Grounding Techniques : Group Effort Article

[Friday]

Looking for community feedback & brainstorming!

Several of us were talking about how nice it would be to have a convienent article to reference with the many different methods of Grounding that people use. Both for ourselves, as well as for newcomers who may have never heard of Grounding.

• What are your favorite Grounding Techniques?
• Do you use different ways to ground in different situations? (Disassociation vs Anxiety vs Flashbacks, for example, or Alone vs Public, or ???)
• Do you have any struggles or challenges grounding, &/or things you've done -or are trying- to overcome those struggles?
• Any favorite threads / posts you already reference?
• Any other thoughts / questions / ideas on the subject?

Thank you! :D

 

[anonymous]

• Do you have any struggles or challenges grounding, &/or things you've done -or are trying- to overcome those struggles?

Biggest challenge to me with grounding is remembering what to do when I actually need to do it! The bit of my brain that knows it has learnt grounding techniques to use in different situations seems to go AWOL when the situations actually arise. I think the solution to this is probably just to keep reminding yourself of them regularly, even when you're not needing them, but so far there is still always a big gap between needing to ground and remembering how to, or even having the awareness that I know how to.

Something that really doesn't work for me, but I'd be interested in knowing if anyone has found a way of working round this, is 'safe place' stuff. Safe as a concept just isn't something I can get my head round and so visualising a safe place just results in my head pointing out all the things that aren't safe about it :rolleyes: kind of works as a distraction technique but....

The other thing I find is that I have to change what I use fairly regularly as the effectiveness of different techniques seems to become unreliable for me after a while - almost like my head wised up to my tricks.

I'll come back with the what does work, or has worked, stuff in a bit...

 

[Changing4Best]

My worst problem with grounding is that I forget to do it sometimes, like when I need it the most! I am so completely buried in my trouble of the moment that I forget that there is a way out.

None the less, since I am religious, my favorite grounding is to be grounded in the Lord Jesus. I ask Him to alleviate my momentary suffering, whatever it may be. And He does. I find praying is the best thing I can do for myself when I am in trouble.

 

[barefoot]

Great idea!

As others have said, I think my main challenge with grounding techniques is not identifying the need to use them quickly enough. So then it's a massive challenge to ground myself when I'm full on dissociating and don't even know it or when I'm having full on panic/anxiety. But if I can catch it early enough and take some action, I have a few things that seem to help.


For spaciness/full on dissociation:

Top one is smells - that tends to be the sense that gets me back to the present more quickly than anything else.
In therapy - she uses a room spray, which she sprays before I go in. So if I'm getting a bit spacey, I sometimes ask if she'll spray it again. It's quite a strong, floral smell which has reassuring/comforting associations for me.
In public - a spritz of perfume for a quick refocus or a sniff of essential oil (black pepper - not a smell I particularly like so it's better for more spaciness/dissociation as it jolts me back when I'm too far gone to notice the smell of my perfume that I wear all the time) is unobtrusive and looks like fairly "normal" behaviour.
At home - I have the same room spray as my therapist, which I only really use for grounding because of the reassuring/comforting connection - so it's really for feeling more present but also for soothing.

Other ones are:
Washing my hands - spending quite a long time doing it, usually with very cold water.

Putting on hand cream - because it forces me to feel my hands. Works well for fairly light spaciness and is good for being out in public because it doesn't look like a strange thing to do. I massage it in fairly firmly - if I do it too gently/hypnotically, there is always the chance that it will feel too soothing and make me more trancey!

Having a shower/bath in water that's as hot as I can stand.
Shower generally works very well every time.
Bath is sometimes good but can sometimes backfire and I sometimes end up dissociating in there!

Stroking one of my cats is also grounding - I have two and one of them in particular always comes and gives me a nudge if I'm dissociating. Literally, a head butt. So then focusing on her makes me more present.

I also have a song, which if I'm feeling spacey and numb when I'm out and about, I can listen to that. It's lively, fun, has good connotations for me. Not at all a great song or my favourite song - it's a bit of an embarrassing song choice! But for some reason, it seems to really work for me. Even if it means listening to it on a loop for 20mins!

Drinking cold water.

Going for a walk and focusing on my breathing and feeling my feet on the ground. And possibly listening to the song I mentioned above as I walk.

