51 Grounding Techniques to Help You Feel Grounded Now
51 Grounding Techniques to Help You Feel Grounded Now
Are you feeling anxious and stressed? Do you struggle with anxiety or panic attacks and need a way to help you feel grounded and calm so that you can go on with your day? As an Orlando therapist specializing in trauma and anxiety, I help clients create an individualized tool kit for grounding so that they feel settled and calm in their lives.
What Happens in the Brain During Panic and Anxiety
When anxiety or panic takes over, the brain operates from the limbic system and the body and emotions become flooded with intense and overwhelming feelings and sensations. This is also known as the fight, flight, flee response. When this happens blood decreases in the prefrontal cortex and increases in the limbic system.
How These Grounding Tools Help the Brain
The grounding tools I have outlined below are designed to help increase blood flow to the prefrontal cortex so that you have access to your whole brain.
One way I do this is by inviting you to engage your five senses as much as possible. In order to be aware of what is happening with your senses, your prefrontal cortex must be online. This will naturally move you from the fight, flight, freeze response.
The other method I have incorporated into these grounding techniques is to have you engage in mental activities. This helps to utilize those higher brain functions. These practices also help to distract you from anxious thoughts that are so often a part of anxiety and panic.
51 Grounding Techniques to Help You Feel Settled Now
Touch 3 objects with a rough texture.
Listen for 1 sound that is far off in the distance.
Listen for 1 sound that is close to you.
Look for objects that are light blue.
Look for the shapes of animals in the clouds.
Cuddle a pet and notice how the fur feels on your skin.
Hold onto ice for 10 seconds.
Look around and find 3 objects shaped like a square.
Suck on a mint.
Drink ice-cold water
Touch 2 objects with a cool surface.
Drink warm (decaffeinated) tea.
Drum your hands to the tune of your favorite song.
Smell a pickle.
Walk outside with your bare feet and describe what you feel.
Apply a scented lotion to your body.
Tense all of your muscles and then slowly relax them all.
Look around and find 3 objects shaped like a triangle.
Take 5 deep belly breaths.
Look at a flower and describe all the details out loud.
Go for a walk and describe all the pretty colors you see.
Go outside and describe what the weather feels like on your skin.
Rub your hands together and listen to the sound it makes.
Count your freckles.
Touch 3 objects with a smooth texture.
Rub hand sanitizer on your hands and smell your hands.
Sit on a stability ball and lightly bounce.
Describe out loud what it feels like to inhale through your nose.
Say out loud, “Right here, right now, I am ok.”
Look around and find 3 objects shaped like a circle.
Put both hands on your chest and say, “I got you.”
Smell a pet’s breath. It smells so stinky, yet soooo good.
Take a warm bubble bath with your favorite scented bath salt.
Write a list of all the words that rhyme with your name.
Suck on a lemon.
Find 3 yellow objects.
Chew a piece of gum.
Draw a picture using squares, rectangles, circles, triangles, and hearts.
Write your name and see how many new words you can make with the letters.
Go outside and make hand shadow animals.
Look around and find 3 objects shaped like a rectangle.
Count backward by 7s from 100.
Eat a teaspoon of mustard and describe what it tastes like and notice where you taste it on your tongue.
Smell a lime and see if you can make your mouth water.
Squeeze a stress ball 20 times.
Go outside and use sidewalk chalk to draw a nature scene.
Color in an adult coloring book.
Pick flowers from outside and create a bouquet.
Smell different essential oils and rank them in order of your preference.
Go outside and notice all the sensations you feel on your skin.
Create a crossword puzzle out of your closest friends’ names.
Therapy Orlando
If you’re interested in working on your self-care with a therapist, click here to schedule a free 15-minute phone consultation with Mindful Living Counseling Orlando.
Orlando Resources for Anxiety
Box Breathing: A Tool for Anxiety
Guided Meditation for Anxiety: Five Sense Grounding
Guided Meditation for Anxiety: Calm Place
* This blog post was updated from 177 Ways to Ground Yourself Now which was originally published on 12/29/19.
Orlando Therapist, Lauran Hahn, LMHC
About the Author
Orlando Therapist, Lauran Hahn, LMHC, specializes in working with clients that are struggling with anxiety and trauma. She also helps clients heal from and stop getting into toxic relationships. Lauran has a Certified Sensorimotor Psychotherapist as well as a Certified EMDR Therapist and EMDRIA Approved Consultant. She helps people feel calm in their body, at peace their mind, and connected in relationships.
Mindful Living Counseling Orlando is a trauma healing center. Our Orlando Therapy Services include anxiety therapy, trauma counseling, eating disorder recovery, teen counseling, and healing from toxic relationships. At Mindful Living Counseling Orlando, we use a down-to-earth approach infused with cutting-edge therapies that go beyond traditional talk therapy so clients can heal at the root level and experience lasting change. Feel free to access one of our Guided Meditations to help you feel settled and calm now.