Grounding Exercises for When You’re Stressed

Let’s face it, we all get stressed at times, or frustrated enough the day just seems to go down hill for us. Kids and adults all have these moments and not all of us know just how to deal with it. Being aware is the first step. The first sign of anger, frustration or even stress you need to realize it and do something about it. Once you are aware you’re stressed, take a deep breath and realize you are human. It happens, there’s no need to beat yourself up for it in anyway. Second step is to get grounded again, or balance yourself. 

Here are two exercises for both children and adults to try in any moment of stress. 

 

 

Find the Rainbow

This grounding technique is really easy for anyone to do.

How to do it – Look around you and find each color in order of the rainbow. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. Repeat until calm.

As you are focusing on each color you are grounding yourself and calming the mind, and body at once. Make sure you take slow deep breathes as you go through to the next color. Really focus on the shade of it as well. Take it in, is it a bright color, or dark color, does it have different shades of the same color running through it? Is there a pattern to it? Take the time to focus fully on each and every color. 

Even if it takes you twenty minutes it’s important to go through all the colors.  Re-evaluate your emotions once you are done. Are your thoughts still on the negative issue that caused stress? If so, repeat the Rainbow technique until you are calm. 

Another exercise you can do is the Find Exercise. This is also very easy and really helps . 

Find

5 things you can see
4 things you can touch
3 things you can hear
2 things you can smell
1 thing you can taste

Repeat until calm. Just like Find the Rainbow, really focus on the objects you find If the situation is really stressful the more you focus on each object, how the shape is, the color, how big or small it is, the more you’ll be taking focus away from the situation and onto something else.

 

The point of these two exercises is that you are taking all your focus off the stressful issue at hand, grounding your thoughts and body into a calm state. You cannot work, communicate, or even finish a project if you are beyond frustrated with things. When is the last time a frustrating situation went well with a bad mood? It doesn’t.  The fact is, when our minds are clouded with negative thoughts and stress not much else will happen. We need to take time and step out of the stressful moment to calm down. Doesn’t matter where you are, or what you are doing, the best thing you can do for yourself is de-stress and ground yourself. 

Once you are calm you may be able to step back into whatever it was you were doing before, but now with a calmer mind and clear thoughts. You are ultimately balancing yourself, as stress is a constant unbalanced state.