For anxiety:

I find grounding during anxiety more difficult as I think I generally wait until it's so far off the scale that I then can't really ground myself!

Diaphragmatic breathing exercises are probably the best thing for me to do anxiety-wise but if I'm needing to practically peel myself off the ceiling, I probably wouldn't be able to calmly come up with this idea and to sit quietly and do it. Mild bubbling of anxiety - the deep breathing definitely helps.

And going for a walk can sometimes help too.

And taking a bath/shower is also a good one. In the bath, I'd spray my therapist's room spray, throw a heap of magnesium salts in the water, put my bath sound track on (soothing stuff - not my dissociation song!) - and I set a timer in case I overshoot in the wind down stakes and end up dissociating! ;-)

 

[barefoot]

Also - I had a meltdown in therapy a few weeks ago (very triggered, very high panic/anxiety/fear, then very dissociated) which culminated in me standing facing a wall with my toes, nose and both palms of my hands touching the wall and my entire body shaking. I've also done this in public on a couple of occasions but much less dramatically. It hasn't been a conscious choice to do it - it seems to be a default behaviour to find containment and to try to regulate myself.

And since that happened in the therapy room, I've noticed - and my therapist has also mentioned - that when I get uncomfortable/anxious/overwhelmed in sessions, I start touching the wall. As in, I start pressing my palm against the wall beside me. So there also seems to be something developing around me wanting to feel my hands against the wall. Not sure if this is become a new grounding technique or whether it's just a comfort thing - or whether actually me touching a wall is a sign that things are getting too overwhelming and if it continues I'm about to have a repeat of my meltdown episode. Not sure!

 

[anonymous]

Grounding for anxiety/panic, best if I deal with it when I notice the anxiety rising before it gets to panic point. The thing that helps most is to move and do. Get up. Move from the position I'm in. Do something - usually something that doesn't need a lot of concentration or thought. For me cleaning something, gardening, going for a walk are all fairly reliable. If my breathing is off from anxiety, walking in particular seems to help to regulate it again without me having to focus too much on it (I find consciously trying to use breathing techniques, focusing on my breathing, tends to make me more panicky about my breathing).
If I can't move and do for some reason - on a bus, in company etc - find something to count, look for patterns in things. I have a thing about numbers so looking for sequences and specific patterns and arrangements of numbers is usually quite helpful but I need to be careful this one doesn't run over into obsessive because then it tends to backfire a bit.

Grounding for flashbacks/intrusive memory loops - drawing a square in my head. Start in one corner, count to four, move across to the next corner, count to four, move down to the next corner, count to four.... my T has used this with me drawing the square in the air with her finger and having me follow her hand so I'm usually able to visualise that which seems to help more.
Saying the word 'Stop' in my head to interrupt the memory. Usually need to put that one on repeat, but consciously interrupting it gives me back a little bit of control over it.
My T talks a lot about containment, but it's something I still struggle with, but one thing that is helping a little is that when she talks about it, she usually accompanies it with kind of drawing a box with her hands in a specific place, and visualising that helps a bit.

Mostly for me grounding comes down to finding ways to interrupt whatever course my head has gone off on.

Dissociation is the hardest one because the awareness isn't there until I'm already coming out of it anyway.

 

[VioletButterfly]

Anxiety is big for me - I think moving and doing anything to distract yourself is good, walking is good, I pray while I walk to get my racing mind more focused or I look up and marvel at the trees - so getting out into nature is good. The safe place thing also eludes me as the only safe place I know of is sitting with God, feeling Him in me and talking to Him. Sometimes, I just have to ride out the storm.

 

[scout86]

One more vote for "begin by noticing something is wrong." LOL

I don't really dissociate, it's more hypervigilance verging on panic.

I also don't get the whole "safe place" idea. My T brought this up a long time ago and got a lengthy rant about "safety is an illusion". I also have trouble visualizing in pictures. As we talked about this, I said that my idea of "safe" is "I'm pretty sure I know what's going on and think I have it handled". The was a particular horse that I used to show who was very talented and very honest. I knew he could do a lot and I knew he'd always give 100%. "Safe" is how I felt sitting on him waiting to go into a class. My T suggested that I bring that "feeling" to the situation when I'm feeling overwhelmed. So, instead of "picturing a safe place" I remind myself what it felt like to believe I had things handled. It works fairly well.

