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    How To Stop Watching Porn At Night (3 Helpful Tips)

    By BobPosted on

    How To Stop Watching Porn At Night

    The night time is the hardest part of the day to stay away from porn.

    This is especially true if you have developed addiction related brain changes, I.e. you're addicted to porn.

    This is because at the end of the day your willpower is going to be significantly weaker than what it is during daytime.

    So what do you do about it?

    Well, here's how to stop looking at porn at night…

    Tip#1
    Increase the friction

    Whenever we try to break a bad habit we need to increase the friction between our cravings and acting out.

    What do I mean?

    Well, here's an example.

    Whenever I'm writing the text for a YouTube video on my channel Project Stronger Self, I often get an urge to check my phone.

    You know, check my stats, the comments and all the other notifications our modern wonderful world of the internet throws at us. Needless to say, this is a big distraction that really messes with my productivity.

    The solution…

    To avoid the problem of constantly getting distracted I take the following steps…

    • I turn off all the notifications.
    • I put my phone inside a plastic box.
    • I take the box to the second floor of my house in the room furthest away from my computer.

    So, now when I'm working at my computer, in order for me to check my phone I would first have to…

    1. Leave my computer and go upstairs (friction number 1)
    2. Open the plastic box and take my phone out (friction number 2)
    3. Turn on all the notifications (friction number 3)

    Sure, it would not take me that long to do those steps, but the friction to check my phone is now significantly bigger than if I have the phone beside my computer while working on my YouTube video. And guess what, it really helps!

    Likewise, you need to come up with clever ways of applying friction between urges and your porn use.

    Look: If you want to stop looking at porn at night you can not keep spending the last hours of your day aimlessly browsing online or even worse; if you lie in bed just before sleep, messing around with your smartphone.

    Think about it. That's like an alcoholic playing around with a bottle full of Vodka when he's the most susceptible to relapsing!

    Even if you're not addicted to porn, and you just have a bad habit of watching it too much, it will be very difficult to quit if you're online until the very last minute of being awake…

    …and if you're addicted to it, well, good luck with that approach…

    …it'll be almost impossible.

    Some suggestions for you to increase your friction…

    There are almost unlimited ways of increasing your friction to use porn, just as long as you're smart about it and apply a bit of creativity to it.

    Since I don't know your exact living situation, and you're porn habits, I can't give you an exact recipe on how to do it in this blog post, however, here follows some tips…

    …just to help you get your own ideas rolling…

    • Have a cut off time every night when you stop using the internet.
       For example: no internet after 7pm ( I call this operation blackout). If you do this, you need to commit to yourself to really do it. Use the mindset: If I break this commitment it's the same as relapsing. Because the truth is, it will almost certainly lead to a relapse.
    • If you relapse with your phone in your bedroom – don't bring your phone in there.
      If you live with other people, commit to yourself to never take your phone into your room after a certain time of the day. Better yet, if they know about your problem, give them the phone during that period.
    • If your relapse on your computer, kill your router or your modem.
      For example, by taking the cable from it and taking it outside and putting it in your garage every night after 7pm. This is a good example of increased friction.
    • Take the cable and put in in the most hard to get to place in your house / apartment, like putting it way inside you closet, under some underwear. Seemingly small and non- effective, it might still provide you with just enough friction to avoid a relapse. Especially relapses where you are hit by triggers during aimless browsing, since you're limiting your use.
    • Use a timelock safe for your phone or internet cable.  I personally used a timelock safe, and found it to be very helpful, during my own reboot a few years ago. For example this one here, on Amazon is a good choice. An even better one would be this one.
    • Install a good porn blocker or “shut me out app” on your phone and computer.

    There are numerous porn blockers out there that can help you increase your friction. Obviously they are not fail safe and people do get around them.

    However, they do put a barrier between you and the relapse, often long enough for you to get the thinking part of your brain back in gear…

    …I.e. they increase the friction.

    Examples of apps…

    The best at that you can currently find out there is called Covenant Eyes, it has two core functions, it blocks adult content and it also hooks you up with an accountability partner.

