Published on May 15, 2023
Healthy Tips Video: Mental Health Awareness Month
Video Transcript
Hi, my name is David Roark, and I am a mental health therapist with the Employee Assistance Program here at Owensboro Health, which is located at the Healthpark. As some of you may not know, May is Mental Health Awareness month. So I just wanted to come out here and offer you guys a little tip of something that may help you or someone you know in the future.
You may have heard of grounding techniques. Now, what these are, are things we can do to help us deal with overwhelming emotions and to help us stay calm and stay focused on what's going on in the here and now. I kind of like to explain this, sometimes, as if you're watching a scary movie, you're going to feel afraid. If you're watching a happy movie, you're going to feel happy. And if you're watching a sad movie, you're going to feel sad. Often, where our minds are focused affects our feelings.
So I had a little technique that I found a lot of success with that I was going to share with you today. Often, I will take the alphabet from A to Z, all 26 letters. And I'll pick a topic, say, band names or foods or animals. And then, when I'm getting upset or when I'm getting overwhelmed, I will focus on each letter of the alphabet, connecting it with that word.
For instance, say we're doing bands. A for Aerosmith, B for Boston, C for Chicago. I'm a classic rock guy. But you can do this with anything such as, my gosh, from animals to sports teams to foods to anything. And it works for adults, but it's also a very good instrument to use with your children as well. So if you have a young person who's getting upset and getting overwhelmed and needs to remind themselves of a calming source, this is a good technique to use.
First of all, it has a good little distance to it with 26 different letters. But it's a very simple format. And as long as the person doing it is someone who is of reading age, they're going to be able to follow this without a lot of stress or extra thought.
So I hope that you can use this and this found some benefit to you, and thank you. For more information about this topic or other mental health resources, contact our Employee Assistance Program (EAP) at 270-688-1547.
About Owensboro Health
Owensboro Health is a nonprofit health system with a mission to heal the sick and to improve the health of the communities it serves in Kentucky and Indiana. The system includes Owensboro Health Regional Hospital, nationally recognized for design, architecture and engineering; Owensboro Health Muhlenberg Community Hospital; Owensboro Health Twin Lakes Medical Center; the Owensboro Health Medical Group comprised of over 350 providers at more than 30 locations; three outpatient Healthplex facilities, a certified medical fitness facility, the Healthpark; a weight management program, and the Mitchell Memorial Cancer Center.
On average each year, we have more than 19,000 inpatient admissions, deliver 2,000 babies and provide the region’s only Level III NICU. Owensboro Health physicians perform nearly 33,000 surgical procedures, including nearly 150 open-heart surgeries. Our physicians and staff have 90,000 Emergency Department visits and more than 1.25 million outpatient visits annually. Visit our home page for more information.