No country for old habits

New user on this forum, have been on NoFap off and on for years though - currently have been abstaining for about 8 months - not counting that closely anymore but focusing on a well rounded recovery process so I'm glad to see a forum section like general internet addiction. Anyways look forward to connecting with this particular community.

 

Welcome.
Wow. 8 months Thats insipiring!

what are your tips? How do you prevent relapses?

 

Well right off the bat I should say I think what works in the beginning is going to be different than later stages, so I don't want to just give a generic list but encourage people to see where they're at and what applies - at the moment. Overall though, as a foundation I believe one of the most basic things is going to be sleep. It doesn't directly prevent relapses but it makes it a lot less likely.

I and it seems a lot of other people have more of a tendency to relapse either first thing in the morning or late at night, and basically by practicing good sleep hygiene and getting into a regular routine, to the point I haven't needed to use an alarm clock in years (even if I stay up a few hours late one night now there's no question I would wake up naturally for work) I found there's clarity of mind so I won't decide to PMO. Even if in the morning where it's just MO without porn I believe it reinforces previously conditioned porn influenced behavior and draws on memory of porn watched previously so there is some relevance. (I don't know about this community but assume at least some are only abstaining from porn) We're vulnerable at these two transitional times and by being as clear and as regular as possible with sleep/wake cycles I found that factor is pretty much eliminated. That's not everything, but that's a lot of it. Also if people don't have the discipline to meditate taking a nap in the middle of the day may be helpful, there's evidence that before the industrial revolution a lot of people had a biphasic sleep schedule where they naturally wake up for a little bit in the middle of the night and go back to sleep, and then take a nice nap in the middle of the day - sort of like a yin and yang thing.