u/Created_Hadrosaur

Hi All,

I have booked some travel to Canada between the 10th October to the 28th October. I am looking forward to the trip and have booked my travel and hotels and am now beginning to plan my itinerary. I am going to be spending some time in Toronto and Calgary, I have several places I plan to visit (but not booked them yet), namely:

• The Royal Ontario Museum (I plan on a couple of trips around)
• The Royal Tyrell Museum (I plan on a couple of trips here, I know I will have to book a tour there as I don't drive)
• The Burgess shale (I am planning on trying to get a tour or something to the area and trying to go for a few hikes to the see the scenery and see if I can see a few fossils

I have some questions that I would like to know about Canadian culture, food and sights around Toronto and Calgary that I should visit:

• I know that you guys are really passionate about ice hockey and some googling said the season starts in October, I assume I can just find a bar in Toronto or Calgary and they will probably have a game on? Is there any etiquette I should be aware of when going into sports bars? are there some bars I should avoid? (I am rather introverted and don't usually interact with sports fans that much so don't know the culture). What is the best place I should go to learn the rules?
• The only Canadian restaurant I have heard of is Tim Hortons, which I have tried once and seemed nice, but are there any other Canadian foods or restaurants I should try whilst I'm there?
• I'm from the UK and here we don't really have tipping culture, I know the US does have tipping culture, but does Canada? If so, who am I expected to tip and how much? I know waiters/waitresses are the common one at 10%, but who else?
• I plan on going to other museums and was wondering if anyone had any recommendations I should defiantly enjoy?
• Are there any other parts of Canadian culture that I should check out whilst I'm there?

Hi All,

I'm fairly new to Healthy Gamer and was looking for some advice. I am approaching my mid 30s and am realizing that I may need some help with my problems improving my life.

At the start of my 20s I had no goals, spent most of my life playing video games, had no friends, no passions, was overweight, could not take care of myself and was extremely depressed. I spent my 20s trying to learn the basic skills to try and manage life, all whilst holding down a job, trying to build routine, and discover what I want out of life.

I think I have built a basic set of skills to manage day to day life, I can pay my bills, I have figured out a basic routine that allows me to:

• Make sure I keep my environment clean,
• Spend time prepping for the future (Learning new skills, making plans, setting and reviewing goals etc.)
• Spend time working on the passion I want to spend my life doing
• Reading/learning skills and trying to overcome some of my faults.
• Exercise on a regular basis.

I have managed to:

• Learn several recipes that I like to eat and am trying to use to manage my diet (I have lost some weight but am struggling to reach my weight goals)
• I wrote a program that can help me calculate the nutrition of any recipe that I want, as well as helping me manage my spending

I think I have dealt with the, for lack of a better phrase, "low hanging fruit" problems that I was facing, and reached a point where I think that any further progress will need me to get help. I think the problems that I need addressing are:

• Learning social skills. I realize that I struggle to form connections with people and make friends
• Socialize more, I spend a lot of time in my room, working on projects for my future and goals, reading and only leaving regularly to go to the gym, shopping for food, and to go to my job. I don't spend a lot of time forming meaningful connections. The only exceptions to this are that I make sure to go on a trip to experience somewhere new (go to a new town, go to the beach, go to a hike in a forest, go fossil hunting, go to the theater, etc.), in order to break my routine and go somewhere new. I usually do these things alone and feel guilty for not working on my goals.
• Dealing with parental issues (I was heavily sheltered and decided to go no contact), I want to move past the issues and reach a better place in relation to what happened.
• Dealing with my struggles with focusing on goals, this include, my inability to stick to a diet, me wanting to balance sticking to a diet with me going out and enjoying life (which may include eating unhealthy food/drink but will enable me to socialize/form connections if part of a group activity), when reading I struggle to focus on reading a book and get easily distracted (I have tried to find solutions but nothing seems to stick), dealing with stress.

I want to reach a point where I know what I need to do to achieve my goals and can make decisions on a day to day basis with the strength to follow through, I have read books that have helped me reach the point I'm at (books on nutrition, organization etc.) but feel like I have reached a plateau where the tools I have built and self reflection I have done cannot progress me past the point I am at.

To this end I realize that I may have reached a limitation in what I can do on my own and that seeking help from outside sources may be useful. Given that one on my main problems is my inability to connection and willingness to isolate (there was a period of time that I spend months never having a longer conversation with the 2 second hello at the checkout of a supermarket and being happy about it), I think that opening up to someone about my problems and seeking human contact may be the best solution.

My first thought was some kind of therapy, and based on some googling maybe CBT therapy, but I realize that there are lots of types of therapy and many types of help was wondering if there was a better option or other things I should consider?

I am in the UK if that matters