Patch Notes 5/20

Welcome back to another installment of HG's Patch Notes! We've got a lot to cover this week, so let's goooo.

First off, we've welcomed 3 new members to the Healthy Gamer Foundation (HGF) Board of Directors! Here's quick overview of our new members:

Marcus Graham (djWHEAT) - Live Streaming and Esports pioneer, founding member and former Head of Creator Development of Twitch, and parent that intimately understands the unique mental health challenges faced by people growing up online.
Wayne Mackey, Ph.D. - Founder and CEO of Statespace, lifelong gamer, Aim Lab creator, accomplished Ph.D. neuroscientist, and creator of State Space Digital Health, which builds video games for brain health.
Kevin Lin - Serial entrepreneur, startup mentor and advocate for the power of community in gaming culture, co-founder and former COO of Twitch, and creator of Metatheory, an interactive technology and entertainment company building Web3 games and virtual worlds.

Read more about our new Board Members in this blog post!

On that same note, HGF has also set new fundraising goals! And, since we're keeping everything fun for MHM, we've included some dope rewards for every milestone we hit:

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We also encourage you to tune in next Friday. We'll be announcing a big project that's been in the works for a few months and we're so excited to share it with you all!

But trucking right along, we're going to start off with some mental health blurbs from a few of our team members. Then we'll dive into Coaching & Community updates + more mental health blurbs from Lindsay and Kabir!

Hannah, Resource Manager

Outdoor plants that force me to see sunlight. While watering or pruning them, I feel pretty peaceful and focused on just the plants. It takes other worries off my mind. It gives me a sense of accomplishment watching them grow and harvesting them.

Humza, Frontend Dev

Hi everyone, my name is Humza and I work on the frontend for the HG platform. I used to meditate and journal for my own mental health but these days I just go to the gym 5-6 days a week. I see the gym as a form of meditation where it’s just me, music, my own thoughts, and some weights. I used to weigh around 120lbs (~1.5 years ago) and I’m currently hovering around ~165lbs. I hit my yearly goals early this year so the next goal is to hit a lean ~175/180lbs (recomping now). Being active and accomplishing my fitness goals has been good for my mental health but sometimes it is a double edged sword. Along with putting on more lean weight I want to fall in love with fitness and nutrition as a lifestyle.

Most of my hobbies do stress me out though (gym, gaming, creating content) so when I’m really just trying to relax I’ll watch anime. You guys should watch Spy x Family, it’s great.

Tristan, Sr. Web Designer

There's lots of things I do for my mental health like exercising regularly to reduce stress, meditating to maintain my awareness, and journaling to reflect on my thoughts and behaviors, but one thing I've recently introduced into my life is what TikTok likes to call lizard time. Basically, just taking some time out of your day every day to sit in the sunlight. It also gives me time to relax, meditate, spend time with my pup outside, and gives me some much-needed energy.

Coaching

Hello! Lindsay again with some updates on Healthy Gamer’s Coaching Program.

Program Updates

‍Dragon and some of our most veteran coaches are working so hard to guide our newest cohorts through the certification process. If you’ve been on our Personal Coaching waitlist for awhile, please hang tight! We’ll see a lot of new openings towards the end of June. I’m so excited for our coaching program to have the capacity to help even more members of our community.

I’m also excited about a couple internal projects in the works to help support the coaches on our platform. Healthy Gamer Coaches are always eager to grow and learn, and soon we’ll be providing more resources and opportunities to champion that sentiment.

Coaching Testimonials

I always enjoy highlighting a couple of my favorites from our recent client feedback. The first two are from clients who finished out our Group Coaching, while the latter two are from our Personal Coaching! I think all 4 encompass some core themes we see in our program: having a space to be vulnerable and authentic, building confidence and connection, and finding compassion for yourself and others. Anyway, enjoy!

