Finding Your Feet: Grounding in Psychology and Everyday Life
When the World Feels Unsteady
When life feels like it’s spinning too fast, your heart racing, thoughts jumping, or body feeling numb, it can be hard to feel “here.” Maybe you’ve found yourself zoning out during a meeting, replaying an argument, or feeling on autopilot after a stressful moment.
In psychology, this state of disconnection is common and completely understandable. Our brains and bodies are wired to protect us from distress. Grounding is one of the simplest ways to reconnect with the present moment, to find your feet, literally and metaphorically, when things feel unsteady.
Grounding isn’t about forcing calm or pretending everything’s fine. It’s about creating a small island of steadiness when emotions or memories start to pull you under.
What Does “Grounding” Mean in Psychology?
Grounding refers to practical techniques that help bring your attention back to the present, back to your body, your senses, and your surroundings. We often use grounding when someone experiences:
Dissociation (feeling spaced out or disconnected)
Flashbacks or intrusive memories
Panic or anxiety
Emotional overwhelm or shutdown
Sensory overload or impulsive urges
Think of grounding like placing a steady hand on the wall when you feel dizzy. It doesn’t remove the dizziness, but it gives you something solid to lean on until your balance returns.
Why Grounding Matters
Imagine your brain as a smoke alarm. It’s designed to protect you, but sometimes it goes off not because of a fire, but because of burnt toast. Grounding helps you pause, check what’s really happening, and gently turn down the alarm.
Grounding helps bridge the gap between body and mind. By engaging the senses or reorienting to time and place, it can reduce panic, help regulate the nervous system, and re-establish a sense of control.
Research in recent years has shown that grounding can:
Reduce acute distress and panic symptoms
Support emotional regulation and reorientation after flashbacks
Help maintain presence during trauma processing
Grounding alone isn’t a treatment for trauma; it’s a stabilisation skill that helps you stay steady enough to engage in therapy and daily life safely.
When Grounding Helps, and When It Might Not
Grounding can be especially helpful when:
· You feel anxious, disconnected, or overwhelmed
· You’re reorienting after a trigger or flashback
· You need to calm before deeper therapy or emotional processing
· You’re learning emotion regulation skills (e.g. in DBT or schema therapy)
However, grounding may not be helpful, or may need adaptation, when:
· Sensory techniques (like cold water or scents) feel overstimulating
· Focusing on the body increases distress (common in complex trauma)
· You use grounding to avoid emotions long-term rather than manage them
· You need co-regulation (support from another person) to feel safe
In trauma-informed care, choice and consent are key. What grounds one person may overwhelm another. There’s no “right way” to ground, just what works best for your nervous system.
How Grounding Works: A Neuroscience Snapshot
From a neuropsychological perspective, grounding helps re-engage the brain’s attention and regulate the autonomic nervous system. According to Polyvagal Theory, grounding can help shift the body from states of fight, flight, or freeze into a calmer state associated with safety and connection (ventral vagal state). In simple terms, grounding helps the body remember that the danger has passed, even when the mind hasn’t caught up yet. It does this by:
Redirecting attention to sensory information
Reconnecting awareness to time and place
Helping the prefrontal cortex (thinking brain) regain control from the amygdala (alarm system)
Everyday Examples of Grounding
Grounding doesn’t need to be elaborate. It’s often subtle, practical, and woven into everyday moments.
During conflict: You notice your body heating up in an argument, press your feet into the floor, slow your breath, or feel the edge of the table under your hands.
After conflict: You feel flooded after a confrontation, run cool water over your hands or step outside to feel the air on your face.
At work: Before replying to a tense email, you feel the seat of your chair against your back and notice your posture.
At home: You hold a warm mug or take a slow breath while standing at the sink.
In parenting: You place a hand on your heart or on the bench before responding to your child.
In public: While waiting in line, you quietly name three colours you can see.
Across all of these moments, grounding isn’t about erasing emotions, instead the focus is to try to stay present enough to choose your next step rather than reacting on autopilot.
Types of Grounding Techniques
Grounding isn’t one single technique. It’s a family of strategies that work in different ways for different nervous systems. Think of grounding like a toolkit rather than a rulebook. You don’t need to use every tool. You just need the ones that work for you.