    This is extremely powerful because the app monitors your internet use and if you wander off to the wonderful world of adult sites, even just for a few minutes, the app will notify your accountability partner by sending screenshots of your activity to him or her.

    Granted, those screenshots are blurred, but it's still a very powerful thing and will for sure make you think several times before acting out…

    …and that is exactly what a porn addict needs, learn how to think twice.

    You can click here to check out Covenant Eyes right now.

    Also, if you do decided to try Covenant Eyes, use promo code STRONGER when signing up to get the first 30 days FREE.

    Don't Justify Your Relapse…

    Become aware of all the addiction lies you're brain is telling you.

    You see, oftentimes we try to justify a relapse with some form of “addiction lie”

    Write down the lies…

    Write down all the addiction lies you can think of that your addicted brain is trying to fool you with and read it on a daily basis.

    Here are some examples of typical addiction lies…

    • One more time wouldn't hurt…
    • Just one last time and then I'll start my new life tomorrow…
    • Just one last time and then I'll start fresh on Monday
    • Bah! who am I kidding, my life is so bad it won't get any worse anyway…
    • Bah! who am I kidding, my life will always be bad and it won't get any better anyway…
    • It's normal, and everybody does it…
    • It's not that big of a deal, I don't think I'm that addicted anyway…
    • I'm not going to relapse, I'm just going to check if… ‘insert borderline activity'…

    These are just examples and obviously they look a bit different for everyone, which is why you should write down your personal lies.

    Back when I was relapsing like crazy, my personal two biggest lies where…

    “…bah! who am I kidding, my life will always be bad and it won't get any better anyway!”

    This is such a nasty lie, and it's so wrong.

    Your life can always, always, ALWAYS get worse if you keep doing stupid things.

    It's like Jordan Peterson says: if you act out your misery you'll make everything you're complaining about infinitely worse. 

    Likewise, you can always make your life better. No matter what “level” you happen to be on at the moment.

    Write Down Your “Why”

    You should also write down your “why”. I.e all the reasons for why you want to quit in the first place.

    Not only that, but you should also read what you wrote down and keep reminding yourself of it on a daily basis for the first 30 days, at least.

    This is important, because in the heat of the moment, when you notice one of those addiction lies trying to get you to act out, you have to…

    1. Recognize that lie (which is why writing them down and reading them helps).
    2. “Counter-argue” the lie with the truth (this is your “why”….by writing that down it will help you do it more effectively in the heat of the moment).

    You should also write down your”why not”

    To make you have more counterarguments against the addiction lies, you should also write down all your “why not” I.e. the reason for why you do not want to continue using porn.

    For example, when an addiction lie pops up, whispering…

    …“what's the point anyway? – why not go ahead and do it? – it'll feel so good!”

    You could counteract with…

    “That's a bad idea because each time I give in, my addiction grows stronger, and my desensitized reward system gets even more desensitized, making every single activity in my life less enjoyable. You're not bringing me pleasure, your actually robbing me of joy!

    How To Stop Looking At Porn At Night
    Bonus Tip…

    If you still keep struggling after you've been implementing the steps in this article, then you might need to step up your game a bit…

    …if so, consider checking out an online course for quitting porn, called Dopamine Discipline.

    I have made a small video review of it that I sometimes use in my videos on my YouTube channel, and you can take a look at it below…

    You can check out a FREE webinar, to discover more about the course

    It's a phenomenal course. I actually think it's the best one you can currently find out there.

    Related post: 7 Tips on how to stop watching porn after work.

    Final Words…

    Lastly, remember that, if you're going at it alone, quitting porn can be a pretty long process so don't get discouraged when you relapse.

    Think “progress, not perfection”.

    I.e. zoom out and look at the big picture. If you previously relapsed two nights a week and now you relapse about 4-5 times a month, well that's progress.

    Keep going at it and eventually you'll get there.

    That said, guys taking the online course that I talked about in the video above do seem to get results very quickly, so if you're really sick and tired of relapsing, do check it out. Man, how I wish there would have been a course like that  out there back when I was struggling because for me it took me 7 years to stop relapsing for good.

    Thanks for reading

    -Scandinavian Bob-

     

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