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Welcome to Flexibility Fridays! 🌟

The power of psychological flexibility can help you adapt to life’s challenges, manage stress, and improve your overall psychological and emotional well-being. As part of our comprehensive approach to therapy, we integrate Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), trauma-informed methods, and polyvagal theory to enhance your flexibility and resilience. Let’s dive into what psychological flexibility is and how it can benefit you.

What is Psychological Flexibility?

Psychological flexibility refers to the ability to stay present and open to experiences, even when they are challenging, while taking actions that are in line with your values. This concept is central to Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and is essential for mental health and well-being.

Why is Psychological Flexibility Important?

Psychological flexibility helps you to:

• Adapt to Change: Navigate life’s ups and downs with greater ease.
• Manage Stress: Reduce the impact of stress on your mental and physical health.
• Enhance Well-Being: Improve overall life satisfaction and emotional resilience.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) Principles

ACT is a powerful therapeutic approach that focuses on six core processes to enhance psychological flexibility:

1. Clarifying Values: Identifying what truly matters to you and using these values to guide your actions.
2. Committed Action: Taking effective action guided by your values, even in the face of obstacles.
3. Acceptance: Embracing your thoughts and feelings without trying to change them.
4. Cognitive Defusion: Learning to see your thoughts as just thoughts, reducing their power over you.
5. Mindfulness: Staying present and fully engaging with the current moment.
6. Self-as-Context: Developing a sense of self that is separate from your thoughts and feelings.

Trauma-Informed Approaches

Trauma can have a profound impact on your ability to live a fulfilling life. By incorporating trauma-informed approaches, we help you:

• Process Trauma: Understand and make sense of past traumatic experiences, including ongoing, chronic stress.
• Build Resilience: Develop coping strategies to manage trauma-related responses.
• Enhance Flexibility: Use psychological flexibility to aid in trauma recovery and improve mental health.

Polyvagal Theory Applications

Polyvagal theory provides insight into how our nervous system responds to stress and trauma. By understanding and working with your body’s stress responses, we can help you:

• Regulate Your Nervous System: Learn self-regulation techniques to manage anxiety and stress.
• Improve Emotional Resilience: Enhance your ability to cope with life’s challenges.

Practical Exercises and Tips

To help you develop psychological flexibility, we offer a range of practical exercises and tips, including:

• Daily Mindfulness Practices: Simple techniques to stay present and reduce stress.
• Self-Awareness Exercises: Activities to increase your awareness of thoughts and feelings.
• Cognitive Defusion Techniques: Methods to see your thoughts as just thoughts and reduce their impact.
• Resilience Building Exercises: Strategies to enhance your emotional resilience.

Client Stories and Testimonials

Hearing from others who have successfully developed psychological flexibility can be inspiring and motivating. We will share success stories and testimonials from clients who have benefited from our integrated approach, providing practical examples of how these techniques have helped others.

Join Us for Flexibility Fridays!

Each Friday, we will explore topics related to psychological flexibility, providing you with valuable insights, practical tips, and inspiring stories. Stay tuned for our weekly posts and take the first step towards a more resilient and fulfilling life.

By focusing on psychological flexibility, you can better manage life’s challenges and improve your mental health. Whether you’re dealing with anxiety, depression, or trauma, our integrated approach can provide you with the tools and support you need to thrive.

How Being Present and Aware Can Help with High Anxiety and Perceived Problems

For many people experiencing high anxiety, thoughts are often dominated by worries about the future and a compulsion to control, fix, or solve potential issues. This future-focused mindset can lead to increased stress and a sense of being overwhelmed. However, adopting a practice of present moment awareness can provide significant benefits, including greater clarity and effectiveness in addressing perceived problems.

The Struggle with Future-Based Thoughts

When we are anxious, our minds frequently race ahead, trying to anticipate and solve future problems. This can create a cycle of worry and stress, as we become fixated on hypothetical scenarios and “what if” questions. The need to control and fix everything can lead to mental exhaustion and a sense of helplessness.

The Power of Present Moment Awareness

Present moment awareness, often cultivated through mindfulness practices, involves paying attention to our current experience without judgment. This means noticing our thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations as they arise, and allowing them to exist without immediately trying to change or fix them.

