Tag: Self Improvement

Dressing to feel good !

MY BLOGGING REALITY – PART 3

Posted on by Karac Avalron

So, it’s been months since I regularly updated this blog. Summer 2023 for me was a travel period. I went to Las Vegas, Virginia and an unexpected trip to Montreal. Two of these trips were family vacations and the rule we have is we leave our online lives behind. There was little opportunity to blog to be blunt and the trip to Montréal was to visit a friend and help them with a professional issue they were having. The first half of July I just kind of kept my head down.

So, my blogging reality has been mapped out for you in the last 2 blog posts prior. To be honest most of what I said there is still largely true. The months off haven’t provided me with any reset or refresh. Meaning I find myself in the same situation I did in May, after 5 years of blogging I am finding it hard not to repeat myself on subjects I have already covered. I would love to profess that I have some remarkable new angle or amazing new content to offer but I simply don’t.

My life for the most part is very much the same as it was 3 years ago when this blog was peaking. Now I want to shift to the positive for a bit, this break and reality check that I have done over the last few months doesn’t mean the end of the blog. It does mean that I will be posting less and its likely to mean that I will be posting on more topics. The one take away I have gotten from my time off is I can’t focus on one niche topic to propel the blog into a high subscription total.

The truth is, if you want a high subscription blog with lots of clicks and high traffic you have to find a niche to blog about. Kite’s, Mazda Miata’s, Civil War stories…. You really need to capture an audience that wants to consume your specific content. You aren’t as important as the content you produce a harsh reality for any new blogger. So, your choices are limited if you don’t focus on a niche. What you are left with is subscribers and traffic who are interested in what you have to say. They are here for YOU first, the content second.

This is perhaps the hardest type of blog to pull off. It is where I am at because there is not one subject that interests me more than another. I don’t have a niche; I suppose I am the niche and those who want to see what I have to say next are truly unique blog readers. I am not sure what else to say here other than there will be more blog posts coming. I don’t know what they will be about or if anyone will actually care but I have invested too much time into my blog to just let it die.

If you made it this far, thank you so much for supporting my blog and content. I really appreciate it and I will see you soon with a more targeted post that is not centered around the health and viability of the blog.

Karac.  

MY BLOGGING REALITY – PART 2

Posted on by Karac Avalron


So the last post I made I revealed that in my 5th year of blogging I am not achieving the goals I set for myself here. I want to be clear that the blog IS successful, just not by my personal measure. When you create content you have to evolve and or be very realistic about how your content sits with the customer (that is you reader). So what the analytics tell me is, once the pandemic ended less of you come here, and less of you engage with the content.


This happened in 2021, I saw the trend and shifted to a more broader content offering. That had some successes. Here is a list of the subjects I post on:
o Anxiety
o Over 50 exercise
o Advice for Men
o Finance
o Some politics
Anxiety tanked for me after the pandemic. I was getting great views and traffic through early 2021, then it fell off. Could be my content, could be people didn’t want to read anxiety pieces any more, could be people went back to work. I don’t know but that is the reality. Its never recovered


Over 50 exercise great interaction but its fitness, so to be candid I suspect a decent % of the interaction was botting. I know that’s not a term you should throw around lightly but I looked at some of the people who liked that content and in some cases it lead me down a rabbit hole, lets leave it at that. So yes it was popular but it’s a small part of my life. I cant devout a blog to it exclusively I just don’t have the content for it.


Advice for Men – This was hit or miss. Some pieces did very well others were utter disasters. This type of content can be divisive and to be blunt to really gain traction in this space you have to be vitriolic. That’s not where I am at mentally, I am not going to yell at men and Im not going to blame women. I found good middle ground on my advice for men but honestly people don’t want that. They want drama, MGTOW and cheating stories. Those get clicks, I don’t have those stories.


Finance and politics we can lump into one group here. They were mediocre given the time it takes to produce the pieces. Anyone can come on a blog and say “Buy this stock” but to have credibility you need to have citation and or good knowledge. I have degree’s in finance and accounting, I have been in finance for decades but saying that doesn’t make people believe you and I am unwilling to expose personal details.


