Grounding Technique to Deal with Anxiety
I don’t have to tell you how stressful life can be. It’s hard to keep the anxiety at bay sometimes. Living with regular anxiety can make you feel disconnected from the here and now. You may find your mind wandering or having trouble controlling racing thoughts. All of this stress can also take a toll on you physically. The more tools you have for dealing with anxiety, the better you are going to feel. Our Houston anxiety treatment therapists can help you develop man new techniques to deal with anxiety. One of those tools is a grounding technique.
Grounding helps you feel connected to your body and the present moment
Telling yourself or having others tell you to calm down only makes things worse. Before you're able to really try to wrap your thoughts around what's going on and calm yourself rationally, you may have to train your body to calm down first. A grounding exercise is a really easy way that you can do that. You can calm your body down so that you can calm your thoughts down It's called grounding because a lot of times when we're really anxious we're very much up here in our heads. We need to feel connected to the present moment and we need to feel connected to our bodies. If you do this grounding exercise it can help.
The 5-4-3-2-1 Grounding Exercise
The exercise we're going to do today is a specific grounding exercise called 5 4 3 2 1. The reason it's called that is you're going to first notice five things that you can see, four things you can feel, three things that you hear, two things that you smell, and one thing that you're grateful for. This technique is trying to get you connected with all of your senses so that you're here in the body and in the present. I want you to practice this technique right now.
1) Notice 5 things you can see
Try to notice five things that you can see around you. If you're sitting in your room, you might see a painting on the wall or you might notice some books on the shelves, etc. You're just connecting to the space all around. Take a minute to do that.
2) Think about four things you can feel.
You want to actually touch the items you have selected. For example, if one of the items you feel is the chair you are sitting on, touch the fabric feels and see how it feels to your hand. Pay attention to the signals that emit to your brain when you're touching various objects. Notice those sensations you feel - physically and emotionally.
3) Notice three things that you can hear.
If you're lucky enough to be outside maybe you notice the birds chirping or you can hear the sound of a car. Or maybe you can hear the sound of your kids playing in the other room. Notice those three things that you hear, and again pause. Stay in the moment with these sounds for a little while so you can truly experience them.
4) Notice two things you can smell.
This can be a little bit trickier because we get used to the smells around the house. We adjust and adapt which is generally a good thing but I still want you to connect to that sense of smell. So just for a minute see if you can notice the smell of things around you. If you're in your kitchen maybe you can even open something up and notice the smell. Or in you're outside notice the smell of fresh-cut grass or herbs in the garden. If you really have struggled with the smell part I actually recommend that you pause again and just take a couple of breaths in and out. You may want to try smelling perfume or aftershave, or a scented candle.
5) Practice Gratitude as an Anxiety Management Technique
The last thing I want you to do is to notice one thing that you're grateful for. Practicing gratitude is a wonderful way to feel joy about the good things in your life at the present moment. You can learn more about the practice of gratitude. It is one of the best antidotes for melancholy. You may want to try something like a stoic meditation that can remind you how precious life is. Trust me, it’s not as dark as it sounds.
This grounding exercise is meant to help you feel grounded having two feet on the ground feeling connected and supported. There's a lot of times when we're anxious it just sort of feels like we're free-floating. Kind of like a leaf in the air just moving about wherever our situation takes us. This is an exercise that's meant to empower you and help give you stability. I really recommend you try this exercise and you can do it on a daily basis. It's really easy and you can do it anywhere.
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If you are struggling with anxiety and would like to talk to an anxiety therapist, or trauma therapist counseling can help you feel better. You can contact us online to schedule an appointment or call 713-565-0922 to ask any questions you have about how we can be of help to you.
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