Strategies for Developing Present Moment Awareness:

1. Mindful Breathing: Focus on your breath as it moves in and out of your body. This simple practice can anchor you in the present moment.
2. Body Scan: Pay attention to different parts of your body, noticing any sensations without trying to alter them. This can help ground you in the here and now.
3. Observation of Thoughts: Imagine your thoughts as clouds passing through the sky or leaves floating down a stream. Notice them without getting attached or trying to solve them.

Benefits of Being Present:

1. Reduced Stress: By not getting entangled in future worries, you can reduce the overall level of stress and anxiety you experience.
2. Increased Clarity: Being present allows your mind to clear, making it easier to see solutions that you might have missed when you were overwhelmed by anxiety.
3. Enhanced Problem-Solving: When you are calm and present, you can approach problems more rationally and creatively, rather than reacting out of fear or panic.
4. Greater Emotional Regulation: Present moment awareness helps you become more attuned to your emotions, making it easier to manage them effectively.
5. Improved Focus: By training your mind to stay in the present, you can enhance your ability to concentrate on tasks and make more deliberate decisions.

Addressing the Fear of Letting Go

One common fear is that by being more present and less attached to worrying thoughts, you won’t find solutions to your problems. However, the opposite is often true. When you are present, your mind is less cluttered with anxiety, allowing you to think more clearly and make better decisions.

Conclusion

Embracing present moment awareness doesn’t mean ignoring your problems; rather, it means facing them with a calm and clear mind. By practicing mindfulness, you can reduce the grip of anxiety on your life, see your problems more clearly, and approach solutions with greater effectiveness. The clarity and peace that come from being present can empower you to handle life’s challenges more skillfully and with less distress.

ACT Tuesdays: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in Action

Welcome to ACT Tuesdays! 🌟

Every Tuesday, we delve into the powerful principles of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) to help you live a more meaningful and fulfilling life. Here’s what you can expect:

What ACT Tuesdays Are About:

ACT Tuesdays are designed to help you understand and apply the core concepts of ACT in your daily life. Each week, we’ll focus on a different aspect of ACT, providing you with practical tips, exercises, and insights.

Who This Is For:

• Individuals looking to manage stress, anxiety, and emotional difficulties.
• Those interested in learning mindfulness techniques and values-based living.
• Anyone wanting to develop psychological flexibility and resilience.

What to Expect:

1. Weekly Themes: Each Tuesday, we’ll explore a specific theme related to ACT, such as acceptance, defusion, values, committed action, self-as-context, and mindfulness.
2. Practical Exercises: Try out exercises designed to help you integrate ACT principles into your daily routine.
3. Real-Life Examples: Learn from real-life scenarios and success stories of how ACT can be applied to overcome challenges.
4. Engaging Discussions: Participate in discussions and share your experiences and insights with the community.
5. Expert Tips: Access tips and advice from ACT practitioners and mental health experts.

This Week’s Theme: Acceptance

Let’s start our ACT journey with the concept of acceptance. Acceptance means making room for unpleasant feelings and sensations instead of trying to suppress or avoid them. Here’s how you can practice acceptance today:

Exercise: Embracing Your Emotions

1. Notice Your Feelings: Take a few moments to sit quietly and notice any emotions you’re experiencing. Label them without judgment (e.g., “I’m feeling anxious”).
2. Allow and Accept: Instead of fighting or avoiding these feelings, allow them to be present. Remember, it’s okay to feel what you’re feeling.
3. Breathe Through It: Take deep breaths and imagine breathing into the area of your body where you feel the emotion. This can help you create space for the feeling.
4. Commit to Action: Identify one small action you can take today that aligns with your values, even in the presence of difficult emotions.

Discussion Prompt:

What emotions have you been struggling to accept lately? How did today’s exercise help you approach them differently? Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments below!

