10 Porn Alternatives & Healthy Substitutes
Realizing that porn is bad for you and stopping the PMO cycle is only half the battle.
The other half of the battle is the cultivation of healthy porn alternatives and substitute hobbies. You see, pornography is an all-consuming activity that turns normal people into passive non-ambitious shells of their former selves.
Depending on how long you’ve been watching porn and masturbating, it may take you a while to find suitable porn alternatives.
The problem here is that if you’re bored after you’ve stopped watching porn, that boredom is going to increase the chances of you relapsing into your former behavior. From past observations, it appears that boredom and anxiety are the two main factors that cause a person to relapse back to watching porn.
That’s why it’s important to start doing new things and learning more about what truly fulfills you.
This article is going to list 10 activities that may help you in preventing boredom after you stop watching porn.
What Makes a Good Porn Alternative
The most important part about finding a good porn alternative is to try as many different things as possible.
A good and fulfilling hobby must be before else interesting to you. Your personality is unique, and only you can find out what works for you.
Porn has kept you in a cage. It has kept your growth as a person.
You have an unlimited amount of choices to make in your life. I’ve found that doing things that interested you in your childhood, but you’ve never had time or money to engage in are good porn substitutes.
Some guys find out that they want to learn to play the guitar when they are 35-years old. Others want to learn how to drive a manual car.
The important parts to look for in a high-quality hobby are the following things:
- Make it cheap. Don’t invest too much in something that you may find you won’t like a few weeks later.
- Try things that intrigued you in your childhood or teenage years.
- The best hobby is one that you can also use as a career advancement and money-making tool. Computer knowledge is both interesting, and important in getting a job.
- Stay away from activities that carry a negative stigma and that may take you further away from other long-term life goals. Becoming a professional gamer may have negative consequences that you don’t want to engage in.
Porn Alternative #1: Keep a Good Company
According to several Danish studies, spending time with friends and family is one of the most important things in having life-long happiness.
Don’t forget that Denmark is the #1 ranked country by happiness in the world, so these people know what they’re talking about.
If you’re a guy reading this, there’s nothing better for you than to cultivate a group of guy friends with whom you share respect and loyalty. When you become close with guys that inspire you, you’ll learn things about fashion, about how to socialize, how to be charming and you’ll have someone to watch your back when needed.
Having male company will also teach you about things you shouldn’t do. Guys often get in trouble.
Porn Alternative #2: Weight lifting
Weight lifting is a known dopamine stimulator.
In fact, in many ways, weight lifting can stimulate you in the same ways as porn does, with the added benefit that it makes you healthier and better looking.
From personal experience, I’ve noticed that you might need to go 1-2 weeks without masturbating before being able to have maximal amounts of training motivation.
Regarding weight lifting as a porn alternative, there’s another important factor:
You don’t have to buy an expensive gym membership. Even home, bodyweight training is enough to make you enjoy the benefits of training.
If you eventually find that push-ups aren’t enough, you can easily purchase dumbells and barbells for your home. Buying barbells is an investment for life. A gym membership is only for a month.
Porn Alternative #3: Reading
You can only go so far in making your body strong.
Without a healthy mind, the body doesn’t matter. I’ve placed weight lifting before reading in this article, because I believe you need to first become physically healthy, before being able to cultivate higher types of hobbies.
Reading requires discipline and being able to delay gratification. It is a well-known fact that having low body fat and high muscle mass results in better cognitive abilities.
If you train for just a month, you’ll notice your mind will feel sharper and you won’t want to procrastinate as much. Even your memory is going to improve.
That’s why after you get your body in shape, the most important activity you can engage in is reading.
I’m not talking about just reading books or novels. Any kind of reading is good, although some information is better than others. Reading practical how-to books is better than reading the daily news for example.
Reading Antidopamine is better than swiping through Instagram photos.
#4 Improve Your Skills
You are as powerful as the skills and knowledge you have.
As a guy in the 21st century, your mind is all that you have.
Each day at work, you trade your mental activities for monetary compensation. You only have so many free hours in the day.
If you feel that you arent’ adequately compensated, start to improve your skills.
Actual skill improvement is a quick process. If you aren’t watching and masturbating to porn, you can easily double your skills in some areas in less than a month.
Once that month of progress passes, start applying to better jobs. You’ll notice a better response from the job marketplace.
