Every week I’d like to present a new grounding technique or coping strategy that can help anyone who is struggling with overwhelming anxiety, intrusive thoughts, PTSD triggers, or stress. Not all of the strategies and techniques I provide will work for everyone. You will just have to try them and see what works for you. The more tools you have in your toolbox, the better!
Today I’m going to teach you about the 5-4-3-2-1 Technique, which I have found very helpful for me. When I feel like a panic attack or one of my dissociative seizures is coming on, or when my PTSD is triggered or when I can’t stop my thoughts from keeping me awake, I will more often than not use this technique to ground me. It helps me to focus on what is real and present and calms my fight, flight, or freeze response.
It’s very simple. Like a kindergarten game.
- What are 5 things you can see? You can name the first five things that you see, or you can look for smaller details in your surroundings, like patterns in the paint or creatures in the clouds or ways the light reflects off of an object or items that come in pairs and sets, etc.
- What are 4 things you can feel? Notice the sensations of clothes touching your skin, sunlight hitting you, the temperature of a chair you sit in, the texture of the pages you’re flipping through, the size and weight of the pen you’re holding, the way that band aid irritates you, etc.
- What are 3 things you can hear? Pay special attention to the sounds that your mind has probably tuned out: the ticking of that grandfather clock, distant traffic, trees blowing in the wind, laundry flipping in the dryer, cardinals calling, squirrels jabbering, etc.
- What are 2 things you can smell? What about the burnt smell that comes from the space heater turning on? Cookies baking in the oven or freshly mowed grass? The smell of rain right before a thunderstorm or your grandmother’s potpourri? Maybe there aren’t legitimate smells going on, so you look around for something that should have a smell, like a candle, a flower, your kid’s gym socks, etc.
- What is 1 thing you can taste? This one may be hard unless you carry gum, candy, snacks, orange juice, or flavored water with you. If I don’t have anything immediately to bite down on or suck, I just try to describe the taste of my tongue running along my teeth or the ridges on the roof of my mouth or the tiny amount of blood leaking from bitten lips.
If you are still feeling stressed…go through the whole exercise again. And maybe a third time. However many times it takes.
One of my therapists once told me that she had never seen or heard of a person doing this exercise and still going into a panic attack – because it’s nearly impossible for your brain to truly focus on multiple things at a time. While you are focusing on counting and sensing, the part of your brain that was panicking, stressing, triggering before cannot continue. It is stopped short in its progress.
I am definite proof that my therapist was right about this.
Another way you can use this exercise is to combine it with a good memory.
One of my good memories is hiking this old mountain in North Macedonia called Vodno. I close my eyes and visualize starting my trek through the trees, cresting the top, hiking along the mountain ridge, and screeing down the canyon to the raging river beside Matka.
As I wander with a purpose, I start noticing things that I see, taste, feel, hear, and smell.
I smell
clean, alpine air
Woodsmoke from the mountain men’s fires
Wet cows or goats that a shepherd shepherds
Dust that clogs my sinuses on especially dry days.
I feel
Tree roots trying to trip me
Rocks falling around me and under me
Sap on the pines
A stitch in my side
I taste
Clotted dirt falling in my mouth from climbing
Rakia from the mountain men and its burning
Gulps of blessed clean air above the pollution
Turkish coffee if I’m unlucky
I hear
Birds singing, cavorting, crying, twittering, tweeting
Massive spruce limbs groaning in the wind
Mountain men singing and sometimes
Nothing – absolute quiet and stillness
I see
The layers of mountains surrounding Vodno like a fortress
The trees in snowy Narnian stillness
The ridge beckoning us
The canyon drop, drop, dropping below us
This is one of my best memories. It makes me calm and happy and there is no room left for pain, worry, fear, or triggers. While doing the 5-4-3-2-1 technique forces us to focus on the present, the memory allows us also to remember the past in a time we felt safe and free.
I hope this helps you as much as it does me!