🌸 Mindfulness Monday: Embrace the Present Moment 🌸

Happy Mindfulness Monday! Let’s start the week by grounding ourselves in the present moment. Here are some simple yet powerful tips to help you be more mindful today:

1. Start with Your Breath 🌬️ Take a few deep, slow breaths. Inhale through your nose, hold for a few seconds, and exhale slowly through your mouth. Feel the air entering and leaving your body. This simple act can instantly bring you into the present.
2. Body Scan 🧘‍♀️ Take a moment to notice the sensations in your body. Start from your toes and slowly move up to your head. Notice any areas of tension or relaxation without judgment. Just observe.
3. Mindful Eating 🍽️ During your meals today, eat slowly and savor each bite. Pay attention to the taste, texture, and aroma of your food. This practice can make eating a more enriching and mindful experience.
4. Gratitude Pause 🙏 Take a few moments to reflect on things you’re grateful for. It could be as simple as the warmth of the sun or the support of a friend. This helps shift your focus to positive aspects of your life.
5. Mindful Walking 🚶‍♂️ If you go for a walk today, do it mindfully. Pay attention to the sensation of your feet touching the ground, the sounds around you, and the rhythm of your breath. Walking can be a wonderful way to practice mindfulness.

Remember, mindfulness is about being present and fully engaging with whatever you’re doing right now. Give these tips a try and see how they make a difference in your day.

How do you practice mindfulness?

The term “therapy” has long been rooted on the medical model which can often pathologize normal reactions to life events. Here are some key points and relevant research findings on this topic:

Medical Model and Pathologization

1. Medical Model Approach:

• The medical model views mental health issues primarily through the lens of illness and pathology, emphasizing diagnosis and treatment similar to physical health conditions.
• This approach often involves categorizing psychological experiences into disorders, which can sometimes lead to labeling normal variations in behavior and emotion as pathological.

1. Pathologization of Normal Reactions:

• Many critics argue that the medical model can pathologize normal reactions to life stressors, such as grief, anxiety, and sadness, by labeling them as disorders.
• The DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders), which is used for diagnosing mental disorders, has been criticized for expanding the definitions of disorders to include common and transient reactions to life events.

Relevant Research and Discussions

1. Critiques of the DSM:

• Studies and critiques highlight concerns that the DSM may lead to over-diagnosis and medicalization of normal emotional responses. For instance, the inclusion of “Adjustment Disorders” and the lowering of diagnostic thresholds for conditions like depression have been points of contention .
• Allen Frances, who chaired the DSM-IV Task Force, has spoken out against the DSM-5, arguing that it pathologizes normal human experiences and leads to over-medicalization .

1. Therapeutic Approaches:

• Some therapeutic approaches, such as Acceptance and Commitment Training (ACT) and humanistic approaches, emphasize normalizing and accepting emotional experiences rather than pathologizing them.
• ACT, for example, focuses on helping individuals accept their thoughts and feelings and commit to actions aligned with their values, viewing distress as a normal part of human experience rather than something to be eliminated .

1. Person-Centered and Strengths-Based Approaches:

• These approaches focus on the individual’s strengths and capacities rather than their deficits and pathology.
• They emphasize personal growth, self-acceptance, and resilience, viewing challenges as opportunities for development rather than symptoms of a disorder.

Shifting Terminology and Focus

1. Counseling vs. Therapy:

• “Counseling” is often seen as less pathologizing and more focused on personal development and coping with life’s challenges.
• It tends to emphasize a collaborative relationship where the counselor helps the individual navigate life’s difficulties, rather than treating a disorder.

1. Wellness and Coaching Models:

• These models focus on enhancing overall well-being and functioning, rather than solely treating mental health issues.
• They emphasize preventive care, resilience building, and empowerment, which can help reduce the stigma associated with seeking help.

Conclusion

The terminology and framework used in mental health care can significantly impact how individuals perceive their experiences and whether they seek help. By adopting a more holistic and strengths-based approach, mental health professionals can help de-stigmatize seeking support and avoid pathologizing normal emotional reactions to life events.

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By shifting the narrative and terminology, we can create a more supportive and empowering environment for those seeking help with their emotional distress.

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Do you toss and turn in bed, unable to fall asleep or go back to sleep no matter what you do?

I’ve been there, and I know how frustrating insomnia can be.

It’s also detrimental to your health. Chronic sleep deficiency is linked to an increased risk of heart disease, kidney disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and stroke. It can also impact brain function, leading to poor decision-making, difficulty with problem-solving, depression, and even suicidal thoughts.

