Masturbation is fun! You can have endless number of orgasms and fantasies without going anywhere else, just a closed room (or washroom) is enough. There is no inhibition and no limitation. You can experiment imaginally with new methods of achieving gratification. Age is not a barrier, caste or race is no barrier, relationship is no barrier. Truly a magical trip. An erotic journey with as many partners you like. Masturbation just opens up an enormous store of imaginary acts of pleasure which are 'real' because they give you pleasure but still no one notices that. The best form of experiencing secret passions. Wow! So many wonderful aspects of masturbation.
But wait. The title is suggesting something else. Why am I not talking about controlling the habit of masturbation? Don't you think when masturbation is so wonderful an experience like I mentioned above, there is no need to control it. If such is the case, then why did you landed up on this page. Were you not looking for ways to really controlling your habit of masturbation? Of course yes. There must be a reason why you want to control masturbation, despite its streams of pleasures. We all want pleasure from sexual activities. What an irony that you have thought of controlling this act of masturbation, when it is one of the ultimate sources of pleasures.
Wait again. Did you read carefully the word 'habit' above? Oh, so we are talking about the habit, and not the act itself. Let's now talk about controlling the 'habit' of masturbation. Its true and quite common that masturbation becomes a habit, an irresistible ritual which you outperform whenever you feel a spark of sexual energy inside you. That can be due to any of the daily triggers like watching a porn, a memory, an idea, meeting a new girl, attraction with some girl in your class or workplace, getting a minor physical contact or touch with a girl on a bus or metro, small talk with a girl on road or in class or office, etc. The urge is so high that you have to get it released. This urge is unstoppable, and you develop a habit to get the triggers daily, so that you may get an opportunity to express your secret sexuality. With these daily or frequent acts of self-pleasure, you run the risk of getting obsessed with thoughts of sexual pleasure, such that if you don't release them, you feel uneasy and anxious. You lose focus in your work or studies, and until you calm yourself by discharging the fluids, you are not able to relax mentally at all.
The description seems quite familiar to you, and you know that you have to get out of this state by putting some control over your habit of jerking. Initially, what seemed to be the acts of self-pleasures and intense ecstasy, now become a mental burden for you and you find yourself getting obsessed by masturbation. This act is disturbing, making daily life dysfunctional. You don't want to do this any more. You feel frustrated and weak, every time you find yourself submitting to your intense urges. You are also equally bothered by the recurrent thoughts of sexual pleasures, which are irresistible and compulsive in nature. These thoughts overpower when there is no external trigger present around. They interfere with the ongoing activity like studying or working. They terminate with the act of masturbation. You may feel guilty after the act. You are trapped in a never ending cycle of self-created habits of pleasures.
There are some ways in which this condition can be altered. You can learn the behaviors which would help you in controlling this habit of masturbation. Any habit can be unlearned. There was a reason why you formed this habit. So knowing that reason can relieve you of this distressing habit. Not only just knowing would help, but you need to take certain actions in order to bring yourself out of this habit. Here are the seven tips to help you understand and move out from this habit:
1. This is just a habit.
Become aware that this is just a habit. Yes, many of you don't realize this. You are so engaged in this habit that you rarely realize this has become a habit. Some of you enjoy the act of masturbation. You don't probably know you are victim of this habit of masturbation. Why? Because you are satisfied that you are getting some sexual pleasure after all. You don't want to miss this opportunity. For you, each instance of pleasure is a rare one. You want to experience it as if it were real. So don't get into this state, where you start considering this habit as an important source of pleasure. You are in fact, not getting much pleasure as you think. Recognizing this repetitive masturbatory urge as a habit helps you later in seeing what you can do to break it.
2. Don’t listen to the biological alarm and break the ritual
What happens most of the times is that you remind yourself of the need to masturbate as a ritual. Like we have to take bath every morning, or eat breakfast etc. Similar ritualistic remembrance takes place for masturbation. You set a biological alarm, like the one happens for sleep, which triggers the need to ejaculate. This alarm has been set through practice. This happens due to your belief that masturbation is necessary and the ritual needs to be completed. Don’t do it when you don’t feel like doing it. Masturbation can give you lots of pleasure but only when you do it for fun. Rituals take away the joy of self-stimulation. Ritual is behavior-oriented, not feeling-oriented. You perform it to fulfill a self-determined need. Take a broader view of this act and see how ritual of masturbation is making you feel sick and distressed. Ritual and habit are different. Ritual is felt more as a compulsion and distresses intensely while habit persists due to various emotional and practical reasons. Ritualistic form of masturbation takes place at specific time of the day, or during a specific task (studying) etc. as if there is some disciplinary need to follow the urge. Breaking the ritual would be like doing self-stimulation during non-specific times of the day, like at different places or different times, in different frequencies. You have to miss out on some days too. You are not going to lose anything after all.
