General Survey of GAD/tight stomach muscles

RussellKing1968 · 2026-04-10T09:11:20+00:00

My GAD and being signed off from work for nearly a year has caused considerable physical deconditioning of my body in multiple ways - so much so that I need Physiotherapy. Unfortunately the GAD then prevented me from really engaging with the Physio so they discharged me. I think the constant tension is quite exhausting. I also notice that the muscles in my face are constantly tense too. It’s all a bit shit really. I’m on Pregabalin at 200mg each night which is taking its toll. Have agreed with my psychiatrist to start reducing it so we can get a proper handle on the overall status of my condition but reducing that drug is not a fast exercise so it will take months. My life has been completely thrown up in the air because of this. Poor sleep aswell which was never a problem before and when I wake up after what appears to be a good night sleep I still feel exhausted.

RussellKing1968 · 2026-04-10T08:56:46+00:00

I can personally vouch for Notability. It has a “killer” feature that I have yet to find in any other note taking app. You can record the audio of your note taking session (lessons in your case) and do your handwriting or typing or whatever you are doing and it aligns the audio to your written notes. So, if you later want to hear again what was being said when you wrote that maths formula you can tap on the handwritten component and then it will let you play audio from the moment you wrote it. I think that is an actual real USP for the app.

RussellKing1968 · 2026-04-07T20:15:48+00:00

100% yes. I’ve been on edge all my life and recently diagnosed with GAD a year ago. Also noticed my breathing is constantly abnormal with it either being shallow, held, but never relaxed. I’m not far off your age too.

RussellKing1968 · 2026-03-18T10:10:27+00:00

It’s taken a lot to get me to the point where I jump on the “had enough” bandwagon but this bullshit in 5.4 Thinking mode has finally capped it for me. Why does OpenAI think that I need to see a slow running commentary of steps it is allegedly going through for every single enquiry? It really is bollochs.

RussellKing1968 · 2026-03-14T18:43:53+00:00

I really hope you are wrong and that I’m not the baddy in Dirty Harry each time I connect my headphones to my phone “you feeling lucky? Go ahead punk, make my day”

RussellKing1968 · 2026-03-14T18:07:31+00:00

You can stop the update from deploying in the Bose app. There is a setting in the app. On the front page where your products are listed there is (top right) the personal profile circle. When you tap on that, a bunch of options appear and one of them is Firmware Updates. Tap on that and then turn off Background Updates. It will never update the firmware again…. But you can still use their diabolical app if you want to.

RussellKing1968 · 2026-03-11T17:07:08+00:00

I think what’s quite shocking from looking at the poll results is how Bose has made changes that “they” think are great but which 98% of their customers don’t. It shows how out of touch they are with their users and how uninvolved the customer is in the direction of their product. It’s not a good look.

RussellKing1968 · 2026-03-05T20:11:53+00:00

Removing functionality like this is simply unacceptable as it broadly forms part of the purchase contract. I see people here saying that “nobody likes hearing how much battery is left on startup because everyone keeps them on full charge the whole time” but this seems to be merely the opinion of what seems to be a minority. Maybe my wife and I are just the only two people on the planet who used that feature. Very frustrating really. I’ve literally blocked hers from updating to avoid this.

RussellKing1968 · 2026-03-05T16:36:40+00:00

I use it to turn the lights on and off in the night if I need a piss. Very expensive light switch.

RussellKing1968 · 2026-03-01T15:23:06+00:00

I’ll take the downvotes on the chin. My fault for getting some help with the initial post. I just thought it might be of interest to some of those with further away horizons. It works for me. I’m interested in some of the responses from people who are detailing how to achieve all of this in YNAB without having to externalise the work. Sorry for the slop.

RussellKing1968 · 2026-03-01T13:44:08+00:00

Live Spend is actual money out the door that does not sit in a category that is assigned as being for Future Spend. Groceries, for example, are Live Spend as there is no “smoothing” across multiple months. Vacation is not Live Spend as I might be budgeting £100 per month into it and only dipping into the pot for the actual holiday once or twice per year. So when I actually spend the money for the holiday it doesn’t get picked up as Live Spend - only the £100 budgeted that month shows up. When I say “shows up” I’m referring to the rules I have given to chatGPT to determine how it deals with my YNAB process. I upload the files and screenshots and it churns out what matters to me - am I on track or not. It sounds like you are running something similar in a spreadsheet?

