5-4-3-2-1 Grounding Exercise

What is Grounding?

From a mental health perspective, grounding is the process of refocusing your attention on the present moment, your here-and-now reality. Grounding techniques, such as the 5-4-3-2-1 Grounding Exercise described below, can help to create space from distressing thoughts or emotions. Grounding is a self-soothing skill, that is, something you can do to calm your nervous system.

Symptoms That Need Grounding

Why might you need to calm your nervous system? There are several mental health symptoms that involve activation of your thoughts, emotions, and body responses, which can make it difficult to feel grounded.

• Anxious worry: Anxious worry is fear or anxiety that something bad will happen in the future. People with anxious worry often overestimate the likelihood of a bad outcome and/or the consequences of a bad outcome (for example, “I am definitely going to fail this test, and then I will get kicked out of school, and then will never be able to get a good job, and then I will end up homeless.”).
• Anxious rumination: While anxious worry focuses on the future, anxious rumination occurs when people cannot stop thinking about something that already happened. People may replay embarrassing or upsetting events over and over in their mind, making it difficult to focus on anything else. Muscle tension is a common physical symptom for people who worry or ruminate.
• Panic attacks: A panic attack is an sudden surge of intense fear or discomfort that can include symptoms such as pounding heart, shortness of breath, discomfort in one’s chest, dizziness, and nausea, among other symptoms. Panic a very physical reaction, but anxious thoughts also commonly occur during a panic attack.
• Trauma reactions: People who have experienced prior trauma may encounter trauma triggers (things that spark a reminder about the trauma, such as certain sounds, situations, people, or touch) that cause a reaction. Reactions may include flashbacks where it feels like the traumatic event is occurring again, feelings of detachment, a sensation of being disconnected from reality, panic symptoms, or other intense emotional or physical reactions.

The above are just a few of the more common reasons that someone might benefit from trying the 5-4-3-2-1 Grounding Exercise. However, even people without these symptoms, such as those who are feeling stressed, may find it helpful to practice this exercise as a way to ground themselves in their present reality.

The 5-4-3-2-1 Grounding Exercise

Before starting the steps below, focus on taking slow, deep breaths. This may be difficult at first because most of the symptoms described above can cause fast, shallow breathing. Your goal is to start to slow your breathing at the beginning of this exercise and to continue to slow your breaths throughout.

Take a slow breath in (about 4 seconds) through your nose. If your shoulders rise when you breathe in, attempt to instead have your belly expand on the next breath. A deep breath that fills your lungs will cause your stomach to push out instead of make your shoulder rise.

After your slow breath in, breathe out slowly (at least 4 seconds) through your mouth or nose. Notice your belly fall as you let the air out of your lungs.

Take a few slow, deep breaths and then move on to the next steps. If you are not already familiar with deep breathing, you may want to check out our post on that coping skill first.

5 Things You Can See

Turn your attention to the room or world around you. Identify something in your environment and slowly describe what you see. You can do this out loud or in your head, but the goal is to describe as much visual detail as you can. For example, I might describe a ceiling fan: I notice that my ceiling fan has five blades, the blades appear to be plastic with a brown wood-look pattern, the metal is a brushed nickel finish, there is one light with a frosted glass shade, and there are two chains with teardrop-shaped pulls on the end.

Again, the more you focus on describing small details of what you see, the more you ground yourself in the present moment. Do this for five things you can see. Remember to continue to take slow and deep breaths throughout.

4 Things You Can Touch

Next, describe four things you can touch. Take some time to feel each item you describe. You may notice and describe touch sensations such as rough, smooth, scratchy, warm, cool, ridged, soft, firm, and more. Continue your deep breathing during this step.

3 Things You Can Hear

Next is three things you can hear. If you are inside, you may notice sounds in the room with you, sounds from another room, or sounds from outside. You may also notice a sound from your own body, such as your out-breath while you do deep breathing. Describe the qualities of the sounds, such as loud, faint, fast, rhythmic, irregular, and other aspects that you can identify. Take a couple deep breaths before moving on.

2 Things You Can Smell

Next, describe two things you can smell. You may notice scents in the air, or you may need to bring objects to your nose. For example, you may bring your shirt sleeve to your nose and describe the scent of your laundry detergent. Or, you may smell the drink you have with you, the lotion on your skin, or the candle on your desk. Describe any aspects of the scent that you can identify. Again, keep breathing slow and deep.

1 Thing You Can Taste

Finally, describe one thing you can taste. You may have a drink readily available and take a sip. Or maybe you have a mint in your purse that you can put in your mouth. Or a bite of your food. Applying lip balm is another option. Describe the taste sensations. If you don’t have anything available to taste, notice any taste sensations in your mouth left over from when you last ate or brushed your teeth.

Repeat if Needed

If you still have overwhelming symptoms, you can restart this exercise. Try to describe the items in each step in as much detail as possible to put your focus on the external aspects of the environment.

On the other hand, you may have managed to ground yourself before you got to the end of this exercise. You can benefit from doing the grounding exercise for a little while after you feel calm, but you don’t necessarily need to complete the full exercise every time. If you feel grounded and ready to move on with your day, that’s great! Celebrate your success in soothing yourself.

An Exercise For Children and Adults

The 5-4-3-2-1 Grounding Exercise has helped many people who need to ground themselves. You may benefit from reviewing the details of the exercise and even practicing the skill when you are feeling relatively calm. That way, when you are in need of grounding, you have already practiced the skill and can more easily go through the steps. You may also want to keep a reminder of the five steps in your phone or print out the graphic we provided in this post.

If you have a loved one who has panic attacks or other intense worry symptoms, they may benefit from having someone gently guide them through this exercise. This includes children and teens, as well as adults. If this exercise doesn’t help to ground you or if you find that you (or a loved one) are often in need of a grounding exercise, it may be time to seek professional help.

Schedule an Appointment

A mental health professional can help you to master this grounding skill and learn additional ways to cope. If you live in the state of Alabama or can visit Auburn, AL for an in-person appointment, you can schedule an appointment at Auburn Psychological Wellness Center. We offer counseling, psychiatry services, and psychological assessment. We have providers who can see children (8+), teens, and adults. Call us at 334-219-0425 or review our information on scheduling an appointment.

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Check out additional blog posts from Auburn Psychological Wellness Center. We post periodically on topics related to mental health, coping, relationships, counseling, and psychiatry.