How to Use a Grounding Meditation to Feel Safe

Trauma affects many people, both adults, and children. Anxiety and stress are common problems. Most people are guilty of irrationally negative thoughts.

Those who suffer from PTSD or anxiety often experience racing thoughts about past traumas or what might happen to them in the future.

This triggers the fight or flight reaction where the body feels constantly under attack.

During these moments, grounding is a technique that brings you back to the now and helps you master bad thoughts and memories.

They are mental or physical actions that distract you from anxiousness. If you regularly have anxious thoughts or have a mental health condition that brings on distressing thoughts, read on to learn why grounding techniques work, what they are, and a list of the best grounding techniques proven to help.

Why Do Grounding Techniques Work?

While thinking stressful thoughts, a section of the brain called the amygdala blasts into action. It is the area of the brain that is responsible for emotional responses, such as fear.

This is what helps us react in an emergency which is essential. However, it’s not really helpful when it kicks into gear for a threat that isn’t there.

An example would be thinking a negative thought about going to a social event. As your stress levels rise, the amygdala senses an emergency and encourages the body to get ready to escape a threat.

The heart starts beating rapidly, breathing gets shallow, and the muscles start to tense up. This signals to the amygdala that the threat is definitely real and takes you into a vicious circle of being physically and emotionally overwhelmed.

It can be hard to break out of this cycle with willpower alone, which is where grounding techniques can help.

By re-focusing on something else, you can divert your mind away from anxious thoughts and back to the here and now.

What Are Grounding Techniques?

A grounding technique is a type of coping strategy to help you deal with an anxiety attack, a panic attack, a PTSD flashback, a distressing emotion, an unwanted memory, or a stressful situation.

Grounding techniques are tools that can be used to bring you back to the here and now and separate you from distressing thoughts or overwhelming situations. They allow the body to calm down so the brain can actually realize there is no threat present.

Basically, grounding techniques assist in switching off the flight or flight mode. These methods are useful for many stressful situations, but they’re especially helpful for:

• Anxiety
• Dissociation
• Stress
• Mood
• Depression
• Well-being
• PTSD

Different Types of Grounding Techniques

The two main types of grounding techniques are physical and cognitive. When trying to ground yourself, its recommended to start with the body and work up towards the brain:

Physical Grounding Techniques

• **Breathing exercises. **Focusing on breathing exercises instead of what is stressing you is a way to ground yourself. Take a deep breath for 4, hold for 4 and release the air for 4. Feel each breath as it fills up your lungs and how it feels as it leaves your body.
• Stretching. Perform light stretching exercises while focusing on the breath and how each area of your body feels as the muscles release.
• Exercising. Similar to stretching, exercise is a grounding technique where you focus on your body as you perform an activity such as running, jumping jacks, or riding a bike.
• Mindfulness. This involves an activity such as meditation which guides you to focus on the present moment.
• Senses. This is where you focus on your senses such as smell or touch. Examples include holding an ice cube or smelling a newly lit incense stick.

Cognitive Grounding Techniques

Cognitive grounding techniques help to divert your attention away from stressful thoughts. However, it’s important not to constantly avoid an issue that needs dealing with. Helpful cognitive grounding techniques include:

• Listening to music or watching TV
• Talking to a loved one or a friend
• Reciting a poem, a song or a book passage
• Making yourself laugh
• Visualizing a daily task you enjoy doing
• Interacting or playing with a pet

When to Practice Grounding Techniques

Practicing grounding techniques is effective when you feel overwhelmed and stressed. It’s also beneficial to practice them when you feel calm.

This will make you feel more prepared to tackle stressful situations when they arise. When you’re feeling stressed, grounding techniques help restore calm and get you through that period of panic.

Grounding Exercises for Anxiety

Everyone feels anxious at one time or another in their life. But, for some, it can become overwhelming and start to interfere with daily life.

If this is happening to you, grounding techniques can help pull you away from distressing thoughts and put your focus on something around you. Here are a few mental grounding techniques for anxiety:

Memory Game

A memory game is an effective way to deal with anxiety or panic attacks. One option is to look at a photo and try to memorize details. Look away and try to recreate the picture in your mind.

The 5-4-3-2-1 Technique

This is a popular grounding technique that uses all your five senses. To get started you must think about:

• Five things you can see
• Four things you can feel
• Three things you can hear
• Two things you can smell
• One thing you can taste

This exercise helps to take your attention away from the feelings of stress and makes you focus on the physical world around you.

Listen to Your Surroundings

Take a moment to slow down, be quiet, and listen to your environment. In the outdoors, listen to birds chirping, leaves rustling, dogs barking, or people chattering.

