Ananga Sivyer's - Ayurveda, Meditation & Meridian Energy Therapies Site - Grounding Techniques: How to Use Your Senses to Get Grounded

Grounding techniques are a collection of little acts that help invoke a sense of personal control and safety in the face of any stressful situation.

Sufferers of PTSD frequently use grounding techniques to deal with triggers and flashbacks. Their value is in helping us reconnect with the present moment, and stopping the feelings of disassociation and “spaciness” that often come with anxiety attacks.

The Western Washington University Counseling Center offers an excellent list of popular grounding techniques. In my experience, when working with clients who are caught in a horrible past memory or phobic reaction, two of our senses serve particularly well in interrupting unwanted thoughts and feelings and bringing awareness back into the body and into the present moment.

They are: taste and touch

How to Use Taste Focused Grounding Techniques

Using taste to interrupt anxiety attacks takes a little organisation and forward planning, but since it works so well, it’s worth it.
The most effective way to use taste to divert panic is to use flavours that grab your mind’s attention. Sour fruits like lemons and limes work well to make your mouth water and prompt your mind to let go off uncontrolled, irrational thoughts.
If you’re at home you can keep some lemon or lime wedges in the fridge, if you’re out and about some sour boiled sweets like good old-fashioned acid drops can work well.

A positive side effect of using mouth watering flavours is that they trick your mind into invoking the relaxation response. How? Stress and anxiety cause a dry mouth, when your mouth is moist thanks to a wedge of lime or a boiled sweet your mind thinks all is well because your mouth isn’t dried up.

5 Touch Based Grounding Techniques

1. Clap your hands together
Clap strongly and feel the slight sting as your hands meet. Now clap softly and feel for the displacement of air between your palms. Put your full attention on this one simple act and see how many things you can notice about what your hands feel.

Now rub your hands together vigorously until they generate some heat. Feel the heat in your palms and then bring your hands to rest over your eyes and take a few slow deep breaths.

2. Feet to the Floor
Stamp your feet and feel the ground beneath you. Feel how solid it is. How strong and unyielding, no matter how hard you stamp. Stretch and flex your toes and take a few slow deep breaths.

3. Feel the Ping
Some find it helpful to wear a rubber band around their wrist and snap it against their skin to get their attention and bring it to that sensation in the present moment. It might be a little uncomfortable, but if it gets your attention and draws you to the present - then it will work.

4. Meridian Massage
Your body has energy lines running up and down your arms and legs. There is a theory of emotional disturbance that states that all negative emotions we experience are due to a disruption in those energy channels. One way to free that disruption by using your own touch is to pat firmly up and down the channels in your arms and legs.

Start on by patting your right hand down your left arm from shoulder to wrist, then repeat on your right arm - patting it firmly from shoulder to wrist with your left hand. When you are done, take some deep breaths as you firmly pat the inside of your left wrist with your right hand and vice versa.

Now pat your legs firmly from top to bottom with both hands. This is a very centering exercise and you can spend as little or as much time on it as you feel inclined.

5. Touching Energy
Qigong is perhaps the most gentle and grounding art I have ever practiced. It is a priceless skill for reducing stress and anxiety and with just ten minutes practice a day you can build tolerance and inner grounding that will stop anxiety and stress peaking so easily.

Here’s an excellent introductory video:

For more on Qigong Grounding Techniques try Inner Calm Audio’s Healing Energy Meditation .

Grounding Techniques Resources:

Qigong Healing Energy Meditation
Restful Awareness Relaxation Exercise
Grounding Energy Points download
Grounding Techniques - Anxiety Relief Podcast

Living by Design’s Grounding Techniques YouTube video
How to Control Anxiety with Grounding Techniques - article
Grounding Techniques: Make Like a Mountain - article

grounding techniques trees

Grounding techniques are a collection of little acts that help invoke a sense of personal control and safety in the face of any stressful situation.

Sufferers of PTSD frequently use grounding techniques to deal with triggers and flashbacks. Their value is in helping us reconnect with the present moment, and stopping the feelings of disassociation and “spaciness” that often come with anxiety attacks.