Last Updated on December 7, 2024 by Olivia K.
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.
Table of Contents
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
Frequently Asked Questions
References:
Meridian University. “Somatic Psychology: Meaning and Origins | Meridian University.” Meridianuniversity.edu, 22 Nov. 2022, https://meridianuniversity.edu/content/somatic-psychology-meaning-and-origins.
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