So those categories comprise the main areas I wrote about. I excluded one HUGE area of my life and that is gaming. Yes I am a gamer, it’s a hobby I have had for decades and will continue until I die. I have a gaming channel on you tube that was started AFTER this blog. Each served a part of my creativity that was important to me and I kept them separated. I also did not post much about my family life. I have been married for 25 years, I have kids, dogs, houses I’ve got a lot going on.


So as I look to the next iteration of “A Gen X Point of View” I have some serious choices to make here. I cant sustain the posting cadence of 3 pieces a week, Im out of things to say frankly. This is more then writers block this is literally me looking back at 700 blog posts and wondering “have I already said this?”


In the next post I will explore some of the possibilities I see for the blog. I will also discuss the other posting category on my channel “Wisdom from the Past” which I didn’t cover here.


If you got this far, thanks again for supporting my blog as I work through these issues. I really appreciate it.

Anxiety 101 – Working on Discipline

Posted on by Karac Avalron

If you have anxiety, depending on the day everything can slip. A bad day can set you back a week, a bad week a month and so on. Everyone has different triggers and this post isn’t meant to shame anyone. What it is intended to do is to give you 4 things you should be doing every day, even in the throes of a serious bout of anxiety. These are not fixes, but what they do is they create consistent actions and routines that will allow you to anchor yourself on the days (weeks or months) where you have crippling anxiety. Every other day these will be natural events, the list is not complicated or exhausted but they are MUST DO’S

The Mouth Routine: No this is not perverted… Twice a day, when you wake, and before you have to sleep you should be cleaning your mouth. The health benefits are for another post but how it makes you FEEL is what is important here. A clean fresh mouth is well, refreshing. What should you do for a “Mouth Routine?”

Brush

Floss

Mouthwash

Tongue comb or rake – You can brush your tongue as well, trust me on this one.

Vitamin D: I take a lot of Vitamin D. I’ve read a lot online about the importance of this vitamin and this post is not intended to be a science piece I did a post here many moons ago click it for an elaboration. If you are uncomfortable with Vitamin D fine, take a multivitamin. This should be done at the same time every day. I take mine at noon.

Consistent Sleep schedule: This is easier than it looks. I am not saying you have to sleep for 8 hours, I know most people can’t, particularly with anxiety. What I am saying, and you should be doing is going to bed and rising the same time every day. Sleep is how your body repairs. It’s critical for all aspects of your health and you need to create a consistent schedule for it. Mine?

Weekdays – Sunday thru Thursday: I am in bed screens off by 10:30PM. Even if I cannot fall asleep, I lay there. I get up between 4:30AM and 7:00AM depending on what days I go to the gym.

Weekends – Friday thru Saturday: I am in bed screens off by 1AM. I get up between 7AM and 9AM. I game, watch movies/shows used to go out will again after covid. Friday night and Saturday night I stay up but rarely past 1, and often in bed by midnight.

Human Contact: You need to talk to someone, touch someone, and have human contact (non sexually is the context here, but sex is fine but another post all together). Anxiety can be isolating and even if it is just some emails or a text you have to talk to someone every day. This may sound silly, but believe it or not there are many of us who can go weeks and not talk to anyone at all. You need human interaction, you need to “feel” and “sense” other people.

Ugh, Lists

Every day do these things. Do not wait, don’t make excuses start working on them. These will help you and give you confidence and self-worth. Anxiety can be crippling, isolating, desperate. Fight back with simple tools. Even if you only do one of the items above it will have a dramatic impact on you for the positive.

Thank you for coming by and supporting my blog! Please remember to like, subscribe and share I truly appreciate it! Want to see another post like this one? Click here.

Ancient Wisdom - Confucius

Ancient Wisdom – Confucius

Posted on by Karac Avalron

Many of us have heard of Confucius, we know that he was a Chinese philosopher who through his years of writing, observation and work in government created a philosophy of personal morality. This isn’t a political piece or a religious piece. As individuals with anxiety we can use wisdom of the past to help us in the present.

“The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.”
—Confucius

How many times have we been faced with an issue that looks like a mountain? We get overwhelmed and we fall into the pit of woe that is anxiety and mental health issues. Is one little saying going to help us? Maybe a little, maybe not at all.

