Managing Stress and Anxiety: The 54321 Mindfulness Grounding Practice

A mindfulness exercise that can help in times of stress and anxiety called the 54321 grounding practice.

Photo by Lacie Slezak on Unsplash

Would you agree that “life is stressful” and tends to throw at us a curveball when we least expect it?   In these instances, you might initially feel overwhelmed with no or little access to your internal resources.  This can cause us to get lost in our heads, anxious thinking about how the situation might develop, and many a time, we end up caught in a downward spiral of negative thinking.     

Stress and anxiety are part and parcel of our life.  We all can recall moments when we felt anxious and stressed.  Curiously enough, evolutionary psychology tells us that anxiety is a normative experience and an important one as it’s an adaptive system in the body that evolves to signal to us when we might be in danger (Workman & Reader, 2014).  This was called the “smoke detector principle” (Nesse, 2005), and in our distant past, it was very important as it might have made a difference between seeing a shadow behind a rock and getting anxious, thinking the shadow might be a sabre tooth tiger and avoiding getting eaten.  So, evolution has wired our brain to feel anxious in moments when we face uncertainty.

Although nowadays we no longer live in the palaeolithic, we still encounter situations in our lives that, even if positive, might make us feel anxious.  These could be situations like receiving a promotion at work, giving a presentation for a project, taking an exam, or performing in a sports competition.  In fact, if we reflect on it, most of us experience a degree of anxiety regularly in our lives.  Research also shows us that a degree of anxiety is beneficial and needed and also helps us in performing better at tasks (Kalat, 2019).  This is called the Yerkes-Dodson principle of optimal arousal (Telgen, 1994; Yerkes & Dodson, 1908). Below is a diagram of the Yerkes-Dodson principle of optimal arousal and a YouTube video explaining it.

This means that although an uncomfortable emotion dealing with anxiety does not involve eliminating it but rather encountering it and learning how to hold, approach, and manage it as part of our experience.  

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) shows us that our thoughts shape our emotions (Kennerley, Kirk, & Westbrook, 2017).  Still, we also know that our thoughts do not always reflect an accurate assessment of our situation (Barlow, Durand, & Hoffman, 2017; Kennerley, Kirk, & Westbrook, 2017).  Thoughts can be quite random, and more often than not, our minds have a tendency to conjure up hypothetical scenarios of “what if” that lack factual evidence.  This can cause us to spiral in the direction of catastrophic negative thinking, leading to feelings of anxiety in the body and sometimes panic.

In moments like these, mindfulness exercises can be of help.  Betty Alice Erickson (1938-2019), an Ericksonian psychotherapist daughter of psychiatrist Milton Erickson (1901-1980), developed the 54321 mindfulness grounding practice that might be helpful in these situations (Quick, 2013).

The 54321 grounding practice  

The 54321 grounding practice is a simple mindfulness technique that can help to manage stress and anxiety. It involves focusing on our five senses to bring our attention back to the present moment and away from the anxiety-provoking thoughts that can overwhelm us. Following is the short version of the mindfulness 54321 grounding practice, which can be applied in daily life:

Start by taking a few deep regulated breaths equalising the in-breath and the out-breath.  Here it might be helpful to use counting so you might breathe in on a count of 3 or 4 and breath out on a count of 3 or 4.  Once settled, breathing and counting, either sitting or standing, come the following steps.

5.  Things You Can See:  Acknowledge 5 things you can see around you.  For example, this might be everyday objects like a computer mouse, a coffee mug, a pencil or a pen on your office table.  Maybe you are outside noticing a flower, a tree, a rock, a cloud or a bird.  If you are at home, you might notice a picture on the wall, a book on a shelf, a chair or the colour of the wall.  So you can choose items of different sizes, however big or small, that you can see around you.

4.  Things you can Touch:  Acknowledge 4 things you can touch around you.  For example, This might be feeling the texture of the trouser you are wearing.  Maybe feeling the floor as it touches your feet or the chair beneath you.  Maybe the desk in front of you, the keys, or the feeling of the wind on your cheeks. Perhaps feeling the texture or weight of the items you are touching.  So choosing 4 items to feel you can reach with your hands or are in contact with your body.

