My therapist provided me with what she described as some corny, generic coping techniques to give a try. This week, I’ve been experimenting with all of them and thought I’d share some thoughts.
I’ve done quite a bit of breath work, but I’ve never done box breathing. I found it logical, easy to follow, and quite effective. This is something I’ll be adding to my toolbox.
The 5-4-3-2-1 Method: A Grounding Exercise
Take a deep breath.
Find five things you see around you.
List four things you can touch.
Listen for three things you can hear.
Find two things that you can smell.
List one emotion that you feel.
This is a pretty basic guided meditation. It’s short, simple, and easy to follow. Often, I heard the example of looking at your streaming of thoughts as a river. In this meditation, she uses clouds. It’s effective and simple if you need to reset quickly.
My wife actually told me about PMR a while back. I believe she heard about it as part of completing the stress cycle. You basically use your breath and your muscles from your feet to your head as a sort of full body scan. I think it’s an interesting concept, but it seems time consuming, and I’ve always struggled to stay focused. This particular video is a guided version of it, so maybe that would help? I think I’d rather box breath.
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