Looking for ways to ease your stress or uneasy feeling?  Maybe you are feeling overwhelmed and unable to focus?

In this post I introduce a technique that could help and certainly be added to your toolbox of coping strategies, its called.... Grounding.

Grounding is a particular type of coping strategy, one of many, that is designed to "ground" you or bring your wandering mind and escaped emotions back to the present moment.  Grounding is/can be used at any time for any reason you are feeling uneasy, stressed or unfocused, but it is often best used as a way of coping with flashbacks or dissociation usually associated with PTSD. 

Because groundings focus on being present in the moment, grounding can be considered a variant of mindfulness (if you know mindfulness you will see some similarities), where an individual pays attention on purpose.  Mindfulness practices can be some more great coping strategies for all types of emotional needs.

Like mindfulness, grounding can be a method of distraction to get you out of your head and away from your brain fixating on upsetting thoughts, memories, or feelings. You can do a quick grounding in your home or in a public place, whenever or wherever you may need. In addition you can pick and choose what type of grounding you want to do to fit your personal need for that moment, certain groundings may work better for certain situations.

How Grounding Works
Grounding techniques often use the five senses — sound, touch, smell, taste, and sight, using your senses to immediately connect you with the here and now. Grounding techniques use your senses to produce various sensations that can help move your brain off of whatever unfocused, unproductive thoughts, emotions or behaviors it may be fixated on, bringing you back to the present. 

Grounding is highly personal. What may work for one person may trigger anxiety or flashbacks in another. I would even go one step further and say that depending on your past experiences and trauma’s you may have experienced, certain things in grounding like smell for instance, may need to be avoided or well adjusted as to not cause triggers or other emotional damage. While lighting a candle may be grounding for many and the scent used can be relaxing, it could be a scent that might invoke flashbacks from a 
particular traumatic event. You may need to do some testing out of things before you figure out what grounding techniques work best for you in your situation. Also you do not have to do all 5 senses. I find for myself I never use the sense of taste, rarely use sight and use touch on its own but scent and sound almost always together, 
You test things out and find what works for you. Pay attention to the coping mechanisms you may have already developed up to this point to help you get through certain anxious times and see if you can build on them.

                Grounding Techniques 

 Below are just a few ideas to help connect with the here   and now do something (or more than one thing) that will   bring your brain and attention to the present moment.  Whether you are feeling stressed, anxious or having   some unsettling feelings with your mind fixated on   unsettling thoughts, emotions or events, here are some   things to try. Know that these are just some suggestions,   if you try something and it doesn’t work for you try   something else. This is just a suggestion list and can be   used as a place to start. 

Sound

• Turn on your favorite song(s).  Create a playlist of your fav’s
• Put on some nature sounds such as waves of the ocean, a babbling brook or birds in a rainforest 
• Sit for a moment to focus on the sounds around you and hone in on those sounds and through listening, determine what is making those sounds  

Touch

• Pet an animal, stroke the fluffy, wire or plush fur
• Put your hands under running water, warm gentle water stream always helps me calm. (showers are great options too) 
• Grab an article of clothing, a blanket, or plush toy, knead it in your hands or hold it to your cheek. concentrate on what it feels like
• Massage your temples

Smell

• Sniff strong peppermint, which also has the benefit of having a soothing effect
• Along with peppermint things like lavender can also be calming
• Light a scented candle or melt scented wax, the scent can be what you love
• Get some essential oils have many scents that can also be carried around, this is like aromatherapy
• If you are a baker, baking a batch of cookies or some muffins, this scent can also help bring up happy or soothing memories or emotions. I do again warn with this as for some individuals a traumatic time may have been in childhood where these smells may act as more of a trigger than help. The only reason I bring this up a lot is becuase it is a big one I see with a lot of my clients, especially those who suffer PTSD from an abuse or assault. 

Taste

• Suck on a mint or chew peppermint or cinnamon gum.
• Let a piece of chocolate melt in your mouth, noticing how it tastes and feels in your mouth.  

Sight

• Take a mental inventory of everything around you, such as all the colors and patterns you see.  We have all played the game of “i-spy” when we were little, sit and examine whats around you, what do you spy?
• Put on your favorite movie or TV show.
• Play a  game 
• Complete a crossword puzzle, sudoku, word search, or other puzzles.
• Read a book or magazine. In magazine look deeply into an picture advertisement and look at the details of clothing or setting

Other

• Write in a journal
• Write a letter or card to someone you care about.
• Dance.
• Stretch 
• Go for a walk or run.
• Take 10 slow, deep breaths.
• Go to another room or area for a change of scenery.

5-4-3-2-1 Grounding Technique 
You can look at this as somewhat of a game and can be very helpful with anxiety or feeling overwhelmed, It is a very easy sensory technique 
Describe five (5) things you see around you
Name four (4) things that you can feel 
Name three (3) things you can hear
Name two (2) things you can smell 
Name one (1) good thing about yourself.
You should feel calmer and a little more at ease by the end of the exercise. Repeat the steps more than once if needed and you dont have to keep the sense and number the same, you can swap things around, have fun with it.  Sometimes I will say to myself I am going to look for 3 things around me that are red. 

Grounding Can Be Done Anywhere

The nice thing about grounding is it can be done anywhere and it doest require to much of a financial investment (zero investment unless you purchase candles and such). The nice thing about using grounding as a coping technique is that many of these techniques can be done in any environment. You might be home, work or out in public. Working on grounding like anything takes dedication and it becomes easier over time with consistent use. If particular grounding techniques don't work for you, try something else. There is no set list. For example, some people find that a rubber band or hair tie on their wrist is useful to snap them back to the moment when they start feeling themselves become anxious. The ultimate goal of grounding is to help you come back to present when your mind wanders to things like an unpleasant past event, unsetteling emotion 
or risen anxiety.

                Give Grounding a Try

Grounding is not about making an emotion go away or detaching from your experience, it is about getting through the experience and/or emotions while staying present in your body.  With multiple coping stratagies in your emotional toolbox, support awareness and consistancy, your past and fears do not have to run your future any longer.