Relapse comes out of the blue, asking for advice

great question, and welcome to the forum. Managing the urges/cravings is the very first step to breaking the addiction to porn.

check out this video and let me know if it resonates with you. If so, I can share how I used this info and a breathing excercise to manage the urges and break my addiction to porn.

 

yes... you got it. you can beat this.

If you just fight the urge with only brute force. actually make it worse. You create a fight or flight syndrome in Limbic part of your brain (thats the part that tricks you into watching porn), fight or flight creates more stress and anxiety.

If you instead change your relationship with the urge you will find it much easier to control it vs it controlling you.

here is the 2-4 minute breathing exercise I use whenever an urge starts. give it a try and let me know how it works for you.



#2 A NEW PRACTICE TO MANAGE URGES
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Next time urge happens you quickly take control of your inner voice and practice how to talk to yourself, and use this internal voice to analyze the urge, break it down, understand it, get yourself to understand its not the porn you want (... the bell to pavlovs dogs) . porn is just pixels on a screen. Is it logical that you really want or need pixels on a screen?

So try this when urge hits. But before you start its imperative you stop whatever you are doing. Turn off the TV . Put phone on airplane mode. stand up and move to a comfortable chair in your house. feet on the floor. hands resting on your thighs.

1) close eyes. take a deep (4sec) breath in through nose. hold for 4 secs, let it out for 4 secs through nose. repeat one time.

Please read this primer from @Mordobarn on how to do this breathing

2) While continue breathing Step outside your own body and look back at the urge as something separate from you. It is not you. Its just a little bit of "electricity" sparking around your brain, trying to fool you into thinking you want porn when in fact brain actually wants something else. Scan your body and focus on any physical changes . Heart rate up? Tension in some part of your body? anything that feels different. Don't worry about these just be aware and observe them.

3) Do this for 2- 5 minutes.

Lets call the above steps, "Your Practice" You should find this is effective in moving past the urge and in a way that calms and relaxes you versus just fighting it and increasing anxiety/stress. You will need about 1-3 days of this to start to see impact on reducing urges

Once you've master this there is a 3rd step that is not important until you master the practice above ( they;ll be a new video as part of this)

The urge is not bad.
You are not the urge
You are not bad.
The urge is just biochmestry in your brain that has been all twisted by the predatory porn industry. You can fix that.
Take control of the urge vs it controlling you.

 

awesome. did you find the breathing practice helpful?

Step #3 is the one that takes the most effort, but the one that leads to more permanent results by starting to rewire the parts of your brain that the porn industry took it upon themselves to hose up for you.

Also the exact areas to different for everyone so there are no step by steps. The key is it being NEW to you.

its all about this video.

 

great question. and yes exercise is ideal.

this is really tough to say as it varies wildly for each individual.

imo the key is that you start doing NEW things. maybe a totally NEW type of exercise (if you havent tried yoga... its an awesome workout and has alot of other benefits) , maybe swimming laps, maybe a pick up basketball game. maybe hire a personal trainer to learn some NEW types of full body workouts. maybe stop going to the gym for a bit and ride bike, run, walk. volunteer at a local food bank, or men's shelter. just flood your mind with new things even if you only do them once and then move on to something else. it almost doesn't matter what the activity is as long as its new AND makes you feel good. Maybe set a goal that every other day you will spend 30mins to an hour doing something totally new. then just do more of the ones you enjoy the most.

One small thing I did during this period is picked out three of my favorite tunes. ones that always makeme feel good and get me charged up. and played them constantly throughout the day. one of the other benefits of this is its known that listening to music releases dopamine (a good thing since quitting porn->orgasm will quickly reduce amount of dopamine you brain produces) also google things that produce dopamine (p.s. excercise is a big one so you are on the right track with that)