Grounding Techniques to Help Relieve Anxiety
When we experience anxiety, we can often find ourselves entering a spiral far away from reality. Anxious thoughts beget anxious thoughts, and before we know it, we find ourselves experiencing feelings of anxiety in conjunction with a catastrophic mindset. When our thoughts begin to take on a mind of their own, finding practices that slowly recenter ourselves in our worlds is crucial. Engaging in grounding techniques is a great way to bring ourselves back into reality. This could look like yoga classes, meditation practices, engaging in our favorite hobby, or breathing exercises. When we let our mind run freely with anxious thoughts & detrimental thinking patterns, we can send our body into a fight-or-flight or a panicked state, creating higher levels of stress and uncomfortable physical symptoms. It’s best to calm our bodies down from a prolonged heightened state, allowing us to think more clearly and rationally while battling anxious feelings and emotions. I have curated a list below of some of my favorite grounding techniques when stress and anxiety levels soar too high.
Visualize a Safe & Calm Place
Visualizing a place where you feel calm, secure, or at peace can be helpful in allowing your anxiety levels to settle and your nervous system come down from its heightened state. A safe place could be your childhood home, a serene beach, or even a fictional place. It may be helpful to identify a safe place when you are in a calm and relaxed state. This way you can easily tap into your safe and calm place in moments of anxiety or stress.
The 4-7-8 Breathing Technique
This one is my favorite when I feel elevated levels of stress or anxiety. The steps are as follows:
Inhale through your nose for 4 seconds.
Hold your breath for 7 seconds.
Exhale through your mouth for 8 seconds.
Repeat this same cycle as many times as you feel you need to recenter yourself.
Name Items In A Category
Naming items that belong to a specific category such as naming various fruits, books, movies, or any category of your choosing can help lower levels of anxiety. While trying to name as many items as you can, it will help distract your brain away from the anxious thoughts and interrupt the pattern of anxiety. This will help ground and recenter yourself while bringing the mind back to reality.
The 5-4-3-2-1 Technique
This technique centered around the senses can be helpful in recentering the mind and calming the body & nervous system. The steps are as follows:
5 things you can see (this can be items within your room, trees out the window, or anything else you can see).
4 things you can feel (this can be the silkiness of your skin, the material of your sweater, or anything else you can feel).
3 things you can hear (this can be the sound of the birds chirping, the sound of traffic outside the window, or anything else you may hear).
2 things you can smell (this can be the smell of fresh coffee in the morning, the smell of the fresh flowers in the garden outside, or anything else you may smell).
1 thing you can taste (this can be the taste of the nourishing breakfast you just cooked, the taste of the mint you are chewing, or anything else you may taste).
Focus On Specific Objects
Holding a comforting object during anxious or stressful moments can help activate your senses, which will allow anxiety levels to calm down. This could be a soft blanket, a piece of jewelry, a meaningful trinket, or anything that can help comfort you and recenter yourself to the present moment.