Unfortunately, many common strategies for overcoming insomnia aren’t very effective. You’ve probably tried some of them without success.

But new research suggests there may be a different path forward…

Controlling Sleep Doesn’t Work Well

One reason natural sleep remedies often fail is that they require you to do too much when you actually need to do nothing. What does that mean? Think about it this way…

Your body knows how to sleep. After millions of years of evolution, it’s pretty good at it. If you get out of your own way and do nothing to wake yourself up, you should sleep naturally.

However, our logical, problem-solving mind is only a few hundred thousand years old. It’s great at solving problems but not at doing nothing, which is essential for sleep.

The issue with most psychological sleep interventions is that they prompt you to do too much.

Let me ask you this: If you’re half asleep and start trying to solve a problem, what happens? You wake up. Problem-solving is the mental equivalent of sprinting around the block—hardly conducive to sleeping.

So what do you do when you wake up in the night and start to worry? You try to push the worries away or convince yourself that things aren’t so bad. You treat your thoughts as problems to be solved, which only wakes you up more.

The ACT Approach: Psychological Flexibility

The Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) community offers an alternative: psychological flexibility. This means allowing thoughts and feelings to come and go, then gently focusing on what moves you in a valued direction. In the context of sleep, this means noticing the urge to problem-solve and instead doing nothing. Your body knows how to sleep; your mind does not.

Studies show that psychological inflexibility is a major contributor to sleep problems. Training people to be more psychologically flexible has been shown to reduce insomnia in those with chronic pain and chronic fatigue.

So, if you’re struggling with insomnia, what should you do?

Accept Your Experiences

Suppressing your nighttime thoughts and feelings or struggling to fall back asleep doesn’t work well. You probably already know this. If you have sleep problems, you’ve likely tried it. Has it worked for you?

Instead, try becoming more psychologically flexible. Here are three techniques to experiment with:

1. Rest if You Can’t Sleep: Often, focusing on trying to sleep keeps you awake. Allow yourself to simply rest and decline your mind’s invitation to problem-solve. You’re more likely to fall asleep or get back to sleep this way.
2. Just Notice: If worry is keeping you awake, just notice it. Instead of ruminating, imagine your worries as words written on leaves floating down a river. They come and go. Notice them dispassionately. Add or subtract nothing.
3. Accept Your Thoughts and Feelings About Insomnia: This doesn’t mean resigning yourself to insomnia. It means being present with your reactions without trying to change them. Hold them gently, as you would a child, and let your body do what it knows how to do.

These techniques might seem counterintuitive, but what have you got to lose? Maybe some useless problem-solving time?

Next time you’re trying to sleep, get in bed, close your eyes, and do nothing at all.

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Adapted from Stephen Haye’s article at stephenchayes.com

Question: How does getting back to the present moment by connecting with the body through such means as wriggling the toes or focusing on slower, deeper breaths, help a person reduce the impact of worrying, anxious thoughts?

Connecting with the present moment by focusing on physical sensations, such as wriggling the toes or taking slower, deeper breaths, can significantly reduce the impact of worrying and anxious thoughts. Here’s how these practices help:

Mechanisms of Mindfulness and Present Moment Awareness

1. Interrupting the Thought Cycle:

• Break the Loop: Worrying and anxious thoughts often form a repetitive, unproductive cycle. By shifting focus to physical sensations, you interrupt this cycle, giving your mind a break from the constant worry.
• Redirection: When you consciously direct your attention to your body, you pull yourself away from ruminative thoughts and bring your awareness to the here and now.

1. Grounding in the Present:

• Here and Now: Physical sensations are always tied to the present moment. By focusing on these sensations, you anchor yourself in the present, which reduces the tendency to dwell on past regrets or future worries.
• Reality Check: Engaging with the present moment helps you realize that many worries are about hypothetical situations, not the current reality.

1. Activation of the Parasympathetic Nervous System:

• Relaxation Response: Slow, deep breathing activates the parasympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for the body’s rest and digest functions. This reduces the physiological symptoms of anxiety, such as rapid heart rate and shallow breathing.
• Calm the Body, Calm the Mind: By calming your body, you send signals to your brain that it’s safe to relax, which can reduce the mental experience of anxiety.

