refraining and edging

Cold showers help. Just jump into the shower when you have an urge.

 

Clap so hard your hands hurt. Seriously. right after you feel an urge, start clapping and break the train of thought. Divert your brain's attention so it doesnt keep sending blood to certain places in the body.

 

Amazing idea, thanks angry_loner!!!!

 

angry loner has absolutely the right idea. I don't use clapping myself, but I can see how it would work. Look, we all have sexual thoughts and are going to have sexual thoughts--that is a fact. The problem is when we allow ourselves to dwell on them. "Dwelling on them" can include a lot of things, all of which are just ways to get a dopamine high. They would include actually viewing porn, thinking of porn, imagining it, hypersexualized thoughts, PMOing, edging, etc. What you need to understand Jeff is that edging may seem to you less problematic than PMOing, but to the brain's dopamine reward center, it is exactly the same thing, it is just pushing a button to get a dopamine release. Don't be fooled by thinking it is better than PMOing; to our brain, it is essentially the same thing.

But back to the point, when I was first quitting I had to learn not to think about sex. I don't mean think about it in passing, but not to dwell on it. It was hard, so the method I came up with to distract myself was clicking my tongue on the roof of my mouth. Sounds silly, I know, but anything to break up that lingering thought helped. I did a lot of clicking the first month. Now, I don't, I don't need to, I no longer compulsively think about sex or porn. This by the way is trained behavior, you do it consciously, for long enough, and given a bit of time you will not compulsively have those thoughts.

Oh, another one I have read about here is wearing a rubber band. When you have the thought, snap the rubber band hard. That little sting distracts, and the distraction can be enough to prevent a dopamine surge.

Peace.

 

Great idea, angry_loner!