It's kind of a taboo subject but from my research and experience cutting back on masturbation and porn (quitting porn if possible) is one of the quickest ways to make yourself and more assertive person who is willing to question bullshit.
What does cutting back mean? Well it's different for each person. If you masturbate 5x/day try cutting back to 1, if it's 3x/week try cutting to 1x/week. Cut out as much porn as you can, no porn is the best thing you can do.
I would encourage you to do research on why this works but some basic premise is that when you masturbate with porn you are rewarding your brain with dopamine even though you haven't accomplished anything. Because you are rewarding it the brain assumes whatever you are doing is causing you to win so it cuts back on methods to motivate you or encourage you to "stir the pot" so to speak.
It is weird that the mainstream pushes frequent masturbation to porn so much, it makes you question if they are doing it on purpose to keep people complacent and docile.
All I can say is try it for yourself. The results usually speak for themselves.
What’s actually harmful is not having any release. All that pent up tension will come out in strange ways. Usually rage. Now, I do agree, porn addiction is unhealthy. You know what isn’t unhealthy? A normal sex life. We’re hard wired for release. You don’t want to jerk off, fine, find a partner that’s willing to let you penetrate them. It’s literally our whole purpose in being here.
Well I think tension is the wrong word, what it is is sexual energy and it's extremely powerful I agree with you on that. The key is to transmute that energy into something productive.
I'm not saying never release, sex is great and you should probably masturbate once in a while but what has been normalized in the mainstream is an amount that is more harmful than beneficial. It keeps people docile and complacent, a great state if you want to control a population.
There is some truth in there. The key, as with anything in life, is to find balance. What works for me may not work for you. I think porn addiction, much like any other addiction, rewires the brains reward pathways. Too much of a good thing and all. Not to mention desensitization to more and more graphic imagery is a risk. With how easy it is to access, it’s extremely easy to overdo. That said, I still think cleaning the pipes regularly is healthy for both physical and mental health.
Note: 4 times a day would NOT be considered “regularly.”