1. Mind-Body Connection:

• Awareness of Sensations: Focusing on sensations like wriggling your toes enhances your mind-body connection. This practice of mindfulness helps you become more attuned to your body’s signals and responses.
• Physical Awareness: Increased physical awareness can help you recognize early signs of anxiety, allowing you to take steps to manage it before it escalates.

1. Engagement and Control:

• Active Engagement: Mindfulness practices engage your mind actively, which can prevent it from slipping into automatic, negative thought patterns.
• Sense of Control: By consciously controlling your breath or movements, you cultivate a sense of agency over your experience, countering the helplessness often associated with anxiety.

1. Reduction of Cognitive Load:

• Less Cognitive Overload: When you focus on simple, physical tasks, you reduce the cognitive load on your brain, which is often overwhelmed during episodes of anxiety.
• Simplicity and Clarity: Engaging in simple, repetitive tasks can bring clarity and simplicity to your thought processes, making it easier to manage complex emotions.

Practical Steps

1. Wriggling the Toes:

• Focus Exercise: Consciously wriggling your toes and feeling the sensations in your feet can draw your attention away from your thoughts and into your body.
• Grounding Technique: This simple action helps ground you, providing a physical connection to the present moment.

1. Slower, Deeper Breaths:

• Breathing Techniques: Practice slow, deep breathing by inhaling deeply through your nose, holding for a few seconds, and exhaling slowly through your mouth.
• Calm and Steady: Deep breathing slows your heart rate, lowers blood pressure, and promotes a sense of calm, which counteracts the physical symptoms of anxiety.

Conclusion

Focusing on the present moment through bodily sensations and mindful breathing is a powerful tool for managing anxiety and worrying thoughts. These practices help by interrupting negative thought cycles, grounding you in the present, activating the body’s relaxation response, enhancing the mind-body connection, providing a sense of control, and reducing cognitive overload. Incorporating these simple techniques into your daily routine can significantly improve your ability to handle stress and anxiety.

Week 1: Present Moment Awareness and Acceptance Commitment Training (ACT)

Connect with Your Body – Get out of your head!

Here’s a quick video to help you detach, defuse, let go from unwanted thoughts, feelings and sensation in the body. Click or tap on the link below and a new window will open up the video. Enjoy!

CLICK OR TAP HERE

Week 1: Present Moment Awareness and Acceptance Commitment Training (ACT)

With 20 years counselling experience as an Accredited Mental Health Social Worker and seeing over 7,000 clients, I have fine tuned my practice to the following processes. I know it has certainly helped me in my life journey to be better able to engage in life more fully and better manage the impact of an abusive childhood and dark periods of depression in my younger years. It will work for you too!

You are not your thoughts
This is a great starting point.
Yes we have thoughts every moment of the day, some say as many as 80,000 thoughts per day!
Our minds are designed to protect us from danger so during times of stress, angst, worry, fear, we can go into overdrive as our minds try to keep us safe by fixing, controlling, changing what is happening to us. When this doesn’t work the mind often keeps trying harder, especially at 2 o’clock in the morning!
We can learn to distance ourselves from our thoughts when they are adversely affecting the quality of our lives.

We are designed to worry
From an evolutionary perspective we think primarily to keep us safe.
The evolution of thinking helps us strategise and ideally find solutions to problematic events in our lives.
Think early days of our evolution – we see a Sabre Tooth Tiger and when we learnt to seek safety and be alert to danger, our species, us human beings, have survived with less mortality.
Trouble is there aren’t too many Sabre Tooth Tigers around today (none I’m quite sure!) but it seems our minds have not evolved to worry less.
Modern day Sabre Tooth Tigers are work issues, relationship difficulties, financial stress etc.
Our minds, our thoughts can treat these modern day concerns as though there are Sabre Tooth Tigers everywhere. The process is the same. It’s inbuilt in us. But we can learn to manage this process.