Also, I tend to "forget to breathe". Another suggestion from my T, which has helped, is to focus on breathing. Especially exhaling. (He says inhaling generally takes care of itself.)

Great idea Friday!

 

[Cinnamon4z]

So I have a few techniques that works sometimes and other times dont work at all and aren't even worth trying.
When I feel some tension/anxiety and coupled with stress building, I know I need to decompress
If the tension is mostly just stress from work or life, I try coloring in my colorfy app.... If my anxiety pervades my chest & back, things tend to turn shitty quickly after that. And I need to find the nearest office supply- pen, thumbtack, or staple remover and take care of that discreetly as possible. (Not too into cutting though i am more than willing to do some when my pain & symptoms get intense. And yeah I am not particularly 'proud' of this method- but it gets the job done and keeps me from blowing up)
Oh yeah- walking/stretching off work related tension/anxiety helps most of the time
I also need very mellow music/sounds in background- I have an assortment of couple playlists depending on the mood:
1)Reggae with a lot of Bob Marley
2) Enya & classical
3) Taiko Drums & more traditional chinese music and calming wave sounds

I also have a couple different guided meditations that help me quell some anxiety.

Depressive moods: I have not yet found anything to really help me deal with my depressive moods
puppy videos, puppy & baby videos, or funny strips- they just don't work sometimes- especially when my depressive moods are more serious or arising from deep contemplation of death, life & the pros & cons (which seem to be happening often recently)

Frustration & anger:
few things beat yelling for a good minute or so.... or punching something.... cutting & pinching myself definitely doesn't help here

 

[The Albatross]

I'm an odd duck I guess... I consider grounding part of my self care... every day and throughout the day and at bedtime. I'm kinda rigid that way.

I start my day and spend part of my morning seated in a chair. Where am "I" right now? (Put your hands there). Am I behind my eyes? Can I feel my face and the back of my head? Can I feel my shoulders, arms and fingers? And I systematically go down to my feet and toes. When grounding at home I am barefoot and feel the ground through my feet.

I am pretty good with all that now and most often start the day grounded. The key points for me is awareness, and knowing how to get there. If I start my days already present... it is easier in the longer term to stay in. If there is a trigger I can put myself "back in" without anxiety and other people don't seem to notice.

Mostly though I do prefer to be barefoot or wearing sandals or flats so I have as much contact with the ground as possible. I am not above lying on the floor to do visualizations to "get myself back in" as necessary though I tend to do that more at home before commitments.

I have aromas/oils in my purse and I have Altoids. I also can use lemon to get back to present when necessary. I can also use ice.

It took a lot of presence of mind to cultivate the habit of grounding... then pausing to ground between commitments and also to end my day grounded. I call this leading a disciplined life. It is now a behavior... something I do requisite to doing what I do most every single day. It has big pay offs and has been entirely worth it.

 

[barefoot]

I call this leading a disciplined life. It is now a behavior...

I'll say...! I'm kind of in awe of you right now - there are a few things/routines that I have tried to make into daily habits over the last year or so and I go through periods of being committed and it working well but then I so easily fall off the wagon and then don't do any of it for weeks. I'm in one of those troughs now. Your discipline, perseverance sand commitment have inspired me to get back on it and start re-introducing those things that I know make a difference to me. And I'm going to try starting my day with that kind of body scan exercise that you do...I can see how that could set things up well and then be a good, strong anchor point to get back to if needed at any moment later in the day.

I am not above lying on the floor

If I'm at home and get overwhelmed with anxiety/panic I've noticed that I sometimes lie on the floor in a particular room in the house. I've been thinking that things like lying on the floor and also the touching the wall in therapy thing are quite embarrassing things that show I'm overwhelmed and can't cope. This thread – and your post particularly – has now made me realise that perhaps it's not me being pathetic and not coping....perhaps it's actually my body taking over and doing what it needs to do to get me feeling safer and more grounded. So...perhaps it is, in fact, me coping!

 

[The Albatross]

26-28 days makes a new habit... 6 months a new behavior. It may not be what I want or deserve, but... big BUT... my life is better with a base self care and consistent focus on a disciplined life.