Grounding Tools to help you find your Calm Place
Feeling anxious and overwhelmed is a common experience in todays fast paced world. Whether you are experiencing anxiety due to work stress, personal challenges or global events, anxiety can creep in and disrupt our sense of peace and well-being.
Understanding Anxiety
Anxiety, or hyperarousal can manifest in various ways, form racing thoughts and heart palpitations to a sense of impending doom. It is a natural response to stress, but when it becomes overwhelming and persistent it can significantly impact our daily life and functioning. Noticing the signs of anxiety is the first step to managing it effectively.
The role of trauma in anxiety
After trauma, many people experience flashbacks, anxiety, dissociation, and other difficult symptoms. Grounding techniques help shift focus away from uncomfortable thoughts, memories, and worries, and toward the present moment. Often we are not in actual danger but because our system is on high alert due to past trauma it may perceive neutral stimuli as a threat and therefore activate out fight/flight response when it is unnecessary - thus causing feeling and symptoms of anxiety (hot sweaty hands, shaking, racing heart, inability to think rationally). Therefore, in that moment the best thing to help is finding a simple way to ground ourselves in the present moment and anchor us in reality.
Grounding Techniques
These Powerful Grounding Techniques will help you find your calm place and give you relief from the grip of anxiety and if practiced daily they will be easier to implement when you are in the heights of anxiety or panic. They will help you to become more resilient to the effects of stress, overwhelm and anxiety:
Deep Slow Breathing- focusing on the sensation of the air travelling through your nose or mouth and entering your lungs. Exhale slooooowly.
Progressive Muscle Relaxation- This involves tensing and then relaxing each muscle group in your body, one at a time. Starting with your toes and work your way up to your head noticing any tension and then releasing it.
Grounding objects- carrying a small object such as a smooth stone or piece of jewellery can serve as a grounding tool during moments of anxiety. Holding the object in your hand and noticing the temperature, texture, weight can redirect your attention away from anxious thoughts and toward the present moment.
Visualisation- visualise a place that brings you a sense of peace, calm and/ or happiness. Close your eyes and immerse yourself in this scene. Use all your senses what can you see? what can you smell? what can you feel? what can you hear? what can you taste? This in an effective tool to practice daily and sooth your nervous system.
Five Senses exercise- This involves engaging your five sense in the current moment. what can you see right now? what can you hear right now? what can you feel right now? what can you smell right now? what can you taste right now? This exercise shifts your focus away from anxious thoughts and toward your immediate surroundings.
Take your shoes off- Feel the grass, sand, dirt or concrete on your bare feet. This is a sure fast way to literally ground yourself. There are numerous studies exploring the effectiveness of grounding ourselves to the earth.
Immerse your face in a bowl of ice cold water- by doing this we trigger what is called the mammailian dive reflex- when our face goes under water our body naturally goes into its parasympathetic state (lowered heart rate, slower breathing) to help us conserve oxygen while underwater.
Cold water immersion- stimulates the vagus nerve to activate the parasympathetic nervous system bringing our body into a relaxed, calm state. Cold water immersion is also thought to release endorphins.