When anxious, our thoughts can feel out of control. That’s when a grounding exercise comes in handy. Here’s how to calm your anxious mind with the five senses grounding technique, including tips for beginners, a downloadable, and more.

Grounding exercises are so-called because they ground us in the present moment. Imagine your anxious thoughts are an out-of-control hot air balloon. A grounding exercise is the lifesaving anchor that tethers you to the earth.

The five senses grounding technique gives you a way to interrupt anxious ruminations and focus on the present moment by bringing awareness to the different types of sensory information in your environment. It’s a simple way to combat stress and anxiety as it’s happening.

Here’s all you need to get started:

Five Senses Grounding Technique Instructions

When you start to feel anxious, pause for five minutes. Spend approximately one minute of awareness on each of your five senses, using these prompts:

  • Sight: Chose one object to focus on and note all the details you observe.
  • Touch: Hold or touch one object and give all of your attention to the way it feels.
  • Hearing: Observe the sounds in your environment.
  • Smell: Notice how your environment smells as you inhale slowly through your nose.
  • Taste: Describe the taste in your mouth.

Tips for Beginners

If you’re just getting started with the five senses grounding technique, here are a few pointers to help you maximize your efforts.

  • The goal is to spend approximately one minute on each sense, but this isn’t a rigid requirement. After you think you’ve noted everything in your environment, it’s good to sit in observance of each prompt just a little while longer. This gives you the opportunity to observe additional stimuli that went unnoticed at first. At the same time, there’s no need to set a timer, watch the clock, or get frustrated if you can’t detect anything. Simply move on to the next prompt.
  • It’s normal for your mind to wander from time-to-time. Don’t let this bother you. Simply note it with a thought like, “Thinking,” or “Wandering,” and come back to where you left off in the exercise. Catching and redirecting your wandering mind is part of the exercise, so no need to be discouraged.
  • If you feel comfortable in your environment, try closing your eyes while experiencing each of the senses, except sight. This helps to focus your attention.
  • If there is no object in your hands to touch, try touching something on your body. Feel the fabric of an article of clothing, run your hands through your hair, or make a fist and feel your hand rolled up like a ball.
  • If you can’t taste anything in your mouth after several seconds of focused attention, try one of these alternatives. Recall the last thing you ate, remembering how it tasted, the texture, and how it made you feel. Alternatively, run the tip of your tongue over the inside of each tooth individually until you’ve felt every tooth in your mouth.

Why The Five Senses Grounding Technique Calms Anxiety

The five senses grounding technique is an effective tool for calming anxiety because it helps to interrupt your selective attention, is a way to practice mindfulness, and may affect the relationship between sensory memories and emotions.

Selective attention

The five senses grounding technique works by focusing your selective attention on a single stimulus. Selective attention occurs automatically and was best demonstrated in this video, which I used to show to my Introduction to Psychology students.

Spoiler alert! Try watching the video before moving on. It’s worth the one-minute investment to see it for yourself.

In the video, two teams of participants pass basketballs. Students are asked to count the number of passes. After twenty seconds, most students can count the right number of passes. Yet, most also miss the strangest thing, a gorilla that walks through the crowd.

Why does this happen? Selective attention. Our brains are wired to give only one thing our undivided attention. Selective attention dictates that we can’t focus on two things at once (at least not very well).

When practicing the five senses grounding technique, our brain is forced to focus on sensory stimuli. Since we can’t focus on both, it takes our attention away from our anxiety and redirects it to our senses.

Mindfulness

Does this technique get rid of our anxious thoughts forever? I wish! That’s not possible. However, this technique is highly effective at getting you out of your head and down into your body. It helps you become mindful of your senses.

Mindfulness is purposeful, non-judgmental awareness of the present moment. By focusing on your current experiential sensations and catching yourself when your mind wanders, the five senses grounding technique is a form of mindfulness meditation. These types of meditations have been shown to decrease anxiety, depression, and pain.[1]

Sensory Memory & Emotions

In addition, this technique may be understood through a biological perspective. Neuroplasticity refers to our brain’s ability to adapt both in structure and function over time. In essence, our brains can rewire themselves. The five senses grounding technique can facilitate communication, and thereby strengthen the connection (or wiring), between different regions in the brain.

The region of our brain responsible for understanding and gathering information from the five senses is known as the sensory cortex. This region can be particularly active in those with anxiety and PTSD.

Research on this population reveals the sensory cortex may play a role in the way threat memories are stored and activated.[2] In other words, traumatic events are likely to be encoded and stored in our memory with strong correlations with the five senses. This is why a particular scent or song might take you right back to a moment in time in which the memory was stored.

One researcher concluded those with anxiety disorders have a sensory-based memory system that is overly active.[3] So, experiences an anxious individual perceived as threatening may be stored in memory with a strong link to the sensory cortex. As we sense the world around us, it can activate those memories. Drawing on the power of neuroplasticity, it’s possible we can engage in activities (in a nonthreatening environment) to rewire these sensory experiences.

In addition, research shows those with anxiety can have a weaker connection between the sensory cortex and the frontal lobe.[4] The frontal lobe is responsible for high-level information processing, including things like self-monitoring and controlling responses to stimuli. Again, it’s possible anxious individuals can work to rewire their brains such that the sensory cortex and frontal lobe get better at “talking” to each other.

If we can learn to use our sensory information to create calming experiences and memories, perhaps we can rewire the brain. The five senses grounding technique is one way to practice. The better we get at training our attention to the present moment, tolerating our sensory information, and calming ourselves, the more positive associations we can develop between sensory information and emotional responses.

Five Sense Grounding Technique Download

Need a reminder? Download and print this visual. Use it as a reminder to pause and experience your senses.

5-Senses-Printable-11-×-8.5-inDownload

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[1] Goyal M, Singh S, Sibinga EMS, et al. Meditation Programs for Psychological Stress and Well-being: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. JAMA Intern Med. 2014;174(3):357–368. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2013.13018

[2] You, Y., Novak, L. R., Clancy, K. J., & Li, W. (2022). Pattern differentiation and tuning shift in human sensory cortex underlie long-term threat memory. Current Biology.

[3] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-athletes-way/202203/beyond-amygdala-researchers-unearth-new-pathway-fear

[4] Li, X., Zhang, M., Li, K., Zou, F., Wang, Y., Wu, X., & Zhang, H. (2019). The Altered Somatic Brain Network in State Anxiety. Frontiers in psychiatry, 10, 465. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2019.00465