As a future physician and deeply interested in the subjects concerning human sexuality, I can assure to you guys that masturbation poses no threat at all for your physical and mental health. Actually, it does the opposite and goes a lot like any physical exercise in your body after all is said and done. The only way I can see masturbation as something undesirable on a person with underactive sympathetic nervous system, for maybe something like abnormal blood pressure due to the endorphin/serotonin discharge following orgasm.
Most likely the OP had a mild psychological problem in his mind which I can't really comment on the nature, since I know nothing about his life besides what he posted. He built on his mind a image of masturbation as the source of his daily issues and effectively handled with them by simply stopping masturbate. A more elaborate version of making a child write her issue in a piece of paper and making she believe her problems are gone by simply destroying the paper.
