Today is all about grounding yourself. ‘Grounding’ is a set of simple and practical techniques designed to reconnect you to the present moment, helping you find balance, calm, and stability when things feel hectic or stressful. These techniques can be used by anyone at any time, whether at home, work, or on the go and can be particularly helpful in managing certain mental health conditions such as stress, anxiety, and disassociation. No doubt you will have come across a grounding technique before in your life, but for some added help I thought it would be good to share here some techniques that I have found to be most helpful.
The 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 grounding technique
This is one of my favourites, as it is easy to remember and helps you connect with your surroundings no matter where you are. The whole point is to list:
- 5 things you can see
- 4 you can hear
- 3 you can feel
- 2 you can smell
- 1 you can taste
You could mix the senses up – sometimes my office can be very quiet so finding 4 things I can hear can be very difficult. Sometimes I like to only pick one of the senses and really focus in on that for a moment, which I find also works really well to just bring me back to the moment and out of my spiralling thoughts. You can also do this even when you are not feeling stressed or overwhelmed – sometimes it can be a fun game to play with other people whilst travelling, or a good way to keep kids entertained.
Music
Music is always a go to for me. As someone who grew up in a very musical household, music has always been a big part of my life. My dad is a drummer (plus a decent pianist, guitarist and bassist) so I have always been surrounded by music. Even when there is no music playing, I grew up listening to my tap tapping away at tables whilst he worked, or using his knife and fork as drumsticks at the dinner table. Music to me has always been a safe place for me and it is one of the easiest ways for me to lift my mood or to centre myself.
This will very much depend on what music you enjoy listening to. For me, I love country music, so that’s always a safe bet to listen to if I need a little break from things. The deeper the southern drawl the better in my opinion! But I also love musical theatre, dance anthems, heavy metal, and pop classics. A genre of music that I am very much enjoying at the moment is classical remakes of pop songs. I was introduced to it whilst watching the Bridgeton series on Netflix, but there are lots of playlists out there where orchestras have created classical covers of modern day pop songs. Highly recommend if you want to hear something familiar but still want it to be calming and melodic.
The Wildlife Trust have a very also created a specialist podcast episode that can be used to help ground you and to talk you through the different techniques available. You can listen to this here.
Listing things in my head
This is a form of mental grounding that again I find helps to settle me when I am feeling very overwhelmed or super stressed. I find my go to list to make is by using the Alphabet game, where you think of a new things within a certain category to go through the alphabet. For me, my favourite is to list Pokemon characters: A for Applin, B for Bulbasaur, C for Chansey, D for Ditto…you get the picture. I do this a lot when I cannot get to sleep and it helps to focus my mind on a particular mental task whilst sleep sets in – I usually only make it to Pikachu and then I out!
You can do this with whatever your speciality is. Sometimes my husband and I will play this with TV shows, video game characters, or actors. But of course this is meant to help you, so pick a subject that you know really well or brings you a lot of comfort (your favourite TV show series for example) and work your way through the alphabet.
Taylor Talks Vegan 