In my previous articles I have already written about the definition of a grounding technique and its types – physical and mental. This article will help you understand how the soothing grounding techniques work. While the main goal of soothing grounding techniques is the same as physical and mental ones, soothing techniques differ from them by focusing on comforting and promoting good feelings.

What is a Soothing Grounding Technique?

A soothing grounding technique is the one that not only will distract you from negative thoughts but also will make you feel better. Another word that is often used for it is comforting. Comforting is a way to make you feel less sad, worried or unhappy. It can also carry a meaning of fulfilling, satisfying, loving, welcoming. It can carry not only emotional meaning but physical – for example a hot cup of tea can be comforting on a cold day.

Important to know: When someone says comforting, a lot of people including me may think of comfort foods. People do use food as a way to comfort themselves in a stressful situation but I do not recommend it in my articles as after this type of comforting we will have to face with a disappointment such as weight gain or upset stomach. If you are currently using food for comforting, I recommend to try and replace it with some other soothing techniques.

How does soothing grounding work?

In psychology, “comforting” refers to a state of mental well-being characterized by calmness, a sense of safety, and the absence of anxiety. What gives us these feelings can be both physical and mental and correspond with physical and mental grounding techniques. The difference would be in what particularly is soothing for you. Soothing grounding techniques are often your choice on what makes you feel good. But please remember that using food as a soothing technique is not a good idea.

Soothing grounding technique ideas

Like I have previously mentioned, soothing or comforting can differ a lot from person to person. So this time I want to provide more like ideas instead of examples that you can use for grounding.

Spend time with your pet

Watch a movie

Say kind things to yourself

Think of your favorite things

Plan your favorite activity

Do your favorite activity

Think of people who make you happy

Talk/see someone that makes you happy

Use or buy something comforting (ex. blanket or hoodie)

Drink herbal tea

Make a list of positive things

Make a list of your strengths

Listen to your favorite music

Take a bubble bath

Walk in your favorite park

Soothing grounding techniques might require more time and location but you do not have to wrap yourself in a blanket in front of TV right away. Just thinking about it will help you to feel better. Make sure that you do it when you get home though.

Attention! Please remember that grounding exercises can not replace medications or a doctor visit. If you think that you or someone you know is at risk please call 911, contact local emergency services, therapist or your doctor.

Frequently Asked Questions

Mental grounding techniques can include physical ones but their main purpose is to make your mind busy. While physical grounding techniques focus on 5 senses, mental techniques focus on occupying your mind. Mental types of distraction redirect your thoughts and help you stop spiraling.

What is a Mental Grounding Technique?

Mental grounding techniques are also called exercises and can be somatic, cognitive or behavioral. For example, somatic exercises use the mind-body connection; cognitive exercises include mental processes that make us understand, learn, think and involve memory, attention, reasoning; behavioral exercises are focusing on altering actions or responses to various situations.

How does Mental Grounding work?

Mental grounding techniques will help you shift negative perceptions into positive ones, support you in reframing stressful situations, and encourage you to focus on realistic and present moment. Let’s look at the examples for all 3 types of exercises:

Somatic exercise example

A great example for a somatic exercise is meditation that includes a body scan. Body scan meditation is a guided meditation that makes you mentally scan your body from head to toes at the same time paying attention to how each part of your body feels. A guided body scan meditation can be found on meditation apps or you can read about it more here: Body Scan Meditation Article

Cognitive exercise example

Mental processes that make you think can be a great way to distract yourself from negative thoughts or spiraling. Learning something new or doing your homework like math is an example of cognitive exercise but during a stressful situation it is so difficult to focus on school and responsibilities. That does not mean that you can not use this type of grounding technique to get distracted. Try to use a new recipe for dinner or play a computer game that requires a lot of thinking, puzzles or strategy.

Behavioral exercise example

A good example for behavioral exercises can be replacing negative thoughts with positive ones. It also can be called cognitive reframing and include practicing mindfulness, engaging in positive activities, using positive affirmations, surrounding yourself with positive things, events, and people. For example, instead of saying “There is no way it will work”, say something like “I can try to make it work”.

