Grounding Techniques - My Top 5

Grounding is often used to help bring you back to the present if you are experiencing flashbacks or nightmares. Over the years many people I have worked with have found these helpful when feeling anxious, overwhelmed, panicky, spaced out or detached, regardless of whether flashbacks or nightmares have been a problem for them, so I wanted to share my top 5.

Overall, grounding aims to help regulate the nervous system in the moment, moving to a state of feeling safe and able to cope. Your perception of threat and safety is influenced by many things – your early life experiences, messages from key caregivers, your biology, your current environment, amount of sleep, and key life events. Through no fault of your own, at times in your life, you might find yourself stuck in a fight/ flight state. You might feel stressed, overwhelmed, irritable, impatient or detached and empty. It can be hard to bond and hard to regulate yourself and others when feeling this way. Parenting can be relentless, done on little sleep and rife with overstimulation and constant demands- the kind of environment where this can come up. When in fight/ flight/ freeze mode it can be hard to be the person, parent, partner, or friend that you want to be.

All these techniques make use of bringing your attention to one or more of your senses and/ or shifting your breathing. Some of these may feel possible and helpful, others may feel too triggering, depending on your past experiences – you know yourself, so please adapt if needed, and come back to the overarching aim- to feel safe.

1.       5-4-3-2-1

Pause and notice 5 things you can see, 4 you can feel, 3 you can hear, 2 you can smell, 1 you can taste

Feedback : This is first as it’s the one I’ve had the most consistent positive feedback about

Tips : Most people describe feeling the effect about halfway through, so stick with it and bring your attention as fully as you can to each thing you are noticing. Feel might be – how the ground feels under your feet as you’re walking/ sitting, the sensation of your back against the chair, or the breeze on your skin. It doesn’t matter which order you do the senses and if you get stuck finding something, just move on to the next one, leaving taste out unless it’s relevant.

2.       A Scent

Smell (the olfactory system) is the fastest route to the brain. Pick a pleasant scent with no negative associations, put some on a small cloth and keep it in your pocket to reach for whenever you need to come back into the present.

Tip: This one is especially good for PTSD flashbacks – for this, choose a scent specific to the present, that wasn’t around when the incident(s) happened.

3.       High-Sensory Activities – bringing your attention fully to how it feels

So many children’s things are sensory – get stuck in with them – playdoh, paint, slime, mud kitchen, clay etc. (No reason why you can’t use these alone while they are asleep too)

Other options – throwing clay on a pottery wheel is my personal favourite. Gardening – bare hands in the earth, focussing on the warm water and bubbles when washing up or having a shower, or standing barefoot in the garden or on soft carpet and focussing on how it feels.

4.       Breathe

When we perceive a threat, our breathing speeds up to get more oxygen into the body, ready to fight or run. Try it now- make your breathing speed right up and see if you notice some of those same physical sensations in your body as if you were feeling really anxious. The opposite is also true – slowing breathing down and making the out breath longer than the in, sends a message to the brain that you are safe and helps shift into the parasympathetic system.

Tip – Some people prefer something to be guided. Grab a rectangle (phone, sheet of paper, notebook) and while following around the edges with your eyes, breathe in on the short edges and out on the longer edges. Apps like Headspace and audio and videos of ‘soothing rhythm breathing’ or ‘guided breathing’ are also good, this is my favourite - Soothing Rhythm Breathing Practices in Playlist One (soundcloud.com)

5.       Connection

Humans are social creatures- connection with others can help us regulate – so long as these are people we feel safe with. It might be cuddling or playing with a baby, snuggling up with someone to watch something, laying together on the grass to look up at the clouds, or feeling an emotional connection through reaching out to a trusted friend or family member.

Tip – go with this if you feel drawn to it, it isn’t a good fit for everyone all of the time, so just notice and adjust.

You know, I said 5 ….but actually, I do just want to mention one more thing – Singing or humming can also be really effective. So, next time you’re about to get in the car, pick your favourite song and have a good belt while no one’s listening!

Invitation : Pick something from this list and give it a go this week, I’d love to hear how you get on. Feel free to share feedback here, or perhaps one of your own favourites that I haven’t mentioned.