10 Grounding Skills To Manage Trauma and Anxiety Symptoms
After experiencing a traumatic event people can experience a wide range of symptoms (click here to learn more about common signs and symptoms of trauma). Some symptoms associated with trauma can feel overwhelming and make it hard to stay present, such as triggers, flashbacks, and dissociation. Other emotions, such as anxiety, panic, and fear can also be overwhelming and benefit from using grounding skills. Grounding techniques can help you to stay in the present moment and cope with symptoms related to trauma, PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), and anxiety.
What Are Grounding Techniques and Why Are They Helpful For Trauma?
Grounding techniques are specific coping skills that focus on helping you stay grounded, or connected to the present moment. Some common symptoms associated with trauma can feel overwhelming and make it hard to stay present.
Triggers may be certain things/people/places/experiences that remind people of their past experience of trauma. Encountering a trigger may lead to intrusive memories, thoughts, and feelings associated with trauma. For example, if you’ve been in a life threatening car accident in the past, you might find yourself feeling anxious, noticing your muscles tense, and your heart rate and breathing increasing when you are driving or passing the location of your accident. In this example, the action of driving or passing the location of your accident may be triggers. You may also find yourself thinking about and remembering the accident and struggling to make these thoughts go away. This trigger can make it hard to stay focused and present in the moment.
Flashbacks may also be experienced following traumatic events. Instead of simply thinking about or remembering a traumatic event, a flashback involves feeling like you are reliving the past traumatic event. You may still feel connected to the present moment or you might not be able to stay aware of your present surroundings and feel like you are fully back experiencing the trauma. Flashbacks may also be brought on by a trigger.
Dissociation occurs when you feel disconnected from your current surroundings, reality, and/or yourself. This may involve feeling like you are floating outside of your body watching yourself from above, feeling like your surroundings are not real, or feeling detached from your thoughts, feelings, and body.
A common thread across these symptoms is struggling to remain grounded in the present moment. This is where grounding techniques come into play. Grounding techniques can be useful to soothe strong emotions such as anxiety, fear, and panic, focus the mind when experiencing intrusive memories and thoughts, and reconnect with your physical body when experiencing flashbacks and dissociation.
10 Grounding Techniques for Managing Trauma and Anxiety Symptoms
Below are 10 examples of grounding techniques that you can use to cope with anxiety and trauma symptoms. I’ve broken them up into three categories. The soothing grounding techniques are especially helpful for emotional relief, the mental grounding techniques can help to increase focus when your mind is racing or distracted, and physical grounding techniques can be especially helpful when you are feeling disconnected from your physical body.
Soothing Grounding Techniques for Emotional Relief
Self-Talk: Talk to yourself to remind you that you are safe. Repeating affirmations such as “I am safe right now,” “Nothing can hurt me right now,” and “This will pass” can be helpful reminders to bring you back to the present.
Recite: Reciting facts about yourself and the present moment can also help to bring you back to the present moment. Repeating your name, the current date and time, and the location you are in, as well as other facts about yourself such as your birthday, favorite food, or your current plans for the day can also be helpful in grounding yourself.
Pet: If you have a pet, spend some time with them and notice how it feels petting or brushing them. I know my cat, Nico, is not always in the mood for pets, so even sitting near him and watching what he is doing, taking in his markings and features can be helpful grounding for me. If you aren’t with your pet, you can also think about them, imagine what it would be like to pet them, or look at pictures of them.
Mental Grounding Techniques to Focus Your Mind
Subtraction: Sometimes it can be helpful to use your brain to solve mental tasks as a way of grounding. Focusing on engaging in a mental task helps to keep your mind occupied and engaged away from intrusive memories, thoughts, and flashbacks. One strategy is to count starting at 100 and subtract by 7 (100, 93, 86, etc).
Spelling: Another way to engage your brain mentally is through spelling. Try spelling things backwards. You can start by looking around you and choosing things and spell them backwards. You can also spell your name backwards or the names of loved ones.
Describing: Look around the space you are in and begin describing things that you see. Describe things like colors, textures, patterns, and images you notice. For example “a purple blanket,” “a smooth brown table,” “a painting of a cherry tree,” and so on.
