Any on the top of your head, that you have used to avoid a relapse? Like at any point when you were close to relapsing, how did you counter it? Any routine, game, food . . . One more question, all of my relapses have come from being on YouTube and searching videos. How should I approach this? Should I completely block access to YouTube?
I haven't completed the 90 days hard mode streak, but for me, listening to music works when I remember to try it. I have a few songs that I find very inspirational, clean and beautiful. I'm sure you know the type, those that have nothing dishonest or even mildly suggestive in them. When I listen to such songs I feel my strength and resolve renewed. It saved me from relapsing a few times. When it comes to YouTube, I think first of all you should limit the time of your visits to what you want to find there. Before entering the site, decide what you want to do there and stick to it. If you want to watch a particular video or find information - do it and leave. Don't get derailed. After a time hopefully you'll stop associating YouTube with sexual pleasure and will be able to roam aimlessly with much lower risk of triggering. I had problems with other sites, but what I've taught myself is to talk myself in my head through every choice I make on those sites. I ask myself: "why do you want to visit this link? Do you really need to know the content of this next article or are you just looking for a quick fix of triggering material?". I've found that those questions and the answers I give to them make it easier for me to decide how to proceed with my browsing.
What I'm now trying is having an alarm to go off every hour. For me full relapse takes over an hour so the alarm going off gives me a chance to snap out of it and refocus. Might even put it too every thirty minutes. The alarm acts as a habit breaker. So it throws somthing alien into the usual habit of peaking ---> edging --> relapse. I am only on day one of this method however.
Are you using google chrome? I'd suggest getting the extension called "StayFocusd", it limits the time you can spend on certain websites. For instance, I made it so that I can only spend 10 minutes a day combined on facebook and youtube because they were eating up all of my spare time. All my relapses came when I went on reddit, once again wasting lots of time, and I kept surfing away until I got to the NSFW subreddits. To remedy this, I installed a different extension called "BlockSite" that completely prevents you from visiting the websites you choose to blacklist. I threw reddit, imgur and all the NSFW sites I liked to visit before on the blacklist to be totally safe and it's worked well for me.
A few years back, before I even knew what NoFap was, I abstained from PMO for about 4 months or more. It was well over 90 days. It was all because I was fasting daily. Fasting helps to suppress your fleshly desires. Honestly, fasting made it a breeze and I didn't even have any temptations to relapse. I'd fast again, but because I body build now, I do not want to lose too much weight/muscle. I'm now a vegan, so I pretty much feel like I'm fasting most of the time anyway Monks also have a vegan diet, as cutting out meat I find helps me to feel my chi energy more. I feel lighter etc... The key is not to stop yourself from watching things like youtube videos. The key is to deal with the root of the problem head on. Learn to transmute your sexual energy into the brain. Read books by Mantak Chia. Porn blockers and all of these other things are not addressing the real issues. Let yourself work through the emotions which are causing you to seek PMO as a means of escape. The issue is not the internet itself. The battle is internal. It's everything to do with us and nothing to do with external things.