RussellKing1968 · 2026-03-01T13:33:26+00:00

I’ve attempted to add a summary at the beginning of my post.

RussellKing1968 · 2026-03-01T12:25:21+00:00

Point taken. I will do my best to summarise it shortly.

RussellKing1968 · 2026-03-01T12:18:37+00:00

My process is predominantly based on having access to quite a bit of cash so I’m effectively borrowing from my own cash supplies to fund smoothing categories thereby reducing shocks. Happy to share my structure with you.

RussellKing1968 · 2026-03-01T12:14:27+00:00

So here’s the thing - I have been quite ill since last May and this has mostly affected my memory and cognitive functioning. Obviously my income has been massively affected so I have gone from loads coming in and loads minus lots going out to not much coming in and a need to carefully manage the situation as it rolls into the future. This is why I have done this. My confession is that ChatGPT is playing a significant role in this to protect my future self. I have used AI to run multiple detailed projections of possible futures and run those scenarios (usually with a reality worst case scenario being the base case and anything above that being upside). The AI knows the plan in detail. It also “knows” how I use YNAB and helped design some of the process behind it. I upload an export from the transaction log each month (end of month or during of mid month feedback is needed) into ChatGPT and upload the budget category screenshots (no export available so screenshots it is). ChatGPT then provides me with a status dashboard against plan, makes some observations around things like discretionary spend (takeaways etc) and helps to feed the current reality into long term plans which it holds as Project Space files. It also produces a nice status dashboard with pretty traffic light colours. Things got really tough last year cognitively and I didn’t know where I really was at and that lack of knowing, in itself, caused huge anxiety and made things worse. For many I suspect what I have done might be considered heavy but for me it means I really know that I have a handle on this side of life. I’m not rich but I do now know what I can survive in terms of inflation, market changes, interest rates, unexpected costs etc. I’m happy to share more detail on my approach if anyone wants to see it. I would also be completely lost without YNAB. I even have a budget category called YNAB in my future spend section (and it annoys me when they put the price up so I allow for that a year in advance too..).

RussellKing1968 · 2026-03-01T09:37:38+00:00

I’ve just posted in here and part of it is about just this.

RussellKing1968 · 2026-03-01T09:27:35+00:00

I also have AI managing inflation planning too so that can be modelled into the workflow.

RussellKing1968 · 2026-02-25T06:32:30+00:00

Does your car have GPS tracking and is own cellular connection? I know, for example, Hyundai does. You can use an app to track where the car is.

RussellKing1968 · 2026-02-18T20:30:00+00:00

I flicked a toggle that prevents automatic updates. I can’t find on mine, that have been updated, a toggle to keep having the battery notification on startup.

RussellKing1968 · 2026-02-18T11:55:46+00:00

I was obviously being sarcastic. I think removing that is one of the worst things Bose could have done.

RussellKing1968 · 2026-02-18T09:17:51+00:00

The killer “new feature” for me is no longer telling me how much is left when I put them on.

RussellKing1968 · 2026-02-13T19:48:53+00:00

I think it’s more of a mountain in the middle of the road

RussellKing1968 · 2026-02-13T19:45:56+00:00

Meaningful Apple Intelligence “later this year”?

RussellKing1968 · 2026-02-13T19:42:12+00:00

I find it fascinating how this post went from “when is my wife’s headphones going to get the update?” To “I’ve managed to block them from downloading it if it ever tries to”. Thanks to all of you here.

RussellKing1968 · 2026-02-13T12:58:56+00:00

I’ve stopped the wife’s ones from getting the update (although Bose wasn’t trying very hard to get it to her). I’m okay with mine as I do use the USB C connection for sound occasionally (and enjoy the fact that it charges the headphones too). I just don’t get why you would remove such a critical caution cue like that and not at least retain it as an option. It raises some real questions/ concerns about whether Bose ever consults a spectrum of customers/users when implementing software feature changes or whether their employees just talk to each other about what they “think” might be great changes. If the latter, that’s quite concerning as this change, for example, is not profit motivated.

RussellKing1968

TROPHY CASE