Hi, can you help me please....

Awesome. Good to hear.

The main thing that will improve your practice when urges come up is to learn more and practice basic meditation

The better you get at meditation the better your urge practice will be. There are lots of great intro to meditation info on the web

My favorite one is the free version of the app HeadSpace. It has has 10 sessions. You start with #1 on day 1, then #2 on day 2, etc etc
They are only 10 minutes each , and start you at the very beginning on Day #1 and increase your knowledge and skill with each 10 minutes session each day

p.s. I tried your cold shower trick yesterday when I was having some physical withdrawal symptoms . It helped for sure !!!

 

thats great. youve already conquered the first part. next part is not going to happen so quickly.

The video with the maps is the key to next step. might be good to watch it again.

through quitting porn, you have started to tear down a road that had been built in your brain's neural pathways that that lead to porn.

Its time to build some new roads toward new hobbies, new activities, read totally new kind of book, new types of excercise, new stuff is the key. immerse yourself in them

This part i very dependent on the individual. I am still playing around with this part as well.

Become active in the threads in the Reboot and the Success stories. Careful though some of the other threads over there are pretty graphic and just those might kick off urges. Open a thread and if its super graphic or something you feel reminds you of porn, close it right then

Focus on the threads where you read them and think "yeah thats whats going on with me too". Lots to choose from over there.

keep us posted

 

rea_per...

You and I are about at the same stage here in kicking the addiction and getting life headed back in right direction (I'm probably about 5 days ahead of you)

Since urges/cravings are now easily managed and have already reduced and intensity and frequency, other tools are needed to deal with other issues. Most of these are centered around the physical withdrawal symptoms of the massive amounts of dopamine PMO was dumping into your brain. These physical symptoms are close to symptoms when getting off a drug addiction.

Im playing around with different things and learning more about this mostly centered around other activities that effect dopamine.

Here is a simple one I found. Listening to music, but not just any music. Most people have a few favorite songs. Songs that get you energized and make you feel good (... dopmine related). Pick 2-3 of those and play them on a loop as often as you can throughout the day.

Let me know of that helps in any way.

 

its good you are really into music. I think this will you help you even more. again just pick your 2-3 favorite songs., the best ones that make you want sing along to and/or dance.

here is quote from New York times article that made me aware of this trick.

So, basically we trick the brain and give it the dopamine it wants... just from a healthy source vs coming from orgasm with porn. Once the brain is tricked and a shot of dopamine it craves, I would assume it wouldn't be so harsh on us regarding the the withdrawal symptoms it kicks off.

https://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/09/opinion/sunday/why-music-makes-our-brain-sing.html

 

most welcome. talking about this is helping as well. The best to learn something is to try to teach it.

you got this !

 

thats great. if you keep practicing the breathing exercise you will get better and better at it and the urges will become less frequent and less intense.

what is the other problem?

 

rea_per... I am sorry to hear that. This is an area that I am not qualified to talk about. I would just offer a few suggestions.

Sometimes PMO causes emotional issues, sometimes emotional issues cause the PMO.

Now that your subconscious mind realizes its no longer getting the buzz (dopamine) it used to because you cut it off from porn, it is going to try a lot of things/tricks to try to get you to go back . Don't fall for the tricks.

Finally your feeling of loneliness are very very common with others breaking porn addiction. As a matter of fact there is an entire forum on NoFapp dedicated to this problem. You should go over there and participate in the forum by starting a thread and helping others in their threads.

https://www.nofap.com/forum/index.php?forums/loneliness.30/

 

absolutely brother. we are all going through this together. nobody is alone.