Grounding Exercises
Feeling overwhelmed with stress or worry? Feeling unattached from yourself or surroundings? Do you feel like things don’t feel as vivid or real anymore? Grounding exercises are very helpful for people who need to calm down and get reconnected to things. We can find ourselves disconnected due to a response to trauma, anxiety, or stress. Grounding helps us get in touch with our senses or easily distracting ourselves from the source of stress. I will describe a few below that you can do quickly, wherever you are, and sometimes without even stopping what you’re doing!
First, my personal favorite is the 54321 method. This involves listing things that your senses pick up working backwards from 5. You can do this in whatever order you’d like, but you may start by thinking about five different things you are hearing, and thinking a little about each while you focus only on that specific noise. Then moving on to four things you see, and thinking about each while observing only that isolated thing. Then maybe three things you can touch from where you are sitting, and so on. This is one you can do in a roomful of people, in the car, or alone at night- without alerting anyone to what you are doing or why. By the time the exercise is done, you should feel more connected to the place you are in and yourself.
Second, sometimes mental exercises can be helpful to focus on instead of the source of your worry or distress. One easy thing to remember is that you can create “top five” lists of different things in your head, and rank them. You may think about your top five favorite movies, top five least favorite places, top five foods, etc. Think about why you feel that way and continue the exercise until you feel separated from the overwhelming feelings you had beforehand. You can write this lists down or just visualize them in your head.
An alternative to this is to think about a song, poem, passage, or verse you may have memorized. Visualize it in different fonts, at a measured pace, and think about each word and its meaning in connection to the others. Think about the places you have seen or heard it, and imagine yourself speaking or singing it while you carefully go over each word.
Third, focus on your physical senses and draw yourself into the presence by igniting your physical senses. The easiest trick to remember is to go to the bathroom and wash your hands. Turn the water to hot, then to cold, and think deeply about the sensations and practice of washing your hands. Imagine the feeling on every part of your hand, and how the temperature may affect the rest of your body. Interacting with our surroundings and changing our body’s senses can allow us to feel more connected with the Earth, which can be helpful if you are feeling disconnected.
An alternative to this is to take a short sensory walk. By yourself, go outside and think about everything you are exposed to. The sounds, the air, the plant life, the sun; think about how each of these things exists and is good. Count your steps and focus on the feeling of doing so. Connect yourself to the Earth or to the sun and wind through your movements and observations.
Finally, calm yourself down by engaging in activities that boost your serotonin or dopamine and make yourself happy! Turn on an old song you haven’t heard in a while and try to recall the last time you heard it. See if you still remember it, and try to remember where you were in your life when you enjoyed it. I personally find that trying to sing along connects me to the moment even further.
An alternative to this could involve planning an activity to look forward to, and reflecting on a recent activity. Sometimes we can get so disconnected that our memory can become flawed and we can forget happy things. Try to think about happy moments or activities you experienced over the past month. Then, plan something! It can be something small you get to do later this week, or a trip you can begin working towards later this year. Redirecting energy into something positive is very effective.
These tips and tricks are great for relieving momentary feelings we may get from being too overwhelmed and unable to heal from things in this busy and complicated time. However, meeting regularly with a therapist should be prioritized as well, especially if you find yourself stressed, anxious, or disconnected from things often and regularly. A psychologist can help you find the source of these feelings while working with you to fix them so that these tips become natural and internalized and you do not have to struggle as often. I hope that these tips I have learned over the years are effective for you, and reach out to us if you find yourself wanting some counseling or further assistance!
Kyndal Sims
Birch Psychology