What works and what doesn't List

Hello there,

I have been on this journey for a few years now and I have put down a list of things which helped me and which do not. Please feel free to discuss and add to my list.

What works:

• Meditation- I don't do any kind of sophisticated stuff. Just count my breathing and feel the present moment. Thing is you have to do it throughout the day, albeit sitting only for a few minutes.
• Orderly lifestyle- Instead of just browsing YouTube all evening after college, I created a routine of studying running and entertainment.
• Reading- This is perhaps the single-most important factor in keeping my head free from all the flashbacks I do have.
• Getting to know myself-Setting some "me-time" daily to do what I love. And then meditation to understand how I work.
• Patience.
• Exercise

What didn't work:

• Spending too much time on this site- Initial info taking is fine but success really depends on your real life outside of this site.
• Journals.
• Accountability Partners.
• Cold Turkey for indefinite period- Although many may disagree, which you have the full right to do, I feel that after all these years in NoFap, I have limited my goals to sustainable relapses rather than abstaining completely. You may define your goals as per your requirements.
• I work best without counters; instead of which I use a preset period. I set a period of a month beyond which I relapse. Though it may seem counter intuitive, setting a "fap" day, has helped me move away from thinking about NoFap all the time. Whenever I feel horny, I say to myself- "save it for the big day, the hornier, the better". You can set the days to lesser if you are in too deep. General advice: Don't set your fap day on a weekend, it will be a disaster.
• Taking relapse too seriously- What's done is done, move along and don't beat yourself up.

Spending too much time masturbating is the problem and not masturbation itself. As far as porn is concerned, I would say that it is a predatory product, one which consumes a man's time, energy and money until he is totally dead of either. So porn is really the enemy here. Regular meditation will help with saying no to urges to watch porn. Again, I also feel that masturbation is not an addiction but rather porn. Masturbation in itself cannot become an addiction. Kind of like masturbation is a brake while porn is the accelerator. So it's fine to get your fix once a while but never watch porn though.