How to move mountains
When you have Anxiety, Mountains appear often.

That said at the end of the day events happen to us, mountains appear. We have to deal with them. The beauty of this wisdom is it illustrates literally and figuratively how to deal with a problem that becomes a mountain.

You have to start, and you work the problem one small step (stone) at a time. Look we all have obstacles that pop up in our lives and some of them are extreme. You can move that mountain, be calm, and be methodical… Take one step at a time, one stone at a time and in no time the mountain will be moved and you will be right back on your chosen path.

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How to be a better man: Maybe it’s you?

Posted on by Karac Avalron

This is going to be a quick post today. So in my “how to be a better man series” I offer advice to heterosexual men. I suppose the advice can be used by anyone really but I try not to speak into sexualities, genders, etc. that I do not have direct experience with. So please take it in the spirit in which it is offered.

So “Maybe it’s you” what does that mean? Simply put, if everywhere you got things end up smelling like shit for one reason or another, it’s time to check your shoes. You might actually be the issue here. If your relationships with females all end a certain way, or if your work situations always seem to devolve to the same bullet points you have to be honest with yourself.

If you treat a woman like a Queen, she should be treating you like a King

YOU are always present in these situations. The likelihood of the same outcomes happening over and over with unrelated parties because of THEIR choices is highly unlikely. If you have dated four females and each one of them end the same way I would ask you, did they know each other? If they did not then the common denominator is you.

Self-reflection, honesty and a strong effort into self-improvement is going to fix many of these situations. Just because “It’s you” doesn’t mean it cannot be fixed. You have to do the work to identify what exactly the problem is. If, as an example, you are dating and you have no desire to get married, but constantly date women who DO desire to get married, you have to fix that.

At the end of the day, the only thing you can control is yourself, and even that is a challenge at time. Keep working hard, Keep pushing yourself and remember to always give yourself grace. You are not perfect, none of us are but self-awareness and honesty are the pathways to being a better man.

Thank you for coming by and supporting my blog I really appreciate it. Want to see another post like this one? Click here.

Anxiety issues – How to refocus

Posted on by Karac Avalron

One of the hardest things to do when you are having a panic attack is to regain focus. There is a very simple trick you can do to trick your mind to focus. Focus = the ability to obtain rational thought and in an bout of anxiety rational thought is the path back. Basically, you just observe your surroundings and start describing things—in your head—in increasing detail.

For example:

There’s a chair.

It has four legs.

The legs are wooden.

The cushion is embroidered.

The embroidery is blue and white.

It has white stitching.

This technique requires you to focus which is one of the hardest -tricks- to pull off when you have an anxiety attack. By describing things in increasing detail makes you focus on the item you are describing. For many of us anxiety is accompanied by invasive thoughts that are the real culprit to our emotional response. Its not the fender bender that rattles you, its all the thoughts that come flooding in once it happens. (to use a bad example  )

Anxiety puts everything out of place

I haven’t used this trick, but to be honest I have had a good couple of months. Maybe this sounds silly but give it a shot. The next time you are being invaded by anxiety pick something and start describing in increasing detail. Say it out loud, if you need to but the point of this blog is to be a source of information on anxiety and anxiety relief.

Maybe this will be the tool that helps you deal with the next situation. Really isn’t that the whole point? One day at a time, one episode at a time just living with and coping with our anxiety issues. Everyone has a different threshold of course; my anxiety is different then yours. This might not work for you, it might not work for me but its one more thing in our tool box we can try.

Thanks for coming by and supporting my blog I really appreciate it. Want to see another post like this one? Click here.

Anxiety – Fighting back with hobbies

Posted on by Karac Avalron

I am a gamer. As a proud card carrying member of Generation X I can tell you that in 1982 I got an Atari 2600. I actually got a “sears” version, back then Atari sold directly to Sears (who was still a major, if not the biggest retailer in the country) my FAVORITE uncle got it for me, LOL. I’ve been hooked ever since. Back then you had to hook it up to the TV, graphics were horrible by todays standard but god was it fun.

