A Basic Guide to Somatic Therapy Exercises to Help You Ground (especially for when it feels hard)
In a society dominated by thinking, somatic therapy techniques for grounding and self-regulation can be overlooked. Your body is trying to communicate with you every day and it’s important to listen, especially in moments of stress. By the end of this article, you’ll learn 3 somatic exercises to help you cope when feeling overwhelmed, anxious, or triggered by trauma.
1.Ground to Your Present Environment
When we are in an activated state whether that is from feelings of anxiety, feeling charged after an argument, or experiencing a trigger, our bodies go into an automatic stress response. Sometimes we don’t notice what is happening because we are stuck in our thoughts of what to do next or how to “think” our way out of the activation.
We feel activated because our nervous system feels a threat at that moment even if we logically know that we are safe. One way to combat this and come back to grounding is to reorient yourself to your current environment. What that looks like can be:
Slowly turning your head to notice where you are and what is around you. Is there something pleasant in the room that you notice? Maybe there is a smell or noise that is catching your attention, just notice that.
Next, once you notice the pleasant color or object in your view, ask yourself, “What am I noticing in my body?” Maybe there’s a shift in awareness, maybe you notice more stillness or notice a shift in energy, or emotion. Whatever comes up, you can continue to notice.
Focusing on the environment while simultaneously tuning into your body can help bring you outside of the dysregulated cycle of stress and help communicate to your system that “I’m okay.”
2. Locate Neutral/Pleasant Sensations in Your Body
When feeling activated or stressed, we may notice big unpleasant feelings in our body such as heart racing, shallow breath, sweaty palms, or a racing mind. When there are big sensations, it is natural that our awareness will be drawn to them! Next time this happens, I also invite you to notice the neutral or pleasant sensations in your body. That might be hard at first since it’s the unpleasant sensations that stand out but maybe if you begin to slow down and bring awareness to other areas of your body (such as your feet, your legs, your eyebrows, your ears, or even your tongue!)
When you’re able to locate a counter sensation to the stress, that can be used as an entry point to a shift in awareness to areas you feel okay.
Once your awareness is turned to a neutral or pleasant area, take 15-30 seconds to just stay in that place and notice the sensation from a place of curiosity. What does neutral feel like for you? What in your body indicates that’s a neutral feeling? Is there a temperature or energy or calmness associated with it?
Once you take inventory, bring your attention back to the rest of your body. What shifted? What happened to the stress or activating feeling? Did it move to another part? Did it become less tense? If so, how do you know? Do you feel lighter, maybe you feel more expansion or openness?
Locating neutral in the body gives you a chance to reorganize and absorb the parts that are regulating. This is important because sometimes what turns a stress response from mild to very heightened is fixating on the sensations that are overwhelming, big, and triggering. The more we focus on it, the bigger it becomes. By locating the areas of our body that are naturally resourced and grounded, we can interrupt that activation cycle and create space for some grounding.
3. Practicing Intentional Self-Touch
Touch is one of the ways in which we can bridge the connection between the mind and body. Touch brings in curiosity and allows us to connect to the pre-verbal parts of ourselves in an intentional, gentle way. Here are some ways in which you can use intentional self-touch when you are feeling anxious or activated.
You can use self-touch to make contact with the areas of the body that are stressed or triggered.
For instance, if you are noticing a tense feeling in your chest, I invite you to place one hand over the chest and notice what happens when you make that contact. Do you notice the warmth of your hand on your chest? Maybe the tense feeling moved to another location? Perhaps you notice an emotion or sensation that arises as you make contact. Lean into it and explore it.
Touch is a way to help speed up your parasympathetic nervous system (PNS). Our PNS calms our bodies and helps with nervous system regulation, as it acts in opposite ways from the sympathetic nervous system, which triggers our trauma response which results in a fight, flight, or freeze response.
This branch of our system runs when we are talking to a friend or loved one, when we are creating, playing, listening to music, or doing other activities that are pleasant for us. Luckily we can also access the parasympathetic branch when we are overwhelmed via the tool of touch, as described below.
Exercises:
Run your fingers from the inside of your brow trancing your brow and ending at your temples.
Place one or two fingers on your lip and gently rub them back and forth
Cross your arms over your chest and gently and slowly tap one hand at a time.
All of the above are areas of the body that contain parasympathetic fibers that can help regulate our bodies to help ground. Sometimes a release of tension can be achieved by just noticing discomfort and letting our body do the rest, other times it’s through a gentle touch or acknowledgment.
You don’t have to manage your triggers alone
Somatic therapy is useful for trauma, childhood trauma, complex PTSD, and general stress or anxiety! Learn more about the benefits of somatic therapy or contact me, a BIPOC somatic experiencing therapist to see how I can support you in your journey forward.
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