Physical Grounding Techniques to Reconnect With Your Body
Cold water: Using cold water can be a way to help reconnect with your physical body. Try holding your hands under cold water and noticing how the water feels on your skin. You can also try splashing cold water on your face or running your hands under water alternating between warm and cold water and noticing the differences.
5 senses: Or 5-4-3-2-1, is a common grounding technique to help engage all of your senses to help focus on your current physical surroundings and sensations. As you focus on each of your senses, try and notice things that you would not typically notice. Focus on each of your senses counting down from 5:
5 things you can see: notice patterns, colors, textures, images, or previously unnoticed aspects of things.
4 things you can feel: you can reach out and touch different objects and notice how the textures and sensations feel. You can also notice how your body feels - how do your feet feel on the ground, your hair on your neck, your back in your chair, etc.
3 things you can hear: notice various sounds that are in your space. Notice how the sound changes and separate out various background sounds such as the air conditioner running in the background or the hum of your computer.
2 things you can smell: notice the smells around you - see if there is soap or lotion lingering on your hands, shampoo smell in your hair, or laundry detergent lingering on your clothes. Grab nearby food, candles, or soap and take a moment to notice the scents.
1 thing you can taste: If you have access to food you can take a bite of, or gum or a mint that you can chew, do that and notice the flavors. Otherwise, notice whatever taste lingers in your mouth, perhaps this morning's coffee, your lunch, or lingering toothpaste.
Holding: Find an object that you can hold onto. This might be a small important object that you keep on you so that you can remind yourself you are in the present moment. A small rock, fidget toy, or a necklace can be great examples. You can also just grab whatever is nearby such as a pen, a blanket, or a piece of ice and grip onto the item and squeeze as tight as you can.
Body Scan: A body scan technique can help to build awareness of your body to help you reconnect with your physical self. Practice by taking slow, deep breaths and bringing your attention to specific body parts. It can be helpful to start at your toes and feet and then work your way up, body part by body part, until you reach the top of your head. As you bring your attention to each body part, notice things such as tension, discomfort, or other physical sensations. If you notice tension, focus on imagining yourself releasing that tension before moving to the next body part. You’ll likely notice your mind start to drift away from your body scan. Whenever you notice your mind wandering, gently bring your focus back to the next body part or to your breathing. After scanning your body, bring your attention back to your physical surroundings.
Tips for Using Grounding Techniques Effectively
Learning and using new skills can be challenging. Here are a few tips to help you be able to best use your new grounding techniques to manage symptoms of trauma and anxiety:
Practice grounding skills at times you are not needing to ground yourself, such as when you are feeling more calm. Practicing these skills at times when you are not actively dissociating or in a flashback can help you to be more able to remember to use them in the moment.
Set a reminder in your phone to practice a grounding skill each day.
Try a variety of grounding techniques to see what works best for you.
Once you have a few grounding skills that work well for you, make a list and keep it somewhere accessible for you. Put them on a post-it note in your room, make it your screensaver on your phone or computer, or type them in the notes app on your phone. This way, if you are needing to ground yourself you can just pull up the list and then you don’t have to try and remember the different techniques.
Consider sharing some of the grounding techniques that are helpful for you with close friends or loved ones and ask them to help you remember to use them as needed.
Consider creating a box that holds various items to help you ground yourself all in one place. I’ve previously written about creating a self-care kit, a self-care kit can include many items to help with grounding, such as items to help focus each of your senses.
Virtual Trauma and Anxiety Therapy in Lexington, Kentucky
Therapy can be helpful to further understand and use grounding skills as well as other ways of processing and exploring your experiences of trauma and anxiety. If you live in Kentucky and are interested in working with a therapist who specializes in trauma and anxiety, I would love to work with you! Learn more about me and reach out to set up a free 15-minute consultation to learn more about working with me. You can email me at carolyn@carolynmeillerphd.com or request an appointment here.
About the Author:
Dr. Carolyn Meiller specializes in working with trauma and anxiety. She graduated with a PhD in Counseling Psychology from the University of Kentucky and spent much of her training and experience post graduation helping adults navigate, process, and heal from trauma, PTSD, and anxiety. She currently has a private practice in Lexington, Kentucky and works virtually with adults from all over Kentucky.