I’ve gone through many iterations of games and generations of gaming consoles in the last 40 years. I’ve been gaming probably longer than many of you have been alive LOL. I’ve recently started playing some of my older games again. This is my hobby of course, I work full time, I have a family I have a normal life. Hobbies allow you to disengage from reality, more over it allows you to escape from things you don’t necessarily enjoy doing.

As an example do you hate your job? Are you having a stressful situation with your family? Hobbies are a refuge, and allow you something you enjoy that’s exclusive to you. Sure you can share your hobby with other people but having something that is YOURS is very important for your mental health. It’s almost like a safe space, it’s a place you go that you exist as you like. At least that’s how it is in video games, and I truly appreciate that aspect of it.

Is it foolish to play video games?

Your hobby can be anything, cars, golf, pets, writing, video games. In the end though it’s a great way to have something that is just for you, that you can be selfish about and not share if you don’t want to. Its indulgent and people in your life may find it threatening to their relationship with you that you have something personal that doesn’t include them. It’s important to make time for everyone in your life and to make sure they don’t feel ignored.

However, it’s just as important to make sure that you make time for your hobbies. This will make you a better overall person and far more relaxed and happy. Remember to not over indulge and to be clear with the people in your life what your hobby is and what you are doing. As an example, I game wed evenings 8-10 and Friday night 9PM – to whenever I go to bed. My wife and kids know I do this, and it doesn’t create an issue for us. I game with my son from time to time actually, LOL.

The point is, find something you like for you. Be selfish, but don’t let it consume you. Anxiety sucks but we can fight back. Creating spaces in your life that give you time to do things that you enjoy is a great way to combat persistent anxiety. Remember this is your little thing, your corner of the world, your personal space. It can be anything you want, it’s a hobby something you are interested in and want to pursue and that gives you a sense of accomplishment and happiness.

Thank you for coming by and supporting my blog I really appreciate it. Want to see another post like this one? Click here.

Over 50 fitness: Can you build muscle mass in your 50’s?

Posted on by Karac Avalron

The answer is yes you can, but with caveats. As men age the master hormone Testosterone decreases. Now the caveat here is your starting point. Its universally accepted that testosterone drops as you age but there is no universally accepted starting point there is a range. So if you start at the lower range through your adult life it’s going to be that much harder when you hit your 50’s.

Disclaimer: Make sure you work closely with your health care provider and be tested regularly to ensure you make the best choices for your particular situation. The opinions expressed in this blog worked for me, they may not work for you.

The bottom line is, as a man you need testosterone to build muscle mass. The older you get the less you produce naturally so you will need to supplement to obtain similar results to when you were younger. The problem here is increased testosterone levels the older you get increases your risk of heart disease. So the next caveat, you can gain muscle mass in your 50’s but not at the same rate you did in earlier periods of your life.

While there isn’t much science on sustaining high level of testosterone for decades, we know that younger individuals have better health outcomes as their bodies haven’t been subjected to poor dietary choices for as long. That’s a logical conclusion, again there aren’t a lot of studies here supporting this but if your testosterone level was 850 at 21, its harder and riskier for you to maintain that 850 testosterones at 31,41,51,61.

Hormone Replacement Therapy might be an option.

What you should be doing is having a blood work up on your endocrine system once you hit 40 years old. They should be testing for a lot of things, (thyroid, adrenal, vitamin D) and your testosterone levels. When you get the test results you should be comparing your number to averages for people in your age group. There are numerous sources online that will give you a range, generally men from 19-49 have a range of 249-836, over 50 193-749.

We have to be careful here because there are people OVER the high end of the range. There are always outliers and the younger you are the more likely you could be over and sustain it, but as you age, if you remain in that higher range your risk of heart disease magnifies. So where we want to be is 85% of the high end range over 50, at or around 650. At that % (this can fluxuate) you should be able to gain muscle mass in your 50’s.

You aren’t going to pack on 20 pounds of muscle in 6 months, but 5 or more in a year? Yes, its possible. Now this is based on my experience and having talked to my doctor and having blood work done regularly. None of this should be taken lightly and you should be working with your doctor regularly (every 3-6 months) to determine if you are healthy and if you need to adjust your testosterone levels.

