Grounding Techniques: How to Effectively Use Them in Times of Stress

Feeling worried, anxious, and scared is a normal part of life, but sometimes stress can become overwhelming, hindering our ability to think clearly and even breathe properly. In such situations, grounding techniques can be helpful.

What are Grounding Techniques and When are They Used?

Grounding in psychology refers to a set of techniques that help individuals reduce anxiety and stress through various practices. These techniques allow a person to literally return to the present reality, detach from intense переживаниях, and shift their attention to the things happening around them.

Most of these techniques involve focusing on one's breath, engaging in routine activities, or concentrating on objects in the surrounding environment. All of these methods help distract from overwhelming feelings and anxious thoughts.

Grounding techniques are often used during panic attacks—sudden and intense episodes of anxiety, during which a person may experience dizziness, a racing heart, and shortness of breath. These exercises can also be helpful in situations of intense worry—for example, before an exam or an important meeting—as well as during emotional turmoil, such as when a person has been involved in or witnessed an emergency situation (earthquake, accident, violence). In such moments, the intensity of emotions increases, and individuals may experience discomfort, difficulty concentrating, and rapid fatigue. The World Health Organization recommends the use of grounding techniques to manage stress, cope with these states, and calm the nervous system.

"Grounding" exercises usually take only a few minutes and don't require any special equipment or space. They can be performed anytime, anywhere.

Who Coined the Term "Grounding"?

The concept of grounding was developed by one of the pioneers of body-oriented psychotherapy, Alexander Lowen, in the 1970s. He became the founder of bioenergetic analysis and one of the originators of body-oriented therapy. Lowen described grounding as a psychophysical presence "here and now," as well as the ability to receive physical and emotional support from the earth (the ability to be "earthed," "to stand on the ground"). According to modern scientific understanding, the concept of the existence of so-called "bioenergy" is considered pseudoscientific.

Today, grounding is practiced more as a mental exercise that is not directly related to the earth and its "power." In its contemporary interpretation, it refers more to distracting oneself from anxious thoughts in order to stabilize one's mental state.

How Grounding Techniques Work

We have a sympathetic nervous system that is responsible for our reaction during stress, and a parasympathetic nervous system that is responsible for stabilizing our condition after stress. Grounding is an attempt to switch from the sympathetic to the parasympathetic mode, from the mode of excitement to the mode of inhibition. Stress triggers a whole cascade of biological reactions in our bodies, which cause changes in a person's state. Grounding techniques help a person breathe slower and think not about the catastrophe in the next 24 hours, but about something more peaceful.

It is natural for humans to experience fear, anxiety, and stress in response to danger, but our reaction is not always adequate to the scale and significance of the triggering event (and sometimes there isn't one at all). Grounding techniques can help in this case as well.

Types of Grounding Techniques

Grounding techniques are aimed at achieving two goals:

• Shifting attention from anxious objects to less disturbing or neutral ones;
• Competing for the brain's "working memory" in order to reduce the influence of anxious thoughts.

Breathing Practices

Thanks to special breathing exercises, our heartbeat slows down, which in turn leads to a decrease in blood pressure and anxiety, and the person calms down. The "square breathing" or diaphragmatic breathing technique, for example, has this effect. According to this method, you need to imagine a square and breathe, moving along its perimeter. The first side is an inhale, the second is a breath hold, the third is an exhale, and the fourth is a breath hold, and so on in a circle (or rather, a square). Each side should take the same amount of time—4 seconds. To come to your senses, you can do five or six approaches.

Breathing practices are widespread, and their effectiveness has been proven: for example, diaphragmatic breathing is used by US Navy SEALs to quickly recover in a stressful situation. The Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations recommends performing breathing exercises not only to calm down but also to improve the quality of life in general.

Behavioral Techniques

Among behavioral techniques, a person can be advised to do any monotonous and even meaningless action. For example, sort socks by color, arrange books on a shelf by size, or sort through beads. You can breathe while counting down from 100 to 1 or make the task more difficult—count down in reverse order, subtracting 3 each time. This forces the person to think. If they can concentrate on the reverse countdown and subtraction, they will not have as much "working memory" left to think about something тревожном.

You can switch to another understandable activity—for example, do a monotonous task at work. Routine physical actions also help to calm down: washing dishes, walking up the stairs, taking a walk in the fresh air, or going to the store. All of this will help reduce anxiety and ground yourself.

Shifting Attention to Details and Physiological Reactions

During such exercises, a person shifts their attention to how they feel—for example, where their feet are, what their palms look like, how they breathe—and to what surrounds them.

A classic grounding technique is the "5-4-3-2-1" exercise. To perform it, you need to alternately identify and name (aloud or to yourself):

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

All of this, like the techniques from the previous point, shifts attention from переживаний to actions that reinforce the connection with reality.

Grounding in psychology is an important tool for managing stress and anxiety. However, it is important to remember that such techniques are suitable for working with an emotional reaction, but they do not eliminate the root cause of the unwanted conditions. If you are bothered by anxiety, phobias, panic attacks, and other emotional reactions that you cannot cope with on your own, consider visiting a psychotherapist.