#5 Learn Cooking
Some may tell you that guys don’t cook, but that’s not the truth.
Cooking is an essential part of life, and the more control you have on the ingredients that enter your body, the better you’ll feel. Just swapping vegetable oil for olive oil and butter can make a tremendous difference.
There’s no one on Earth that’s going to watch out for you as you’ll watch out for yourself.
You may like reading these articles by me, but not even me – this altruistic guy giving you this information – would watch out for what you eat as much I do for myself.
It’s the nature of people. We always watch out for ourselves more than for others.
#6 Create a Porn-Free Alternative
This one isn’t specifically a hobby, but it’s an important thing to do while working on your porn-free life.
You must make sure that your daily environment is as much porn-free as possible.
This means that you must delete all porn from your computer. You must clean your phone. This also includes clearing your browser history and bookmarks. There must be no way for you to relapse and start watching porn again.
If you have trouble staying porn-free, you must also block all porn.
The less naked people you have in your life, the better.
#7 Walking or Riding
It is recommended that you walk at least 45-60 minutes each day.
Europeans have an easier time here with their daily cycle riding and walking to work.
This walking recommendation is based on individuals that don’t actively train in some sport. If you’re active with weight lifting, then the walking requirement is not as important to you. Team sports are also a good alternative to weight lifting.
Walking improves brain activity. Steve Jobs is famous for taking long walks before making important decisions.
Walking is also a low-intensity training activity, which means it can be good for people that are out of shape and are looking to improve their lifestyle. Walking itself is not enough to build muscle though.
#8 Watch Cult Movies with Characters That Inspire You
This is one of my favorite activities.
Whenever I start to feel bad, watching an old cult classic can get me back in the right mood.
Everyone has a list of favorite movies and actors. Even if you’ve previously watched these films, re-watching them occasionally can still be of benefit.
I’ve noticed that you can watch the same movie at least once per year without feeling bored.
Plus, you’ll know a movie has been well-made when you notice a new detail or plot twist every time you re-watch the movie.
If you need ideas for movies, I would recommend Fight Club (1999) and Eyes Wide Shut (1999).
For comedies, I’d recommend The Other Guys (2010), 21 Jump Street (2012) and Pineapple Express (2008).
#9 Learn to Chill
Sometimes, things don’t go as planned.
When that happens, you should learn to chill out and enjoy life as it is.
I’m not a big believer in meditation. I believe that being able to let go of expectations in difficult times is much more important.
Perhaps you applied to 10 different jobs but didn’t get any reply. Just chill out, let go, enjoy the night out for yourself, and then re-apply to 10 different companies when you feel like it again.
The amount of control you have in your daily life is extremely small. Don’t fall for the illusion of control.
#10 Get a Girlfriend
This one is self-explanatory.
If you have craving for pornography, that just means you have a craving for a partner and sexual activity.
Having a relationship with a girl that makes you happy will drastically minimize the porn craving, but that feeling doesn’t last forever.
There are thousands of guys, including married husbands, that are addicted to pornography, despite loving their spouses.
You see, porn is an addiction. It’s such a bad addiction, that it can even make you not want to have sex with your girlfriend so that you have more energy to waste on masturbation.
That’s why you shouldn’t immediately start a new relationship after stopping porn. You need some time to heal yourself. You can and should meet new women after quitting porn.
Just know that you may need time to get stable enough to appreciate the relationship. And not ruin it with the PMO behavior.
Porn Alternatives Questions and Answers:
Where can I find more alternatives to porn?
There are countless porn alternatives that you can try.
If you haven’t had enough choice in this article, feel free to search for “popular hobbies” and “hobbies for guys.”
On the top of my head, some porn substitutes that I haven’t mentioned are:
- Travel, though try to keep it cheap and don’t make travel impact your career. A career is always more important than traveling.
- Learn to ride a motorcycle or drive a manual car
- Learn programming or design
- Start a blog
What if none of the alternatives interests me?
You may find that you start doing a few porn alternative activities and that you enjoy none of them.
That’s not a problem.
It is quite normal to start doing something and notice that it doesn’t fulfill you after a few weeks or months.
Even if you find a hobby that you love to death, you may still outgrow it after a few years.
Priorities change, and so does your wants and needs.
The key to finding something you love is to keep trying new things.
Never give up learning. Never give up trying to become a better person.