From fightpornaddiction.com Are you wondering how to stop masturbating? Well you are not alone. There are millions of frustrated men in the world trying to figure out how to stop masturbating. There is a plethora of confusing guidance and information out there. I will lay out advice from myself and others I have collected over time to make this is simple as possible. But before I jump into that I want you to know that you can and absolutely will overcome this addiction with the right attitude. Perseverance is the name of the game and victory will be yours if you possess the ability to get up and dust yourself off every time you fall. Many people have overcome this addiction and so can you. 1. Before you learn how to stop masturbating you must isolate the cause and not the symptoms. There is a reason or reasons you masturbate and you must find out why. If you concentrate on just stopping masturbation then you will just return to your addiction after a short period of success. So, why do you masturbate? You’ll need to get some paper and something to write with for this one. There are many reasons you could be doing this and it may take a lot of pondering to get all the reasons on paper. It could be because you are bored, lonely, hurt, stressed, or it could be because of pains from the past. You’re going to have to get yourself in a relaxed state conducive to productive thought to really find out why you turn to masturbation. What are you trying to escape? Avoid focusing on symptoms. Saying you masturbate because it feels good is not the real reason you masturbate. Ok, it temporarily feels good but why do you feel like you need that? Dig deep into your feelings. If you find this part difficult you may need therapy to help you discover feelings you are not seeing clearly right now. It could also be something other than feelings. It could be that you are putting yourself in bad situations such as where pornography is easily accessible. 2. Once you have understood why you masturbate you need to start dealing with these feelings or situations. Dealing with feelings correctly is a skill and may be a skill you have forgotten or need to learn. Feelings are the result of thoughts. How we interpret the world and ourselves in our minds determines how we feel. We decide how we feel about things. If you masturbate because you feel bored then it is because you decided to feel bored. Nobody made you feel bored. You did. You have choices. You can get out of the house, you can talk to friends or family, you could do many things. You also decide how you think. You could decide that your situation is not as boring as you thought. What are you comparing your situation to that causes you to think its boring, or rather leads you to decide it’s boring. Becoming more aware of your emotions will not necessarily bring complete success but it is one step in this process that will give you essential personal power over the emotions that have ruled your life. The strongest man is the one who controls the mind. There is no universal application of this technique for everyone. Learn what works for you by trial and error, always refining your approach. Learning how to stop masturbating is exactly that, learning. When you have a feeling, any kind of feeling, learn to slow down the automatic train of thoughts you’ve created over time. The mind and body love to try and be as efficient as possible and does this by automating as much as possible. So it does take effort to interrupt ingrained automation, a.k.a. habits. For example, when you feel bored stop for a second and think about the message of this feeling. Is it because you feel your life is unproductive, or you would like to be doing something better with your free time? Once you’ve figured out why you’re bored you have some options. You need to either change the way you think about things or the way your are handling the situation or both. So you can either learn to see your life and situation as not boring or take action to make it not boring. If you’re sitting at home with nothing to do then take action and get out of the house. Go get involved in a hobby or create a new one. Why do you think people take up running? Yeah it’s great for health, but they also want to feel productive. The feeling of boredom is trying to give you a message. If your life is already productive then you need to change your thoughts and decide to be happy and content with every day living. You’re only going to continue to search out the temporary pleasure of masturbation so long as your are not content on the inside. True happiness springs from your thoughts and emotions, which you control, and not external circumstances. A key to learning how to stop masturbation is learning to change the feelings that are leading up to masturbation. You also need to change how you feel about masturbation. You can no longer see masturbation as a solution to your boredom or loneliness or whatever, but instead must associate the act of masturbating with the pain and lack of control it brings into your life. The more you learn to enjoy your everyday life the less you will want to turn to masturbation and its natural consequences. 3. Depending on the frequency you masturbate you need to narrow down the times of the day that seem to be the biggest problem for you. A lot of people have problems at night when they lay down and begin to relax. They’re not busy with daily activities and their thoughts begin to drift. Perhaps they have used this as a way to fall asleep for a long time. Isolating the times of the day that you struggle the most can help you to focus your efforts better learn how to stop masturbating. If you know you struggle most when you lay down at night then you can create a plan specific to that time of day. Maybe you need to exercise and burn some testosterone before going to bed. Exercise will also help you to be more tired and fall asleep faster. That means less time to think about masturbating. If you struggle at different times of the day or several times throughout the day then try to narrow down the times and the environment you’re in when this becomes difficult. If you go to a certain store with bad magazines or the gym where women are dressed in less then you may have to change some things about your daily routine. 4. Spend some time each day, perhaps in the morning, visualizing a new you. Close you eyes for a few minutes and imagine yourself easily overcoming the temptation to masturbate. It’s important that you start reprogramming your brain on a daily basis. It may seem awkward at first but do this everyday for 21 days and you will be comfortable with your new and confident self-image. 5. You cannot overcome a masturbation addiction so long as you are viewing pornography. If you have unrestricted access at home or work or anywhere then you need to create a safer environment. Simple as that. Get monitoring software or get rid of the computer. A recovering alcoholic cannot hang out at the bar or the alcohol section of the grocery store without giving into temptation. The same applies here. You need time to recover and get stronger. 6. Have an emergency way out – When the wave of temptation comes you need to have a pre-planned emergency way out. Many people have found that snapping a rubber band on their wrist helps break the automatic thought chain that leads to masturbation. Of course you don’t want to hurt yourself, just have something similar to get you mind off masturbating. Memorize a song or think about a hobby, whatever works. There are a couple things I want to mention here. You’ll notice a couple things as you work to overcome a masturbation addiction. First, it’s not easy and you may have to try many many times before you get consistent success. I recommend tracking your progress for each day on a calendar so you can see even the slightest progression. Do not expect perfection. You may sometimes feel like Tom Hanks in the movie “Cast Away” trying to get over those big waves and off the island. Just keep trying no matter how many times you fail. Hint: One of the things I would do after making a mistake was go take a shower and put on new clothes. This would make me feel like I was clean and making a fresh start. Also doing this and having this mentality at the beginning of a new day makes you really feel like you have a fresh start. The new day is spotless and you have another opportunity to do better. The second thing you’ll notice is a feeling of lethargy, irritability, and mood swings. This can be compared to having withdrawal symptoms. Your body has gotten use to the way you have trained it. Anytime there was a build up in testosterone or dopamine you gave in and relieved the body. So there will be a period of time, not months but weeks, where you will need to let your body readjust itself. It will be easier, then, not to masturbate. This also applies to porn addiction . Until then you will be fighting the urges of a body resisting change. The lethargy can go away in a matter of days if you endure. The third thing I want you to understand is the role of testosterone. It takes seven days for your testosterone levels to reach their max. So the first few days might not feel so difficult after you decide to stop masturbating but as the testosterone levels build up it will become more difficult. Just keep that in mind when you start to feel like its getting more difficult. That is how the body works. It cycles. If you allow it to, the body will absorb the testosterone and continue to work properly. When you were younger perhaps you had “wet dreams”. This was the body naturally regulating the high testosterone levels. This is nothing to feel guilty about but is actually a sign your body is working properly again if this does happen. Of course older individuals have lower levels of testosterone and should not expect “wet dreams” to happen.
