K – Keeping It Together When Life Feels Chaotic: Grounding Skills That Work
When Everything Feels Out of Control
Life can feel chaotic at times. Sudden change, loss, or stress can leave you feeling disconnected from yourself and unsure of how to cope. When emotions run high, your thoughts may race, your body tenses, and your usual sense of control seems to disappear.
Grounding skills help you come back to the present moment. They are practical, evidence-based tools that calm your body, steady your thoughts, and help you reconnect with a sense of safety. Whether you are managing anxiety, trauma triggers, or everyday stress, grounding is what allows you to “keep it together” in a healthy, sustainable way.
Grounding is not about pretending everything is fine. It is about reminding your mind and body that you are safe right now and capable of handling what comes next. When practiced consistently, grounding becomes a bridge between emotional chaos and calm clarity.
1. Understand What Grounding Really Means
Grounding means reestablishing your connection to the here and now. It helps redirect attention away from overwhelming thoughts, memories, or sensations and toward what is tangible in the present.
In therapy, grounding is often used within trauma-informed approaches, including Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), and somatic regulation work. These approaches recognize that distressing emotions are often accompanied by physiological changes. When anxiety spikes, your heart races, breathing quickens, and your body prepares for danger. Grounding techniques help deactivate that stress response, signaling to your brain that it is safe to return to balance.
Importantly, grounding does not mean suppressing emotion. It means creating enough internal steadiness to face emotions safely. This distinction helps clients build resilience instead of avoidance.
Try this reflection:
When you feel scattered or panicked, pause and ask, “Where am I right now? What is real in this moment?” Naming your surroundings helps bring your focus out of the mental spiral and into what you can directly experience.
Grounding is one of the core tools therapists teach to prevent emotional flooding and support emotional regulation between sessions. It is simple, but its effects can be profound when practiced intentionally.
2. Start with the Five Senses Method
The 5-4-3-2-1 technique is a cornerstone of grounding practice. It helps reorient your attention to sensory input, which is one of the fastest ways to interrupt anxious or intrusive thoughts.
Here is how it works:
5 things you can see: Name colors, shapes, or light patterns around you.
4 things you can touch: Notice the texture of your clothing, the chair beneath you, or the temperature of the air.
3 things you can hear: Tune into subtle sounds like a fan, birds, or your own breathing.
2 things you can smell: Identify scents nearby, like soap, coffee, or the air outside.
1 thing you can taste: Sip water, chew gum, or notice the taste of your mouth.
This simple sensory reset helps shift your awareness from distressing inner experiences to the external environment. The brain cannot stay in high alert when it is focused on neutral sensory data. Over time, this technique teaches your body that safety can coexist with stress, reducing long-term reactivity.
You can also personalize the five-senses method. Some people find it helpful to focus on a single sense more deeply, such as sight or touch. Others might combine it with slow breathing to enhance calm. What matters most is using your senses to anchor yourself in the moment.
Therapist insight: Practicing grounding when you are calm builds a habit that becomes easier to access when anxiety rises. Try a brief sensory check-in once or twice a day, even during peaceful moments.
3. Use Breathing as Your Anchor
Your breath is a built-in grounding tool that travels with you everywhere. When life feels chaotic, breathing techniques can regulate your nervous system in just a few minutes.
Stress often triggers shallow, rapid breathing, which sends signals of danger to the brain. Intentional breathing reverses this process by activating the parasympathetic nervous system, the body’s natural “calm down” system.
Box Breathing Exercise
Inhale slowly for four counts.
Hold your breath for four counts.
Exhale gently for four counts.
Pause for four counts before starting again.
Repeat this for one to two minutes. You may notice your shoulders lowering, your thoughts slowing, or your heartbeat evening out. These are signs your nervous system is shifting back to balance.
Other helpful breathing techniques include diaphragmatic breathing (deep belly breathing) or the 4-7-8 method, where you inhale for four counts, hold for seven, and exhale for eight. The extended exhale helps the body fully release tension.
Reflection prompt: What happens in your body when you intentionally slow your breathing? Try noticing where you hold stress and whether it begins to ease after a few breaths.
Practicing mindful breathing daily, even just for 60 seconds, can improve emotional stability, concentration, and overall stress tolerance.
4. Ground Yourself Through Movement
Movement is one of the most direct ways to regulate the mind. When you feel emotionally overloaded, physical movement provides an outlet for energy that the body does not know how to release.
Grounding through movement can be subtle or structured:
Simple grounding movements: Stretch your hands, rotate your shoulders, or feel your feet pressing firmly against the floor.
Walking grounding: Take a slow, deliberate walk. Notice the sensation of each step, your breathing, and your surroundings.
Somatic grounding: Gently tap your legs or arms, or place your hand over your heart to connect with your physical presence.
For those who prefer more intentional activity, yoga, tai chi, or mindful stretching can provide both grounding and relaxation. These practices combine physical movement with awareness, which helps reestablish control over your body’s responses.
From a trauma-informed perspective, movement also helps release stored tension that can accumulate after stressful or overwhelming experiences. Engaging the body in gentle, rhythmic motion can signal to the nervous system that it is safe to let go.
Therapist tip: Choose grounding movements you can do anywhere: at your desk, in your car, or while waiting in line. The goal is not performance, but reconnection.
5. Use Affirmations That Reconnect You to the Present
Grounding statements, sometimes called reality-based affirmations, help orient your thoughts toward safety and truth. They are most effective when they are short, specific, and believable.
Examples include:
“I am safe in this moment.”
“This feeling will pass.”
“I have survived hard things before.”
“I can take the next small step.”
In CBT, these statements help interrupt cognitive distortions, those automatic negative thoughts that can make stress feel even more overwhelming. Repeating affirmations out loud, or writing them where you can see them, reinforces realistic thinking.
You can personalize your own grounding phrases by completing statements like:
“Right now, I am noticing…”
“What I can control in this moment is…”
“My body is safe even if my mind feels anxious.”
Grounding affirmations work best when paired with breathwork or sensory focus. They combine mental, emotional, and physical awareness into one cohesive tool for self-regulation.
Bringing Grounding Into Daily Life
Grounding is not only for crisis moments. When practiced regularly, it becomes a preventative skill that keeps stress from building up.
Consider adding short grounding breaks to your routine:
Take a mindful breath before you open an email or start a meeting.
Notice one thing you appreciate on your daily commute or walk.
Spend 30 seconds checking in with how your body feels before responding to a stressful situation.
These small moments help retrain your brain to notice safety and calm even during uncertainty. Over time, grounding can improve focus, reduce anxiety, and support more mindful decision-making.
You do not have to control every situation to feel stable. You only need tools that help you stay present and connected.
Reflection question: What grounding technique feels most natural to you? Consider practicing it daily for one week and noticing any changes in your mood or stress levels.
If you find it difficult to stay grounded or feel like life is constantly overwhelming, therapy can help you strengthen these skills. I offer online therapy for adults across Ohio, helping clients learn to calm the chaos, restore balance, and reconnect with their sense of control and peace.
— Sam Long, LISW
Founder of Long Therapy Services, LLC
-Growth and Healing, Wherever You Are-
Ready to start? Contact me today or schedule through Headway or SonderMind.
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The information on this page is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional therapy, diagnosis, or treatment. If you are in crisis, call or text 988 (Suicide and Crisis Lifeline) or go to your nearest emergency department.
