The current thinking is that one should not practice severe physical mortifications, such as self-damaging, unless you’re doing so under the guidance of a spiritual director.
While devout people, including some saints, in past eras practiced such mortifications regularly, today we have more understanding of the things that can go wrong with such practices from both a physical and a psychological standpoint. People can overdo the mortification, and even begin to get pleasure from it in a twisted way. In the cases where a spiritual director might let someone engage in such a practice, for example within the context of a monastery, the director would likely set a very strict limit on how much self-mortification the person was allowed to do, and the person isn’t supposed to exceed that limit.
The trend I have seen nowadays is to suggest mortifications that actually promote healthy behavior, for example walking 10,000 steps per day (which a sedentary person nowadays usually doesn’t do ), or giving up popular but unhealthy foods like french fries, Coca-Cola etc.
Also, the “giving up for Lent” concept seems to be very much in disfavor lately. Last year alone I probably heard or read something like 15 talks about how it was better to focus for Lent on building your relationship with God (often by following some parish program like Best Lent Ever or some meditation book the church was pushing) rather than just giving something up.
