Advice about sleep while on NoFap

[D_rax]

Hi all, I posted this on my my recovery journal, but wanted to put the question out here a little more publicly, to hear if anyone had further opinions. Thanks in advance to anyone who has advice!

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I'd love some advice on something:

As mentioned above, yesterday (day 4 of no PMO) I had some pretty potent blue balls and anxiety, at various times throughout the day.

I ended up going to bed around 10pm. I had a work trip this morning so I wanted to get some good sleep so I could be ready for it.

Now, I sleep really well all the time, but last night I couldn't fall asleep for the life of me. I was super horny, nonstop from when I turned off my light until about 2am. I tried a bunch of things to fall asleep: stretching, breathing/meditative techniques, etc., But to no avail.

Eventually, in order to just be able to fall asleep, I decided to masturbate.

It was a very... Clean? Surgical? Mechanical? process. All my screens were in another room, and there was no porn involved. I didn't visualize anything. It wasn't like I was playing back porn in my mind to get off. It was just a "do this for a short period of time and you'll experience release" kind of process.

When I was done and cleaned up, I rolled over, and fell asleep a couple minutes later.


The reason I write that in such detail is to say, this isn't the first streak I have had go this way. Over the last couple years there's been a few instances where I've gone 2 or more months without porn, but have not been able to make it much more than a week without masturbation.

I know it's possible to do so, but consistently a story like the one above is what plays out for me: get a few day no M streak, and ride it till horniness keeps me awake for 4+ hours a night... Then relapse just to be able to sleep.

Does anyone have any advice on this? It sounds like many people see a downturn in raging horniness/urges after a few weeks. But getting there has been troublesome for me.

I think the decision I had to make that could have kept me from it this time might have been taking some melatonin. I had some upstairs, but our house is super creaky, and I didn't want to wake anyone to get it. My final "choice", appeared to be that, though: try to find the melatonin and wake family members, or masturbate.

I'll try to keep a pill or two more accessible in the future, especially when a streak starts to get longer (at least, by my standards ) and the stakes get higher. But if I can, I'd like to have a more solid plan/technique in place than relying on a substance just to be able to sleep when these situations come up again in the future.

Anyone got any advice?

Thanks in advance!!

 

[Avallon]

I'm no expert, but something that has worked for me in similar situations is doing exercise. It may sound weird but if I suddenly get the urge to masturbate in the night I'll start doing crunches or hold a plank. It helps get my mind off of masturbating and makes your body focus on something other than PMO. It will also make you more tired and more likely to fall asleep. This is something that's worked for me, but I would also love to hear solutions from other people as well

 

[D_rax]

This is something that's worked for me, but I would also love to hear solutions from other people as well

Thanks, @Avallon ! That's a good idea. I'll give it a try next time. You don't find that doing that raises your heart rate too much to be able to sleep after exercising?

 

[Avallon]

You don't find that doing that raises your heart rate too much to be able to sleep after exercising?

Not for me personally, but that might be the case for some people.