3. Take long intervals
You need to follow the principle of delayed gratification. This means you have to suspend the need to masturbate. Remember that masturbation is more in the mind, than in the body. You develop a habit which is irresistible to avoid. Your impulse to carry out repetitive acts of masturbation makes you reactive to your biological alarms. Whenever you find that your body is ready and prepared to have sex, you tend to masturbate. So in order to break this impulsive and reactive chain, you need to delay the performance. Give yourself some more extra time and rejuvenate in a better way. When you masturbate daily or several times a week, you habituate your mind to feel pleasure in a certain way and to a certain extent. You don’t get enough pleasure after a certain level. Intensity of pleasure doesn’t match your frequency. Anyone doing lots of sex should be seen as having lots of sexual desire. But here in case of masturbation, its not the higher sexual desire, but the ritual that compels you to masturbate daily or frequently. There is always a feeling of distress and anxiety with rituals but you fail to recognize this. So by taking long gaps between successive masturbation acts, you are giving yourself time to reenergize your body and mind.
4. Question what you are doing and why
This is a necessary way of thinking to bring you permanently out of masturbation compulsions, but the process is gradual and involves consistent efforts. When masturbation has become a part of your life, it seems natural or at least normal to keep doing masturbation and take whatever pleasure it offers. We have accepted this lifestyle and masturbation is just like any other daily/regular activity. We tend to overlook that there are some other repercussions of doing this activity ritualistically. We narrow down our outlook of this habit. But beyond the mechanistic nature of masturbation and the biological basis to it, there is a higher cognitive component – belief. We have various beliefs associated with the masturbation. Here reference is not to the mythical nature of beliefs- the explicit ones about pros and cons of masturbation etc., but the more intrinsic and self-related beliefs, regarding regulatory aspects. We may call them meta-cognitive aspects, i.e. thoughts about the actions and feelings. We need to introspect what we think about our own personal habit of masturbation, why we do it, when we started doing it and why, what we achieve through masturbation, how this practice developed and changed over time, what are our attitudes towards this act, how our beliefs impact our masturbatory practices, whether we believe we have higher or lower self-control, how long we are going to continue doing this act, will this remain a crucial source of sexual satisfaction forever, will we be able to seek other alternatives, why there is no other sexual alternative, can we really stop this habit through some other manner, etc. Several of such questions are necessary to be raised. They will force you to think about yourself in a broader range in relation to the act of masturbation, in general and in personal context. This thinking style will lay the ground for more adaptive steps to be taken. Once you are freeing yourself from this habit, you need to put an end to it permanently. This requires a change in attitude and beliefs.
5. Train your brain to improve control
Brain during teenage years is poor in self-control, decision making, impulse control, and reward sensitivity. This leads to several problems with emotional regulation and brings difficult times in relationships. Masturbation needs to be understood in this regard. Sexual fantasy and pleasure through self-stimulation gives a potential source of reward for the brain. Brain learns this rewarding behavior and prompts everytime there is a need to fulfill sexual desires. Brain is not able to shift its focus from object of desire i.e. fantasies. This reward fixation with imaginary sex leads to repetitive urges to carry out the same behavior of masturbation. Poor self-control ability (in relation to regulation of emotions like anger, sadness) is also responsible for controlling masturbation. There is an area of brain in frontal lobe called prefrontal cortex which has weaker neural connections during adolescence, making it poor in self-control and other higher thinking (executive) functions. Only during adulthood does this area mature. When masturbation is dysregulated and uncontrolled, it implies the control centers of the brain as highlighted above are not functioning properly due to underdeveloped nature. There is lack of control over sexual urge, there is almost no control over frequency and repetitiveness of masturbation, there is difficulty in finding another source of pleasure like through a girlfriend, there is lack of decision making regarding how and when to manage this sexual act etc. So we may see that brain areas become dysfunctional to help in reducing excessive masturbation. However, this doesn’t mean that masturbation cant be controlled. Brain undergoes changes if we change our behaviors. This is called neuroplasticity. If we learn to manage masturbation behaviors, then brain areas would change their circuitry to adjust according to the changed behaviors. Any changes brought inside the brain are relatively permanent, unless a behavior is altered. For example, if we reduce the masturbatory behaviors in frequency by exercising control using other techniques mentioned in this article, then brain would learn how to control the sexual urge, how to delay the sexual gratification, make proper judgments as when masturbation is required and when not, control over thoughts and sexual fantasies would increase activation in brain areas responsible for self-control. This modification of masturbatory behavior alters various mental control functions which have their basis in brain mechanisms. Therefore, changing masturbation habit will bring a change in brain, which automatically then helps in maintaining that change. So only initial efforts are needed. Rest, brain will take care of your habits.
