Emotional storm and urges

[pornfreeodyssey]

Had to get myself out of where I was to go get some fresh air.

I had a huge emotional storm brewing in my mind starting from anxious to self-deprecating thoughts. I felt this urge to go view porn and ease my tensions but I didn’t allow my self that time.

I find that the moment between wanting to view porn and actually doing it is very crucial to pivot back in the right direction. We can all talk about staying away from porn but our brains are hungry for it. Don’t feed the monster!

What are some techniques y’all have found helpful to prevent porn use in a very stressful anxiety inducing state?

 

[Chrisaaa7]

Had to get myself out of where I was to go get some fresh air.

I had a huge emotional storm brewing in my mind starting from anxious to self-deprecating thoughts. I felt this urge to go view porn and ease my tensions but I didn’t allow my self that time.

I find that the moment between wanting to view porn and actually doing it is very crucial to pivot back in the right direction. We can all talk about staying away from porn but our brains are hungry for it. Don’t feed the monster!

What are some techniques y’all have found helpful to prevent porn use in a very stressful anxiety inducing state?

Distracting yourself helps a lot by doing other things you like such as video games even( I’m not saying you should constantly play video games to get over this addiction but doing things you like in general), and sometimes just thinking about what’s going on, think of why you are feeling these urges and honestly sometimes that reverse Psychology helped me. Also applying ice to you penis helped me as well. And last last last resort, if you can’t handle the urges no matter what, it’s better just to masturbate without porn, some people view masturbating as a set back which I don’t really think it is especially if it’s not too often but it’s definitely better then viewing porn

 

[LivingBeyondPornCoaching]

Had to get myself out of where I was to go get some fresh air.

I had a huge emotional storm brewing in my mind starting from anxious to self-deprecating thoughts. I felt this urge to go view porn and ease my tensions but I didn’t allow my self that time.

I find that the moment between wanting to view porn and actually doing it is very crucial to pivot back in the right direction. We can all talk about staying away from porn but our brains are hungry for it. Don’t feed the monster!

What are some techniques y’all have found helpful to prevent porn use in a very stressful anxiety inducing state?

Well done on seeing the situation you were in and taking yourself to get some fresh air. To my mind, its a sign of significant recovery when we are able to see ourselves being triggered and choose a different path. I hope you feel pride in your awareness and personal power.

I totally agree about the importance of the moment of watching to view it and pivoting away from. I see those moments as our greatest challenges but also as our greatest opportunities for personal growth and freedom from our destructive habits. You're forging a new path for yourself and that's great to witness.

A technique I find helpful for stress and anxiety that will also help with porn urges is to ground in my surroundings and present moment. Something as simple as looking around the room for everything I can see that's blue and using that to bring my awareness away from my anxieties and into my environment and the present moment. Though it sounds simple, getting into a habit of doing this (and other practices) has significantly helped my anxiety. The technique is commonly used by professionals to help their patients.

Going out and getting some air and nature is also a great technique which you've applied very successfully to your own urges. Excellent!

 

[Carl_Smith]

HALT: The Dangers of Hunger, Anger, Loneliness, and Tiredness | Rehab

The key to maintaining a life in recovery is a combination of self-care and self-awareness. One of the tools some people use is HALT.

bradfordhealth.com

I've read that these times ^ can be triggers.

Personally, I have thought about porn only twice in the last ~100 days, and I believe those were "old habit" pathways doing a death rattle in my brain. Both times, I thought about how there would be 0 advantage to doing it. It would just suck the happiness and energy from the rest of my life. I just laid in bed and confronted my limbic brain with my frontal lobe, and did not stop until it eventually went away. I was like "come on, give me every argument for using it, you stupid limbic brain, I will shoot every argument down". Your limbic brain is a crappy poker player, all it does is bluff.

Your rational brain can own your limbic brain. I used Easy Peasy method which has you focus on the 0 advantages to using it idea. Stay free.

 

[Fappy]

Yes absolutely, that critical few moments between when you get triggered to when you act on it is make or break.
Some techniques i used were to remove myself both mentally and physically from the triggering thing. For example if i saw an image by accident online, i would stop and recognize that i have been triggered and that it isnt real, not real as in its just pixels on a screen with no inherent existence beyond that. Why is it so appealing? Thinking in this way nullifies the urge.
Physically removing yourself from it is pretty self explanatory: just get up and walk away. Close the lap top, put the phone in another rooom, etc. out of sight out of mind.
One more thing that i found helped was remembering how fucking awful you feel after you PMO. Why would you willingly make yourself feel like that again?! All for a few seconds of dopamine high? Don’t trade that pissy little rush for months and months of torture.