Fight, Flight or Freeze
This is an automatic response generally out of the control of our thinking, problem solving mind.
With thinking we saw how the mind is geared to seek out problems, be alert to them in order to keep us safe.
If we sense danger (Sabre Tooth Tiger, Work Stress, Relationship Difficulties, Financial Stress) our body can go into protection mode. It’s automatic. Blood flow to the arms and legs increases in case we have to stay and fight the danger or run away. Adrenalin increases to prepare us for the fight or flight. A whole range of automatic body responses occur beyond our control and thinking mind. It’s all designed to keep us safe. If we can’t run or fight we then can freeze or start to shut down. Think brain fog, lack of energy, unmotivated etc. This is the evolutionary response of “if I start to shut down the Sabre Tooth Tiger might get bored and leave me alone”. Believe it or not, again from an evolutionary perspective it has helped us survive the enemy (it also works for reptiles and other animals – it’s a nervous system, the Autonomic Nervous System that we share with many other creatures).
Again it can be managed.

Connecting Our Body With Our Mind
Previously we spoke of the Autonomic Nervous System which acts independently of our thinking brain. If it senses danger it kicks into gear (think here the last time you got really scared – a near miss in your car, receiving really bad news, hearing a loud bang etc.)
If our stress goes on too long our body stops communicating with our brain (kind of). We stay in a perpetual state of stress and it becomes the norm.
Studies of the Vagus Nerve are teaching us that we can become more alert of what is happening in the body and learn to have a 2 way communication between our mind, our brain and our body such that we can better manage stress responses and ultimately feel SAFER! Thank you Vagus Nerve.

Trauma Theory
Trauma approaches today extend beyond sudden events that are life threatening. Trauma today can also include ongoing high levels of stress (a work situation that does not resolve itself, a long term relationship that does not improve, abuse, domestic violence etc).
By taking into account the:
(1) Autonomic Nervous System response,
(2) The way we think and try to protect ourselves through incessant problem solving,
(3) Understanding the role of the Vagus nerve and
(4) Learning to be more PRESENT in this very present moment, we can better manage the stresses and other unwanted responses to life events in our lives.

Being PRESENT
With worry, anxiety and fear that something adverse may happen, our problem solving brain, our thinking, will often be planted in the future trying to work out what might happen and how to mitigate this. It’s that protective mechanism trying to keep us safe. Typical thinking at times like will involve lots of “what ifs?” What if this happens? What if that happens?
This type of thinking is future based. Those thoughts including lots of “what ifs” are based in the future.
The more we become AWARE of these thoughts, we notice them and learn the art of not getting hooked into them, the greater chance there is that we can allow ourselves other options other than being consumed by the worry. As mentioned those worry thoughts are often future based. Those things we are worried about that might happen, could well happen, but right here, right now, they are not happening.
Therefore if we can bring ourselves back to the present moment, we help ourselves separate from those worrying thoughts, feelings and sensations and this process helps us find more productive options to better manage those life events that have led to the worry and anxiety. One way to connect back to the present moment is through our body. By getting out of our head and connecting to our body, we can feel more grounded with greater clarity of thought as to the actions we can take right here, right now.
Here is a 6 minute exercise you can listen to, to help you practise the process of getting out your head and connecting with your body to aid the process of getting back to the present moment.
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN

That’s the process on offer!

If you would like to know more and start to implement this process, feel free to contact me to start the process. Simply fill in the contact form located HERE.

Best Regards, Mark Lockyer

Week 1: Present Moment Awareness and Acceptance Commitment Training (ACT)

Introduction to Present Moment Awareness

What is being PRESENT?

Introduction to ACT and Present Moment Awareness

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a powerful approach to mental health that encourages individuals to accept their thoughts and feelings rather than fighting or avoiding them. At its core, ACT promotes mindfulness and present moment awareness, helping you to stay grounded in the here and now. By focusing on the present, you can better manage stress, anxiety, and other challenging emotions, leading to a more fulfilling and balanced life.

Practical Tips On How To Do This:

Observe Without Judgment:
Notice your thoughts and feelings without labeling them as good or bad.

Mindful Breathing:
Focus on your breath. Take slow, deep breaths and pay attention to the sensation of breathing.

Engage Your Senses:
Take a moment to notice what you see, hear, smell, taste, and feel around you.

Grounding Exercise:
Place your feet flat on the ground and notice the sensation. Feel the connection to the earth.

Use a Mantra:
Repeat a calming phrase or word to help bring your focus back to the present moment.