With the coronavirus pandemic still looming, it’s been a challenge for people to stay connected with friends and loved ones. To help alleviate some of the stress and anxiety that social distancing may have brought on, the Detroit Pistons hosted a webinar about mental health on Tuesday evening.
The session included a panel discussion with experts in the mental health field. Led by Pistons’ team psychotherapist Dr. Corey Yeager, the panel included Pistons Development Coach, JD Dubois; Pistons legend Earl Cureton; chair of the Henry Ford Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health Services, Dr. Cathrine Frank; and President & CEO of the Children’s Foundation, Larry Burns.
The panel discussed some of the stresses that people and their families are facing at the moment due to shelter in place orders to help stop the spread of the virus. Cureton mentioned the food shortages families face as children stay home from school and possibly miss out on meals they would have received during the school day.
Last month the Pistons donated a $375,000 grant to Forgotten Harvest to help address food insecurity in communities hit hard by the coronavirus.
“Everybody don’t have everything, good family and good places to go to,” Cureton said. “Going home could be a problem for a lot of kids even before this all happened to us and the situation that we in right now, domestic violence on the uprise right now. It’s a lot of different things happening in households with kids and you know, six and seven kids and all that food, don’t have the money to pay the bills with that this brings on more problems, more stress right now.”
Related: Experts worried about rise in domestic violence cases during coronavirus pandemic
This month, the Detroit Free Press reported that domestic violence calls had almost doubled in the month of April compared to the number of calls in March.
So the panelists hoped that an open discussion about mental health would help provide viewers with helpful tips on how to deal with the stress. For DuBois, who has been a player development coach since 2018, using yoga and meditation to be present allows him to feel better. He also runs a nonprofit, as well as a podcast, Everyone Has A Story Non Profit that allows him to learn from guests who share their own stories surrounding mental health.
Burns, one of the other panelists participating in the webinar, thinks about the things in his life that he is grateful for.
“Because I think being grateful gives you hope," he said. "And I think that is one exercise that we can all learn from and so if I could add one thing that has helped me is to remind myself even in difficult times, what I should be grateful for.”
So while they all agreed that times are tough at the moment, they emphasized the importance of using the tools that surround us to manage those struggles. One of the biggest things though, is asking for help when needed.
“Maybe one thing we didn’t emphasize enough is that mental illness is treatable,” Frank said. “People get better. And usually, the obstacle to that happening is basically they don’t ask for help or that the people around them, don’t encourage them. So the more we can do that the world we can actually eliminate mental illness.”