List of Mental Grounding Techniques

Practice meditation

Practice mindfulness

Practice reframing

Imagine a safe place

Play a game

Think in categories

Do math or numbers

Learn by heart

Use affirmations

Describe your surroundings

Attention! Please remember that grounding exercises can not replace medications or a doctor visit. If you think that you or someone you know is at risk please call 911, contact local emergency services, therapist or your doctor.

Frequently Asked Questions

Physical Grounding Techniques or Physical Grounding term is used to describe grounding activities that involve your 5 senses: Sight, Hearing, Smell, Taste and Touch. While the other 2 types – Mental and Soothing include mental and emotional activities. Physical Grounding is considered to be more common because you can actually physically “ground” yourself with the present moment.

What is a physical Grounding Technique?

Physical grounding techniques are tasks or exercises that use your 5 senses and objects to help you regain control and relieve distress. The purpose of grounding techniques is to distance you from an emotional condition such as anxiety or anger and to reconnect you with the present moment.

How does Physical Grounding Work?

Unlike mental and soothing grounding techniques, physical grounding should involve a human’s 5 senses and some objects that can be recognized by those 5 senses. When you think of grounding, you might immediately think of stepping on the ground like actions.

Another explanation – when a person is experiencing uncomfortable emotional symptoms such as PTSD, anxiety, panic attack, dissociation, and others they get overwhelmed with emotions, start drawing negative images in their mind, fearing for the worst, having bad thoughts or start spiraling. All this takes that person away from their present moment that is safe at that time. Imagine that grounding would take that person back on the ground to the current reality, where the bad event that caused trauma is no longer there.

Not all the bad events are in the past. Sometimes we have to deal with stress continuously. It is very difficult to work on solving problems when being interrupted by anxiety, ADHD and other symptoms. But even here grounding exercises can help. During stressful moments grounding exercises help to refocus on the problems, cool down, take a break.

How to use 5 senses for grounding?

Let’s get more into the 5 senses: it is important to get the basic knowledge of 5 senses. It will help you to figure out what grounding techniques work best for you and create your own grounding methods. Let’s say you are googling for some grounding techniques but they are not suitable to do at some certain circumstances or you can not use some of the senses such as hearing or vision due to your health condition. Knowing how all the five senses work with grounding you can create your own ways to bring yourself to the present moment.

The senses that can be used for grounding

The main 5 senses are:

• Sight
• Hearing
• Smell
• Taste
• Touch

Additionally, there are some senses such as proprioception, equilibrioception, thermoception, nociception and others. I will not dive into their detailed description but will just mention that when your body feels something, it can also be used for grounding. For example it is widely used during meditation. When you are performing your body scan and analyze how your body feels – where your body parts are located, balancing when standing, feeling of being warm, cold, intense, relaxed or experiencing pain from physical exercises, injury or illness.

Examples of physical grounding sorted by senses

I decided to break down physical grounding tasks and exercises by sense. It will be useful for those who prefer to use certain senses or able to use only certain senses. Please note, that one of the most popular and well known grounding exercises is called 54321 Grounding Technique, which involves all the 5 senses. I dedicated a separate page for it:

54321 Grounding Technique

If you need help with figuring out the best grounding exercises, please contact me.

Sight

Look around

Hearing

Listen to birds singing

Smell

Smells in the kitchen

Taste

Taste something

Touch

Put your hands in water

I will be updating this page with more examples whenever I come up with more ideas. If you have great ideas for physical grounding exercises that worked for you, feel free to contact me and I will add them to this page or create a new page if needed (Let me know if you would like your name to be added as an author or you would like it to be added anonymously).

Attention! Please remember that grounding exercises can not replace medications or a doctor visit. If you think that you or someone you know is at risk please call 911, contact local emergency services, therapist or your doctor.

Frequently Asked Questions

54321 grounding technique is easy to remember, fast to apply and suitable for kids. Mental health professionals recommend using it as a distraction, a way for your mind and body to calm down, stop spiraling.

Feel free to screenshot or copy the image for your everyday use or to share with friends and loved ones. The infographics are helpful to pull up quickly and recall the steps. 

And a smaller and shorter one:

What is the 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 Grounding Technique?

