Grounding techniques are a set of relaxation techniques. They are useful for decreasing distress in flashbacks in PTSD, panic attacks, anxiety or when someone is feeling overwhelmed with negative emotions. Often during a flashback, our minds are reliving a traumatic incident in the past. During anxiety or a panic attack, we feel distressed about an imagined threat in the future. In both scenarios, our minds have difficulty staying in the present moment, we are overwhelmed by something distressing which has happened in the past or is about to happen in the future. During such periods of emotional crisis, using grounding techniques can help us bring us back to the present, by anchoring us to reality. It is an effective tool to distract our minds from negative thoughts as well.
Now that we know how it works and in which situations to use it, lets see how to actually use the technique. There are various grounding exercises all operating on the same principle, that is ‘grounding’ us to the real world. Here we will be teaching you the 5-4-3-2-1 technique. It uses all our 5 sense organs by using them to sense objects around us:
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
5 things you can see
Notice various things in your immediate surroundings like the chair, the fan, the photograph on the wall, the colour of the wood on the table. Try to notice minute details in a painting, compare the colours of cushions and various sizes and shapes of the objects.
4 things you can feel
Use the sense of touch to notice things you can touch, how your clothes feel touching your skin, how the floor feels when you walk barefoot, how is the fabric of the chair you are sitting on, is it soft or rough? You can take a decorative item or a soft cloth and feel the etchings and texture.
3 things you can hear
Try to make out the sounds in your surroundings. Hear the whirring of the fan, the hum of appliances, the sounds of birds chirping outside.
2 things you can smell
For this you can try to notice smells in your immediate environment or actively search out a source of fragrance.
The smell of coffee, the fragrance of a soap, a flower or a room freshener. You can try using a dab of perfume on your wrist and identify the notes of the fragrance.
1 thing you can taste
For this activity you need something edible. If you have a cup of coffee or tea, try to taste it slowly on your tongue. Notice the aroma, the sweetness or bitterness, how hot it is, the aftertaste. If you are eating something, say a biscuit or a fruit, try to eat it slowly, noticing the taste, texture, juiciness, the sweetness or the saltiness etc.
So in this way you can use the 5-4-3-2-1 grounding technique.
There are some additional points I would like to mention:
- It’s better to practice this when you are in a calm state so that you are ready to use it during a crisis situation.
- Start using the technique as soon as you notice distressing feelings or at the start of an anxiety attack. If you wait till the panic gets very severe it might not be as effective.
- This technique is useful in general to decrease distress in mild anxiety.. However if you have an anxiety disorder or PTSD, you might need medications or therapy as the primary treatment. Using this technique alone will not be enough. (To know the difference between normal anxiety and anxiety disorder, read our article here)
Hope this was useful for you. Please give your feedback in the comments below.