What can I do to better manage my overwhelming sexual desires by my own without a counsellor/psychologist? How can I stop masturbating and stop watching pornography?

If you believe that masturbating and watching pornography is truly harming you, then acknowledging that fact is the first step of management. And if you are reading this, then congratulations! Because you are half-way there. One of the best ways to reduce the occurrence of certain behaviors is to set goals for yourself to avoid indulging in said behavior. Keep yourself busy or you may even try channeling that energy in some other aspect of your life. Take up a new hobby. Practice self-control by talking yourself out of such situations, and award yourself when you have successfully done so.

I would recommend weaning yourself off of it. Just like anything that may be classified as addiction, quitting completely and all-at-once is rarely a long-lasting, healthy solution. I would give myself parameters; define a suitable period of time in which it would be plausible for you to stop. After defining this timeframe, sit down and decide how many times per day or per week you will allow yourself to engage in this behavior. This will make the habit more manageable and less consuming/overwhelming as a whole, and from there, you will be able to decide whether less activity is still necessary. My final tip is to remain patient with yourself; this is something that many individuals struggle with, and it isn't an easy habit to curb, so give yourself time and patience, even if you mess up, recognize the progress that you have made.

Firstly, please don't be ashamed, many people struggle with similar and the exact same things. A good approach would to be trying to focus that energy and those desires into something else. Maybe pick up a new hobby. You may be surprised to find how enjoyable and much more satisfying a new hobby can be. It can be anything from coding, cleaning, making music, painting, writing, acting, tending a garden, anything! When things become tough, you can even express your frustrations into your new hobby! It would be a more productive and satisfying way to spend your energy. Also, please don't feel embarassed to reach out to a professional if you are really considering it. I promise they have heard and dealt with problems like these before, they will not judge you, they are there to help you.

Powerful sexual desire can be managed successfully without therapist/medical intervention. Like any addiction, there are self-help programs and materials available for use that can guide and support you in exploring and reducing the strength of forces that drive the desire. Identification of the underlying causes of the desires is central to finding ways to counteract them and enable us to learn how to control them better. We are all individual in the strength of our desires so a personally structured plan of action is required. We know ourselves better than anyone else, including the nature and strength of our needs and desires, so it makes sense to look at self help materials if we want to understand our own needs and desires more accurately, and therefore how to manage them successfully.

The best strategy is distraction. Find something else that you enjoy, for example a hobby. Next is helping some people in their work and hanging out with them. Or cheering up someone who had a bad day. The appreciation feels great and shows us that how amazing we can be, if we want to.

You can sublimate. Redirecting sexual energy into something helps a lot. Try art, or some other kind of activity

It honestly depends on how long this has been going on. The shorter the time, the easier. You might need someone else to help you, which may not be the preferred route, but is definitely worth it.

Sometimes accepting the fact that we may need help its a good way to start, as individuals we are all diferent and respond diferent to all treatments, you can see this in medical treatments, not everyone gets the same dose of a medicine, which goes alike for therapy and treatment, not everyone has the exact same treatment. It must be adjusted to the patients need, so giving you advice or a random technique may not be so effective for you, feel free to assist to any of our therapists or members of 7 Cups team :) we are glad to help

This is a very tough one, and not as rare as you may think. It is an addiction and so you need to realize that whilst you can do your best to fight it, talking about it is the most powerful weapon. On your own it is a secret addition, with support it loses it power as a secret, and you can start to take control again.

Masturbation or watching pornography can help with decreasing overwhelming sexual desires. Forbidding yourself from doing those things due to shame and guilt can sometimes make the problem worse. But if you're looking to stop due to addictive or moral reasons, there are several things that you can One suggestion is to slowly decrease the time spent doing those things. Some people find quitting it all at once to be most helpful, but other people may find it beneficial to slowly decrease the time spent doing those things until dopamine (the feel good brain chemical) is adjusted. Example being if you were to watch porn every day each week, try to only watch it for 6 days the next week, then 5 days the next week, etc. You could also try to pick up new hobbies and interests to distract yourself so you don't go back to things like pornography. Things like jogging or dancing can give you a similar dopamine high and are quite healthy hobbies too! You could join support groups for other people struggling with kicking sexual habits or addictions and learn from them, in addition to having people with similar problems to cheer you on and help you get back to where you are in your progress if you stumble. I believe there are also website programs that block porn websites if you find it difficult to stop yourself from going to them. I've also heard that foods like pasta, chocolate, bread, and yogurt are known to lower the sex drive. If all else fails, there's nothing wrong with seeking professional help and there are medications and therapy that can help with this.