6. Overcome your insecurities
It is quite common that one engages in masturbation at an early age of around 12 or 13 years, during onset of puberty. Masturbation marks the beginning of sexual life for many children. This period stimulates many sexual fantasies about girls which are functionalized through masturbation. Though one can reason that sexual pleasures should be taken naturally by having intercourse with the opposite sex, but a boy is not mature enough to get into sexual relations with a girl at this young age. Also, it is not possible for every guy doing masturbation to get a girl for sexual pleasures only. Keeping several other social, moral, legal and practical limitations in view, most of the guys just satisfy themselves with masturbation. Since all of these guys have their own unique personalities and possess varying levels of skills in all areas of life, many of these do not approach a girl for having a partner as girlfriend. They have their own insecurities regarding themselves. Some lack self-confidence, some have issues with their body image, some feel shy and ashamed of asking a girl for a relationship, some feel afraid of their parents who may come to know about their sexual encounters etc. So many kinds of insecurities may occupy a teenager and if these are not overcome in time then they may continue in later life too. Whether there is a relationship or not. For those who feel hesitant in having a relationship, overcoming the insecurities to have a healthy premarital and sexual life is necessary. Otherwise one may become habitual to masturbation due to over-engagement with sexual fantasies. It is true that sexual desires need to be channelized somewhere, but finding artificial and temporary sources of pleasure is not a solution. It is necessary that one should have a girlfriend to overcome sexual insecurities, along with emotional needs. This is a better way to control excessive masturbation, because many times it is not the masturbation itself, but the lack of partner which is the problem. In most cases, this happens. Can one have imaginary wife to live for the whole life? In absence of a partner, masturbation becomes the only outlet to express sexual needs. Consult a professional psychologist who can help you in overcoming your poor skills and for personality improvement.
7. Stop believing in myths
Many times we do have doubts as whether this activity would have any implications for physical health, due to prevailing myths we tend to believe in these ‘facts’. Myths are of wider range, like causing poor physical health, poor masculine tendencies, reduced semen quantity, poor quality semen, impotency, stigma, etc. Such myths have no basis in scientific literature. Masturbation is like any other sexual intercourse, where instead of a vagina, hand is used (in most cases). Imagine what difference would it make if you are inserting penis into a vagina or using your hand as a grip for masturbation. It seems highly insensible and illogical to assume that masturbation can have any harmful effects. The only harms it can have are either due to unhealthy practices (like using some object as a replacement for vagina which can injure penis) or repetitive practice which is uncontrollable. This may have psychological effects leading to low sexual arousal during sexual intercourse, premature ejaculation, or reduced sexual desire. That’s why excessive masturbation needs to be controlled.
Make masturbation more pleasurable - Masturbation on the other hand, can be made pleasurable and fun if done in the right way. Masturbation provides you release of intense sexual desires which may arise due to any of the reasons. You meet a girl who shows interest in you, and would like to fantasize about having sex with her which is totally normal. Masturbation can help you fulfill your secret passions. There is nothing wrong in having imaginary sex with random persons. Masturbation can also help to experiment with different positions and ways of doing sex. You may see what works for you and what doesn’t work, within your mind, kind of laboratory work. If your partner doesn’t want to do oral sex, you can imagine doing that and seek pleasure. It has been found in researches using brain scans that same areas of brain are activated during masturbation as in real sexual activity. Therefore, masturbation is a best way to simulate sexual acts. It can save marriages also. You may fantasize about any woman other than your wife which will prevent you from initiating any extra-marital affair. There is no harm, no risk, no moral degradation, and still you can have sexual pleasures you want.
A bonus tip...
STOP WATCHING PORN!
Porn movies are one of the major triggers of masturbation. To seek sexual stimulation, porn movies may serve as one of the best triggers for that. But excessive porn viewing may produce a barrier in overcoming masturbation. You need to stop watching porn in case you stimulate yourself through them. Sometimes habit is not of the masturbation, but of watching porn. In fact, porn and masturbation go hand in hand. When you are watching porn, you know you are going to masturbate. So porn addiction may be a separate problem which you may have to overcome along with masturbation addiction. Tips highlighted above may be used for overcoming porn addiction too. More about overcoming porn addiction in some other article.