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Trying to detect and process potential threats can leave us feeling anxious and exhausted.

Grounding techniques can be an effective way to manage negative feelings.

Focusing on where we are and what we can control can help to increase personal agency and coping skills.

“…grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” (Niebhur, 1940)

Some days, the world can feel pretty heavy. Whether it’s talk of war filling the news or worries about the economy, life can feel unpredictable and a bit scary. Constantly trying to detect and process these threats alongside the existing challenges of our day-to-day lives can leave even the most relaxed person feeling anxious, exhausted, and overwhelmed. The good news, though, is that there are some simple things we can do to help bring us back to a sense of clarity and control.

When your brain perceives a threat, it activates a stress response designed to keep you safe and help you plan a response to the threat. However, in modern life, many of the threats we see are neither immediate nor physical. They’re wider, abstract fears, such as global events, political challenges, or things outside our control. Scott et al (2025) found that focusing on fears can negatively impact performance and well-being, particularly when there’s nothing you can actually do to change the situation. The danger, therefore, is that we remain stuck in this cycle, where we perceive danger but have no way to act on it. Fortunately, there is a solution for this incongruity, based on the principles of grounding.

Grounding techniques are a category of therapeutic tools that can be used to help calm people during stress or overwhelm and help to reorient them to the present. In other words, they interrupt the cycle of worry and help them to feel calm and safe in the present moment. Hammond and Brown (2025) explored the application of grounding techniques, such as asking questions to reorient an individual to the present or encouraging them to touch a sensory object during a panic attack. They found that grounding techniques had the ability to calm and distract individuals from the experience of emotion dysregulation and distress.

So how can we use this approach to help with our fears on a day-to-day basis? Here are 2 key questions to ask yourself:

What’s actually happening right now? When we start to worry or feel anxious, our mind can race ahead, and we can start to catastrophise or worry about things that haven’t even happened. Explicitly asking this question helps to interrupt this "what if" thinking by anchoring us in the present moment and focusing on observable reality (i.e., what is), rather than what might be. One way to expand on this question is to use the five-senses technique (FST). This requires you to identify five things that you can see, four things you can touch, three you can hear, two you can smell, and one that you can taste. Taking the time to work through this can help to ground you in the present moment, which is (hopefully) a lot less threatening than the fear or threat that you were previously focusing on. This can reduce the intensity of the threat and help your body to settle.

What am I in control of? Asking yourself this question is a great way to shift your focus to only what is manageable and within your control. This might be deciding to turn off the news or taking action to get on top of your finances to plan for a possible downturn in the economy. It might even be choosing to eat a healthy meal rather than snack food, or going for a walk rather than scrolling through your phone. Whatever you choose to do, the fact that you’ve made the choice for yourself can help to build your sense of personal agency. In other words, you’re choosing to take control of the things that are within your power and in doing so, you’re focusing less on those things that you can’t control.

When the world feels scary, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. None of us knows what’s around the corner, but having the ability to ground yourself when things feel uncertain can help you focus on the here and now, strengthen your sense of agency, and help you feel ready for whatever comes next. As Wayne Dyer put it, “I cannot always control what goes on outside. But I can always control what goes on inside."

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Hammond, J., & Brown, W. J. (2025). Building an operational definition of grounding. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 15248380251343189.

Scott, K. M., Duncan, K., & McCoy, T. P. (2025). Ground yourself: Using five senses technique to cope with test anxiety among nursing students. Teaching and Learning in Nursing.

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