"I had a really great time with this group and the group setting overall. I felt very comfortable with my coach, and a lot of the members in the group were very helpful as well. I think we established a good open and honest foundation early on and it didn’t ever go away for the entire 16 weeks for me. I’m very grateful for the experience. To reflect a bit, I feel more capable of dealing with my emotions in a healthier and quicker way, which is what I was after. It’s not that we necessarily worked on problem solving within the group, instead it was the open communication with others that’s sprouted an open communication within myself, and I can more readily engage with my emotions than I could prior. I think it’s great that this community exists. I’m 34 now, and being in group with mostly people who were much younger than me made me feel incredibly inspired and connected. The mental health community is much different than it was to me 10 years ago, a community like this was unheard of. That feeling of inclusiveness alone has greatly improved my mental state. I’ve recommended this program to a few of my friends, and I’ll continue talking about it with others. I have only good things to say about it, and good memories to look back on. To whoever is reading this, thanks for being apart of the community.<3 <3"

-Paul

"I've really enjoyed doing the group coaching program, it has helped me so much in dealing with almost every problem that I've had in my life. Having the group atmosphere where everyone can share their problems without judgement is one of the best parts of the program. I truly think that after this program, I've achieved a lot of different goals that I've been stuck on, and I've been able to obtain a strong sense of confidence in my day to day life which I rarely had before. I now feel more comfortable in my own skin, rather than always wishing that I was someone else.”

-Anthony

"This coaching service has honestly helped me through tough times and prepared me for the tougher time. I feel I have really improved myself over the last 24 sessions. I feel far more confident that I can continue pushing the snow ball of my life in a positive direction. I wouldn't say I'm perfect but no one is and I'm okay with that. I learned how to properly critique myself in a objective yet non judgmental manner. I've learned to accept and appreciate that it takes time to change and grow and maybe it's not so bad to give yourself a break mentally or physically. I've learned so many things about myself, its crazy how much is just under the surface. I have nothing bad to say about this service, I'd say its a tad pricey but after further consideration I think its fair. The amount of value I got from each session (I mean this in the least cheesy way possible) is invaluable. I doubt he will see this but you're awesome coach man, from the bottom of my heart, thank you bro.”

-Benjamin

"Your coaching program was exactly what I needed. It was a place where I could just talk about my problems and someone would just listen and ask genuine questions. Before coaching, I've never experienced something like that. Thank you Healthygamer, for everything <3”

-Sven

A Little Self-Disclosure

For my own mental health, I fall back on my own support network. Evenings and weekends are mostly spent with family and friends (pics below!) - whether that’s eating out, gaming, going to festivals, or just spending time together. I also enjoy diving into fantasy books - currently on book 3 of The Age of Madness Trilogy. 👀

Other ways I like to increase my dopamine and serotonin levels include working through NYT crosswords.. with eventual success, going on nature walks by the lake, watching anime, or watching T1 climb to Challenger in Korea. :prayge: However, what really gets me out of bed each morning is the opportunity to take care of others, whether that be my (almost 18 years old!) kitty, my plants, my “nieces”, or my coaching clients.

~ Family ~

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~ KitCat ~

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I also find joy in sharing pics of my sweet old cat, so if you ever are looking for more… HMU. 🙂

-Lindsay

Community

Hey everyone! Kabir here with another community update - coming up!

Its MENTAL HEALTH MAY!! For the past 2 weeks, we’ve been celebrating mental health awareness months by running some epic events on the HG Discord! Here’s a quick rundown ICYMI:

May You Sleep Well: An event to help y’all fix your sleep schedules in the month of May! Good sleep is crucial to good mental health, and we in the gaming community… let’s just say that we could do with some more timely shut-eye 🙂 We have lectures on practically building good sleep habits every Tuesday at 9 AM CT, and check-ins every Saturday! Full Schedule is in the events tab on the Discord.‍
Clean Your Room Together: Dedicated hours to clean your room every Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday!‍
Study Together: Bot hosted lobbies to chill and study together! Check out the new pomodoro bot we just setup, it lets you hang with ours and do pomodoro timers to get your study on.
‍Careers: Events on Career mindset, growth and networking are active! Join in every Thursday and Friday, schedule on Discord.
‍More Bot Guided Meditations for focus, ADHD, and more starting next week!

Since it’s Mental Health May - I thought I’d share what I do to maintain good mental health.

Meditate, meditate, meditate: Honestly, this is a game-changer. Meditation for me is more than just the practice of sitting down and doing a technique. It's living in a way that is authentic to myself. Formal practice also has its place! I have been doing Metta meditation for a few weeks now, and its been a very interesting and much-needed experience.
Hobbies! I’ve picked up the piano recently - learning a skill with no intention of “succeeding” at it is something I would encourage everyone to try. Oddly enough, it is immensely fulfilling to give it your all and have no expectations of success.
Walks! Not much to say here - great change in environment, great way to get moving, and a great time to introspect and reflect.
YOU! Yes, you. I love watching the community get up to all sorts of things in the discord. I check the pogchamp channel almost everyday to remind myself why we do the things we do. <3