This grounding technique is also called a coping skill, grounding method or exercise and its purpose is to isolate your senses and observe things using those senses. This technique helps to anchor yourself in the present and distract you from spiraling. This method will help you to acknowledge the present moment, instead of thinking about past regrets or future fears. Body and 5 senses help to reconnect to the present. 

How to use the 5 4 3 2 1 Grounding Technique?

Note. Please do not rush through the exercise.

Hint. It is useful to name the things out loud when possible. 

Important. Try and learn the steps by heart on a normal day. When a person feels anxious, it is difficult to recall techniques and exercises if you do not know them well by heart. 

Follow these steps one by one to complete the technique

0. Focus on your breathing, take a deep breath first

1. Find 5 things you can see
2. Find 4 things you can touch
3. Find 3 things you can hear
4. Find 2 things you can smell
5. Find 1 thing you can taste

Explanation of the 54321 grounding exercise

Useful to know. We can also use words such as acknowledge and focus to use your senses. For example, ACKNOWLEDGE 2 things you can smell, or FOCUS on 5 things you can see. Whichever way is easier for you. In my own experience, I like to use the word “find” because it makes me look for those things. While it is easy to see 5 things with your eyes, it is not easy to focus on smells in a bedroom. So, instead of giving up, try and think about what you could find. 

5 things you can SEE. 

You can start with something easy to catch with your eye, like a wall, a table, a chair, a bed, a door. It is normal to be frustrated with finding something to name when you are in panic, anxious and spiraling. But the more you do this exercise, the more you can turn it into fun. Find something of the same color, or small and so on.

4 things you can TOUCH or FEEL.

Something that you can reach with your hand or something that is touching your body. For example, a pen, a ring, a necklace, a pillow. Or, warmth of your cat near you, cold air from a/c, cozy blanket, ice. Think not only about the item itself, but also about its temperature or texture. For example, cold or hot, light or heavy, soft or hard. Same as with the first step, you can start it easy and continue with more fun ways of finding the 4 things you can touch.

3 things you can HEAR.

Finding 3 things that you can hear can be easy during the day – traffic, neighbors, tv. At night it can be more complicated, so try and focus on sounds that can be unnoticed during the day. Like crickets or frogs outside, wind or rain, dog breathing, ticking clock. 

2 things you can SMELL.

Finding smells can be easy if you feel anxious outside or in the kitchen. If you are in your bedroom, it can be the smell of clean bedsheets or pajamas, scented candles or even your breath. If you can not find any smells surrounding you, it is recommended to think and name your favorite smells. 

1 thing you can TASTE. 

Wherever you are, try and find something to taste. Food, toothpaste, or even water by your bedside will work. Maybe you just had dinner and still feel the taste of food in your mouth?

If you are a beginner and the 54321 grounding technique is difficult for you, save this free worksheet example to your computer and print it out. Practice the technique by writing down into the squares the things that you are able to see, touch, hear, smell and taste.

54321 Grounding exercise worksheet example

54321 Grounding Technique PDF printable version

Frequently Asked Questions

When 54321 Coping Technique can be used?

It is useful when spiraling, feeling anxious or having anxious thoughts, stressed, panicking, feeling overwhelmed, overstimulated, losing focus, experiencing flashbacks, after a trauma, and other uncomfortable symptoms. Physical symptoms can be racing heart, palms sweating, cheeks flushing, when it seems like the world is spinning. 

Advantage of this coping skill is that it is easy, can be used anywhere, fast, can be used for any age including children and you can  help others by asking them to NAME out loud the 5 things to see, 4 things to touch, 3 things to hear, 2 things to smell and 1 thing to taste.

How long should the 54321 grounding method last?

There is no limit on how slow or how fast you should find the required things. It can take not more than 5 minutes for some people. But for some people it can take more than 30 minutes. And it is normal. Remember to save the pictures above on your phone, this way you can remember the sequence faster. 

Can I use this technique why waiting for my therapy appointment?

Yes, absolutely. Sometimes it seems like days do not pass until your next meeting with the counselor. Anxiety symptoms increase and you fear they can get worse. 54321 grounding exercise can be used every day while waiting for your therapy aid.

Attention! If you think that you or someone you know is at risk, contact 911 or your local emergency services, doctor or therapist immediately.