Porn and Masturbation under High Stress
Hello everyone,
I am a 22-year-old unmarried male medical student.
I am currently going through an incredibly difficult phase in my life, and I am reaching out to this community for some guidance, support, or insight.For some time now, I have been struggling with a compulsive habit of watching pornography and ***. I have tried numerous strategies and techniques to stop, but I keep hitting a wall. My pattern is highly cyclical: for the first seven days, abstaining feels relatively easy and manageable.
However, by the 8th day, the mental pressure becomes overwhelming. It feels as though my brain experiences an intense cognitive overload, and constant, intrusive thoughts inevitably force me to relapse.I have noticed a distinct correlation between my physical energy levels and this compulsion. When my energy is low or depleted due to the rigorous demands of medical school, I do not experience strong cravings.
However, the moment my physical energy levels recover and peak, my brain immediately channels that high energy straight into a desire for pornography.This cycle is taking a heavy emotional toll on me. Every relapse leaves me feeling depleted, highly guilty, and anxious. I am also starting to worry about how this hyper-stimulation might negatively impact my perception of real-world intimacy and my capacity to form healthy relationships with women in the future.As a medical student, I understand the physiological basics of dopamine baselines and stress response pathways, but translating that theoretical knowledge into real-world behavior modification has proven incredibly difficult when the physical urges peak.
If anyone has experienced this specific 7-to-8-day surge pattern, or if anyone has practical, actionable advice on how to build environmental friction, manage high-energy states without resorting to digital escapes, or handle acute urges, I would deeply appreciate your insights.Thank you for your time and help.
@optimisticSpruce4150 For me something that helps:-
1. Stay away from stimulating materials, recognise and stay away
2. Workout and keep busy, exercise makes it so that you don't feel much urge anymore
3. Set small goals like a week, then two weeks, one day you would be like I have had so much time without doing it so there is no way going back to it now
4. Actively know that you will be much more attractive once you get rid of the habit
5. Distractions with games like RPG (Not FPS because they cause distress)
Hope this helps! Know that you are not alone :)
As someone who struggled with a point addiction for half of my entire life. Stay away from stimulating materials when you feel the urge dont use anything that could acces that stuff and if you have to use a device be incredibly intentional get on do your task get off. Its a cycle that will ruin your life and not something you wanna be doing to your future partner or what about if you have kids. Find a reason a real and personal reason to quit and write it on a note and put it somewhere you look everyday. Theres also virtual Sex Addiction Annoynomus meetings you can go to to not fight this alone and I highly recommend telling someone you trust and having them be your accountability partner. You can do this!
Most religions don’t condemn mastibation they condemn lust.
Can you separate the two and mastibate with little lust. I mean touch your self and allow thoughts to come up without chasing them. Ideally you would do this before a very strong urge to watch porn.
Science seems to suggest moderate lust is good. Most with porn addition have extreme lust. Food is best eaten a little and often avoiding the extreme food like items eating nourishing things instead.
Daoism talks about solo cultivation as a positive thing but as a word of warning semen retention is apparently harmful.
