Ground Yourself
Not only do I have OCD but, I also suffer from Generalized Anxiety Disorder. I wanted to create a quick post on my favorite technique I used to ground myself during panic attacks.
This method is the 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 grounding technique. It is amazingly simple, and with a little practice, it can help you ease your way out of an episode. The technique goes like this:
Name 5 things that you can see.
List 4 things that you can feel or touch.
Name 3 things that you can hear.
List 2 things that you can smell.
Finally, name 1 thing that you can taste.
Don’t memorize this and stress yourself out about it right now. The best thing to do is to print it or write it down for reference. Once you get more comfortable performing these steps, doing this exercise will become second nature.
One final tip on this. Don’t rush the process. I found it to be more effective the slower and more deliberate I did these steps. I concentrated on things that I could see, feel, hear, smell, and taste.
You got this!