3.  Things You Can Hear:  Acknowledge 3 things you can hear around you.  For example, maybe the sound of cars passing by or the sound of birds outside.  This might be the sound of the fridge working or the computer fan or a radio or TV.  So choose 3 sounds audible in your environment no matter how loud or soft they sound.

2.  Things You Can Smell: Acknowledge 2 things you can smell around you.  For example, this might be the smell of coffee, the fragrance of a flower, baking food, or cut grass.  Sometimes this step might be difficult because you might not perceive any smells in your environment.  If so, you might try to bring to mind 2 of your favourite smell or tune in to subtle smells around you, maybe the smell of the fabric of your clothes or skin.        

1.  Thing You Can Smell:  Acknowledge 1 thing you might be able to taste around you.  For example, this might be just noticing the taste in your mouth or on your tongue, and if you might not perceive any taste, you might try to experiment by recalling or imagining tasting the taste of your favourite food.

And to end this exercise, place your hand on your abdomen and take a few deep breaths from the abdomen, focusing your attention on how it feels to breathe out, maybe noticing any sensations of the body relaxing as you breathe out.  And gently notice how you feel after doing the exercise.

You can put the 54321 mindfulness grounding practice whenever you feel it might be helpful as many times as you find useful during your day.  If you are a beginner with this practice, some tips suggested by Battistin (2016) that might be helpful are the following:

1. It is suggested that when doing this particular grounding technique, if possible, keep your eyes open and even maybe speak out the items you might be seeing, touching, hearing, smelling or tasting.

2. As with any other “practice”, this exercise requires familiarising yourself with the steps and using it. At first, you might practice using it when you feel ok or at random times during the day, so when you need it, you are already familiar with using it.

3. And the last tip is social support, so you might recruit your close friends or family members or some person you trust in your life and tell them about the exercise and how to do it, and why you are using it, and in moments of difficulty, they might remind you to do it or guide you through the step of the exercise doing it together.

Below is a diagram of the 54321 grounding practice which you can print.

Bibliography

Barlow, D. H., Durand, V. M., & Hoffman, S. G. (2017). Abnormal psychology: An integrative approach (8 ed.). Mason, OH: Cengage Learning Custom Publishing.

Battistin, J. M. (2016, April 6). 5,4,3,2,1 method to reduce anxiety. Retrieved March 2, 2023, from Hope: Therapy Centre: https://www.hope-therapy-center.com/single-post/2016/04/06/54321-method-to-reduce-anxiety

Douglas, L. (2022). F*ck anxiety: 101 ways to soothe anxiety, stop the panic + get back to your badass self. Kansas, MO: Andrews McMeel Publishing.

Howell, D. (2021). You will get through this night. London: HarperCollins Publishers.

Kalat, J. (2019). Biological psychology (13th ed.). Belmont, CA: Cengage Learning Inc.

Kennerley, H., Kirk, J., & Westbrook, D. (2017). An introduction to cognitive behaviour therapy: Skills and applications (3 ed.). London: Sage Publications Ltd.

Nesse, R. M. (2005). Natual selection and the regulation of defenses: A signal detection analysis of the smoke detector principle. Evolution and Human Behavior, 26(1), 88-105. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2004.08.002

Quick, E. K. (2013). Solution focused anxiety management. A treatment and training manual. San Diego, CA: Academic Press Inc.

Telgen, K. H. (1994). Yerkes-Dodson: A law for all seasons. Theory & Psychology, 4(4), 522-547. doi:https://doi.org/10.1177/0959354394044004

Workman, L., & Reader, W. (2014). Evolutionary psychology (3rd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Yerkes, R. M., & Dodson, J. D. (1908). The relation of strength of stimulus to rapidity of habit-formation. Journal of Comparative Neurology and psychology, 18, 459-482.