When stress, anxiety or other undesirable feelings begin to take over, it can feel like you’re lost in a storm. Grounding techniques are a powerful way to bring yourself back to the present moment, regain control, and reduce those overwhelming feelings. Grounding techniques also double as a method to distance yourself from the emotions you are feeling, and allow you to look at them with more objectivity, and move beyond them easier.
Grounding techniques can be broken up into three categories:
● Sensory
● Physiological
● Mental
Sensory grounding techniques are ways you can utilize your senses as a method to pull attention away from intense emotions. Here are some ways to engage your senses and re-engage your mind:
Sudden Taste Grounding: Eating something with an intense flavour like something spicy or very sour such as:
● Lemons
● A small sip of apple cider vinegar
● Spicy candy
● A salty snack
● Peppermint candy
Pleasant Taste Grounding: This technique encourages you to eat or drink slowly; paying closeattention to the taste, texture, and temperature of food or drink that you enjoy, such as:
● Fruit
● Hot chocolate
● Soft cheese
● Ice Cream
● Herbal Teas
Listen to Music: Play calming or uplifting music and focus on the rhythm, instruments and lyrics. Try to do the following while you listen to the music:
● Create a comfortable space
● Sit or lay down
● Slow your breath, and take long, steady breaths
● Pay attention to how the music makes you feel
Physiological grounding techniques focus on slowing down the physical manifestations of stress within the body, and aim to reduce physical tension in order to assist in reducing mental tension. Here are some exercises for you to try.
5-4-3-2-1 Exercise
Focus on your surroundings by acknowledging:
● 5 things you can see
● 4 things you can touch
● 3 things you can hear
● 2 things you can smell
● 1 thing you can taste
Deep Breathing
Take slow, deep breaths, try to focus on the following:
● The sensation of your breath as it moves past your lips
● How your chest rises and falls as your lungs fill with air and release
● The feelings of your diaphragm as it expands and contracts along with your breath
Progressive Muscle Relaxation
Relax your muscle groups one by one, like in the following example:
● Find somewhere to sit or lay down comfortably
● Tense and relax the muscles in your toes
● Move up to your calves, again tensing and relaxing them
● Continue this pattern up your legs, lower back, abdomen, chest, arms and head
● Finally, tense up your entire body, and allow yourself to relax with a deep exhale
Mental grounding techniques are a method by which you can begin to engage your mind, and distract it from stress more directly.Here are a couple exercises you can try:
Counting Backwards
Count backwards from 100 in intervals:
● A variety of intervals can be used, but typically odd amounts are used to engage the
mind. Numbers like 7 and 3 are more difficult to use as intervals, so more brain
processing power is dedicated to counting down with them.
Alphabet Game
Think of a word for each letter of the alphabet in a variety of categories such as:
● Countries
● Animals
● Fruits and Vegetables
● Movies or TV shows
● Colours
Visualizing a Safe Space
Imagine a place where you feel safe and peaceful, bringing as much detail into the mental image as possible. You may consider the following:
● Are you indoors or outside
● What is the temperature?
● What can you see, hear, smell, touch?
● Is it bright or dark?
We hope you enjoyed these grounding techniques.The more you practice these strategies, the more effective they will be when you are feeling stressed or overwhelmed. Need more help with stress, anxiety or emotional regulation? Our team of skilled therapists is here to help and we can offer you even more tips and techniques!