Sensory Grounding (External Focus)
Sensory grounding uses external sensory input to anchor attention in the here and now. Examples:
Name five things you can see, four you can feel, three you can hear
Hold a textured object (stone, fabric, fidget)
Sip something warm or strong-tasting
Notice pressure through your feet or hands
Think of this approach like tuning a radio. You’re gently adjusting the dial from “panic static” back to the “present moment” channel.
Body-Based Grounding (Physical Awareness)
This approach brings attention to physical sensation and support in the body. Examples:
Press your feet into the floor
Feel the chair supporting your weight
Stretch slowly or tense and release muscles
Rub your palms together or squeeze an object
This is similar to dropping an anchor from your body into solid ground.
Movement-Based Grounding (Rhythm & Action)
Movement grounding uses gentle, rhythmic action to reorient awareness. Examples:
Walk slowly and name each step
Rock, sway, or stretch with awareness
Stomp your feet and notice contact with the ground
Imagine letting your body lead you back to the present moment when your mind feels lost.
Cognitive & Reorientation Grounding (Thinking & Orientation)
These strategies use thinking and factual orientation to interrupt spirals and flashbacks. Examples:
Name the date, time, and location
Say your full name and where you are
Count backwards or describe your surroundings
Use orienting statements: “I’m safe right now”
You can compare this to handing your brain a simple map when it’s taken a wrong turn.
Meaning-Based & Imagery Grounding (Emotional Safety)
This category draws on values, imagery, and emotional connection. Examples:
Repeat a compassionate phrase (“I’ve survived this before”)
Visualise a safe or steady place
Recall a memory linked with warmth or strength
Connect briefly with a personal value
Like lighting a small candle in the dark, it doesn’t erase the darkness, but it helps you find your feet and reminds you the darkness is not all there is.
A Trauma-Informed, Neurodivergent-Affirming Approach
If you’re autistic, ADHD, or have sensory sensitivities, grounding may need tailoring.
Adjust techniques: Some people may find deep pressure soothing, while others prefer quiet or visual focus.
Reduce overstimulation: Avoid strong scents, loud sounds, or intense temperature shifts any of these techniques make you feel overwhelmed rather than helping you calm.
Include stimming or movement: Many people have their own “grounding” exercises. Stims or other “fidget movements” can be natural grounding tools, not “bad habits.”
When Grounding Isn’t Enough
Grounding can reduce physical distress, or help you with an emotional reaction, but it doesn’t address the deeper cause of the feeling. If you notice your emotions feels unmanageable or grounding increases discomfort, it may help to reach out for additional support. Most therapies integrate grounding within a broader framework for emotion regulation and trauma recovery. It’s not a stand-alone treatment. If you ever feel unsafe, you can contact:
Lifeline: 13 11 14
Beyond Blue: 1300 22 4636
Your GP or local psychologist
Helpful Tips
Practise when calm – skills are easier to use under stress if they’re familiar.
Be curious, not critical – notice what helps and what doesn’t (nothing is a “one-size-fits-all”.
Adapt to your needs – there’s no “right” or “wrong” version, just finding what fits you.
Integrate small moments – try to apply techniques before meetings, in the car, before sleep and build gradually.
Create a grounding kit – you can include items, scents, or phrases that help you to create a sense of peace or safety.
Grounding vs Mindfulness: What’s the Difference?
Mindfulness focuses on observing experiences with openness, while grounding focuses on stabilising when distress is high. Think of grounding as the seatbelt, and mindfulness as the drive, one helps you stay present and calm enough to keep going forward.
A Gentle Reminder
Grounding is a bridge, not a cure. It won’t erase trauma or fix long-term patterns on its own, and it’s not meant to. The purpose of grounding is as one of many tools to help steady you enough to take the next step, toward connection, healing, or simply getting through the current moment without making it worse.
If grounding hasn’t worked that’s not a failure, but an important piece of information as to what helps and what doesn’t. Everyone’s nervous system needs something different. Sometimes the most grounding thing you can do is pause, breathe, and remind yourself:
“I’m here. I’m able to manage this moment. I can take the next step.”