I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to work with your doctor on your specific needs as you age. You should be increasing your interactions with your doctor’s office and specifically your blood work even if it means you have to pay out of pocket. This isn’t something you can just figure out on your own. Work with a medical professional, heed their advice but keep close tabs on your testosterone levels.

Thank you for coming by and supporting my blog I really appreciate it. Want to see another post like this one? Click here.

How to be a better man: The “mid-term” relationship test

Posted on by Karac Avalron

So another post in my better man series, this one is for all the guys that are in a mid-term relationship (I say between 6 months to 2 years). You are committed to one another as exclusive (most likely) and are basically figuring out if this is going to be a long term play. Before I map out this test for you a quick disclaimer: My how to be a better man posts are meant for heterosexual men. This may or may not work for other sexualities, I don’t know. This isn’t meant to offend, it’s my opinion and hopefully it helps men navigate the trials of improving themselves.

So you have been together just over a year your GF is great you are in love and so is she. The “Test” is a rhetorical question but her actions after the question is posed is what is going to tip you off on where you really stand with this woman. At some point she is going to want to go out with her girlfriends, to a club, a show, some public place. No problem that’s fine you aren’t married but ask her this question.

“Would you be okay if your long term boyfriend went out with a group of friends, and that night women, some better looking than you bought him drinks, flirted with him and were ready to have sex with him even if he told them he was in a long term committed relationship?”

When she goes out with the girl’s how is does she look?

Now a smart woman is going to say no of course not. We know when groups of women go out, men flirt, buy them drinks etc. and we know why. Women like the attention, I get it and it doesn’t mean they are cheaters but do they ever imagine if the roles were reversed how they would feel?

Now the test: Did she go out with her friends anyway after you gave her that scenario? Did she invite you to go with them? If she went out anyway and didn’t invite you? That’s a red flag bud, the night she is out, ask yourself the test question and insert GF, instead of BF. How you feeling? If she went out anyway, I would encourage you to take a hard look at behaviors and decide very quickly if she is your long term play.

I’m not saying she is cheating, I’m not saying she is a bad person, I’m not saying you are a simp, but again, how you feeling?

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Surviving 2020 & covid

Anxiety decades later

Posted on by Karac Avalron

So a quick post today. As most of you know I have anxiety, like many of you, and millions of people all over the world. Now unlike many of you I am in my 50’s and I have been living with Anxiety in some form for decades. So what is it like to have anxiety issues in your 50’s and dealing with them for years?

Let me say that age enables you to have experience and experience breeds wisdom. It makes dealing with Anxiety easier so that’s the good news here. The older you get, the longer you live with this issue the better equipped you become in dealing with it. Now things can still get bad don’t get me wrong, but the feelings of isolation and shame decrease as you begin to realize more and more that many people have this problem, it’s not just you.

That’s the good news, the bad news is you have more time to reflect on, which for me has always been the problem. I suffer from intrusive thoughts. I can be sitting in the car and suddenly I remember something that happened in 1983 that was a negative situation. The problem with intrusive thoughts is you assume the emotional reactions you had at the time and then start applying them to your current situation.

Pick whatever name you want, Anxiety at any age sucks

The older you get the more situations you have that you can reflect on. Now everyone does this to a degree but for me anyway it can be debilitating. I can’t get out of the thought or the feeling, it will replay itself over and over until I can expel it. Like a song you can get out of your head. It flavors everything I am doing and affects all of those around me. Now this is contradictory to the first part of the post isn’t it?

“Karac you said the older you get the less shame and isolation you feel” yes that’s true, but the frequency increases and that’s the problem. Literally daily I have an issue like this, and the factors that contribute to its intensity can be anything from lack of sleep, stress at work or family issues. So the older you get the easier it gets to deal with the issue, but the issue becomes more frequent.

At least that’s what is happening to me. I could take more medication but I basically just push through. Don’t get me wrong I have more good days then bad but when you have anxiety, you are most likely going to be dealing with it for decades. So all my Gen Z and Millennial friends out there, your mental health is a life long journey. The first critical step is recognizing your specific issue and understanding what your triggers are and why they are happening.

Thank you for coming by and supporting my blog I really appreciate it. Want to see another post like this one? Click here.