3 – Grounding exercise

Grounding is a practice that can help with flashbacks, panic attacks, unwanted memories, and negative or challenging emotions.

Teach the person you care for how to use some of this simple techniques:

1. Pick up or touch items near you. Then describe the thing: is it soft or hard? Heavy or light? What is the texture, the colour?
2. Move your body or tap yourself lightly with your hands. Do a few exercises or stretches, or just jumping up and down. Pay attention to how your body feels with each movement and when your hands or feet touch the floor or move through the air.
3. Look around your surroundings. For example, go to your window and keep naming everything you see, a car, a dog, a cloud, a tree, an old lady, etc.

These techniques may help distract you from what you are experiencing and refocus on what is happening in the present moment.