I'm religious. When I am very stressed, I would either cast my worries to an omnipotent God, or I would pray to the Buddhist Guan Shi Yin Pu Sa (Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva) because He is there to watch over me and all sentient beings. So far the Higher Beings have done their best to protect and liberate me from my stresses and discontentment, I'm not in charge of how faith and devotion works, but to me I tend to believe in the Higher Beings than to go the journey alone.
Yes I do masturbate, I am a heterosexual guy with normal desires, but I try not to overdo it because masturbation saps me of my precious energy which I can use for meditative purposes. In Buddhism it's called the Middle Way, not going to the extreme of ascetism, nor to the other extreme of hedonism.