If you’re indoors, pay attention to a clock ticking, the hum of a vacuum cleaner, water running, or even your favorite song. These sounds will help ground you and bring you back to the present.

Grounding Techniques for PTSD

Anyone can benefit from grounding to manage emotions, but it’s about safety for someone with post-traumatic stress disorder. PTSD causes intrusive memories and frightening flashbacks resulting from past trauma for the veteran population.

When they occur, they feel real and are terrifying. If you have these symptoms and episodes, feeling grounded can also make you feel safer.

A simple grounding meditation script distracts your thoughts and brings you back to the present from scary memories.

Other simple grounding techniques for PTSD include:

Grounding Chair

Choose a comfortable chair and sit down so your feet touch the floor. Feel the ground beneath and breathe in for a count of three, then slowly exhale.

Start to focus on your body. How does it feel in the chair? How do your arms feel on the armrest? Touch it and feel the texture of the material.

Imagine the stressful energy dropping through your body and out through your feet into the ground. You can imagine the energy as a color if you like.

Allow each body part to go heavy and encourage the muscles to relax. Finally, let the heaviness go through your legs and out through your feet.

Use Smell as Grounding

Smells can help bring back positive memories. To ground yourself, use familiar smells such as a scented candle, your favorite essential oil, coffee, a piece of chocolate, a scented lotion, or your partner’s clothes. Taking a good whiff of something you love will bring you back to present awareness.

Hold Something and Focus on It

Search for an object that has a little texture and is interesting to look at. An example is a crystal or stone.

Hold it in your hand and start to focus on it. Look at the patterns, swirls, and different color variations running through it.

Notice any sparkly bits and where shadows fall. Feel the stone and how the texture feels against your fingers.

This small stone or object can be taken with you when you’re facing a stressful situation to help ground you in the moment.

Grounding Techniques for Kids

The world can sometimes be a scary place for a child, especially those that have experienced trauma. Practicing meditation isn’t just for adults. Kids can learn to do it too.

Easy, short meditations teach them how to focus on their breathing and physical sensations to manage fear. Kids can also benefit from grounding, particularly when they feel scared.

Recommended grounding exercises for kids include:

ABC Around the Room

This will help get kids connected with the room around them. Ask your child to look around the room and name something beginning with A, then B and then onwards through the alphabet.

Be a Tree

Trees are grounded and you can help your child ground themselves by imagining they are a tree. As they pose, ask them to repeat ‘‘I am firmly planted,’’ ‘‘My back is a strong trunk,’’ and ‘‘My arms are branches that reach out into the world.’’

5-4-3-2-1 Sights

The 5-4-3-2-1 grounding technique can be done with all the senses or just one like sight. For example, ask your child to tell you:

• 5 colors they see
• 4 shapes they see
• 3 soft things they see
• 2 people they see
• 1 book they see

What Is a Grounding Meditation?

Grounding meditation is another strategy to cope with painful, difficult thoughts, and emotions as they arise. It is a quick way to bring yourself back to the present moment and to distract from negative feelings.

Grounding is a temporary fix. You can use it to manage flashbacks, bad memories, negative self-talk, anxiety, and fear. It gives you control over your feelings to address the underlying issue calmly and rationally.

Getting Started with Grounding Meditations

Whether you have PTSD, have scary memories, or just get overwhelmed with anxiety sometimes, grounding meditations can help. Start with a short grounding exercise script to guide your practice.

Once you’ve used guided meditations several times, you will begin to be able to ground yourself without them.

While you meditate, focus on one of three ways of grounding:

1. Mental

Focus your mind on something other than intrusive, negative thoughts. For example, describe the things around you, picture a relaxing setting, list items in categories, or describe the steps in an ordinary activity, like cooking your favorite recipe. This type of mental distraction will ground you quickly.

2. Physical

Pay attention to your five senses: sight, smell, touch, sound, and taste. Touch objects around you, describe what you can smell, or tense and relax your muscles one at a time.

3. Soothing

Self-soothing means talking to yourself in a kind way. This is great for mantra meditation, in which you choose a kind, positive statement to repeat and focus on as you meditate.

Conclusion

Grounding roots you in the present moment. It might not seem like much, but focusing on the moment and being mindful is powerful.

But remember, it may take a little time to find a grounding technique that works for you. Spend time practicing different techniques that can be used in varying situations.

When you feel overwhelmed by negative thoughts, feelings, or memories, try guided meditations like those on the BetterSleep app. They’ll bring you back down to earth within minutes.