fiction semi-professionally), and I have gotten to day 60 as of this writing not only with no PMO, but almost zero fantasizing about erotic subjects. If this method works for me, I'm reasonably confident it can work for anyone. Depending on how deep your addiction runs and loads of other variables, you can expect a reasonably consistent barrage of unwanted thoughts (opportunities to practice thought derailment) during the first two to six weeks of reboot. It seems like a long time, forever in the middle of it, but if you consistently deny that dopamine reward, your brain will learn to stop consistently prompting it through sexual thoughts. The path is still there, it'll come up every once in a while, which is why guys still reset after day 90. If you just remember you aren't bullet proof and use the same derailment technique in the future, you'll be fine.

Best of luck to you, @AviationFreak97 and the rest of you fapstronauts.

 

As they say - 'An idle mind is the devil's workshop'.

 

Fabulous write-up, @Meshuga! Thanks for taking the time to share all of that with us. Lots of great insights.

 

That was great insight, Meshuga. Thank you for that. Having a game plan in place when these thoughts or urges appear is vitally important. I have a system in place called "ABF", Awareness, Breathe, Focus. I really did a good job instilling this on my big streak last year, but fell off the wagon and let this discipline slip. But when I was doing it, I was having great success on my reboot. Thank you for creating this thread, Aviation. This topic is vital in recovery because we face these thoughts every single day, in one form or another.