When we have anxiety we get lost in our thoughts and our body starts to react. Grounding is an effective way to calm anxiety during a panic attack. In the practice of grounding and centering, you identify objects around you to help your brain recognize where you are. This creates a sense of comfort because you know where you are and you feel more in control of the situation.
Here are some written scripts and audio files that can guide you in grounding and centering to reduce anxiety.
Guided Meditation Using the five sense – Audio
Guided Meditation Using the five sense – written script
Hello and welcome to this guided meditation practice using your five senses to ground and to help soothe anxiety. My name is Mark Carpenter and I’m a licensed mental health counselor in Chattanooga, TN. I have a series of guided meditation practices to help you ground and self soothe anxiety. In this one we will use our five senses to help ground / anchor us when we are filled with anxious thoughts, body sensations, or emotions.
So… try to find a quiet location and free of distractions. Any body posture or position can work. I prefer to find a comfortable chair or lie on the floor, find a place that works best for you.
Let’s start by just noticing your breath. Feel yourself let go as you focus on your breathing, your goal is to try and watch your body breath. At first it may feel like you are making your body breath but continue to watch the breath inhale and exhale. As you let go you will notice it does it without your effort. Don’t try to change anything just notice your breathing. Put your attention, your focus on the breath. Noticing the natural inhale… and exhale… as your breath enters… and leaves the body. You may even want to turn it into a prayer. As the breath comes in, say in your mind, “Son / Daughter I love you” as the breath comes out, say in your mind, “Father I love You.” Try to let your body naturally breathe just notice it as you say the prayer in your mind.
So we’ll start this Five Sense mediation with the sense of touch. So I want you to notice how your body is supported by whatever you’re sitting on. Whether you’re on the ground, couch or chair, just notice how your body makes contact to whatever is supporting you right now. As you notice it you may feel your body relax and let go. Notice the sensations of your body letting go and trusting what is holding you.
Next…bring awareness to your feet. This may take a moment but just notice how your feet are making contact to the ground… and if you’re wearing shoes or socks just notice your feet inside the shoes or socks… just bringing your awareness to the subtleties of the shoes and socks on your feet.
Now let’s bring your awareness to your clothing. Become aware of how your clothing is resting on your body, feel how it rests on your neck, shoulders, and legs. You might even just take your hand and rub it across your shorts or pants, or your shirt just to notice the texture of your clothing… just really allowing yourself to notice your clothing and noticing the texture. Bring awareness to how your inhales and exhales… the clothing moves on your body…just really allowing yourself to notice that very subtle movement.
Next bring your awareness to how your inhales and exhales… the clothing moves on your body…just really allowing yourself to notice that very subtle movement.
Next we’ll bring our awareness to the sense of sound. So what I’d like you to do now is just notice any sounds that you hear outside of the building you’re in… and you might not notice any and that’s fine… just either way…see if you can bring your awareness to the sounds outside of the building.
Next I’d like you to bring your awareness to the sounds inside the building… you might notice the AC… or if you’re at work or at home with other people you may hear a conversation or subtle noises. Just bring your awareness to any of the sounds you hear inside of the building
And next I’d like you to bring your awareness to the absence of sound… so just the space between any obvious sounds that you hear…
Next I’d like you to bring your awareness to your sense of smell. Now with this one…you might notice the subtle scent of something… or you may notice the absence of any scent…and either way just notice and be aware of what is happening within your sense of smell…
And another grounding tool you can use is allowing yourself to smell things that are… that smell nice to you like lavender, or jasmine, or vanilla, or coconut…that would be intentionally bringing a scent in that you like to smell.
Next let’s bring our awareness to the sense of taste…and similar to smell it might be that you notice a sense of taste or it might be that you notice the absence of a taste…and either way it’s just fine… Just bring your awareness there…and while we’re here…. Watching our noticing the sense of taste…one thing you can do is intentionally bring water to your mouth because that sends a signal to your nervous system that you’re in the rest and digest mode…so it’s calming… so see if you can intentionally bring water to your mouth or make your mouth salivate.
And lastly, we’ll tune in to the sense of sight. And what I’d like you to do is just look around the room where you are and I’d like you to identify five colors that are either neutral or in some ways pleasing to you…
Next I’d like you to identify three different surfaces that have different textures…you might notice the flat and smooth wall…or a blanket that’s kind of ruffled up…or the flat smooth surface of a glass of water…just notice different textures.
And finally with your sense of sight… I’d like you to notice the different…three different shapes…just look around the room and notice different shapes that you see…then notice shapes, colors, light reflecting, the furniture, pictures, the floors and ceiling.
So we have traveled through the five senses in this guided mindfulness and meditation practice to help soothe anxiety and we’ll close our practice with three inhales and exhales….
So inhaling…1,2,3,4
Exhaling…1,2,3,4
Inhaling…1,2,3,4
Exhaling…1,2,3,4
Inhaling…1,2,3,4
Exhaling…1,2,3,4