Quick Stress-Busting Technique
Feeling stressed out, anxious, overwhelmed… It’s all too common these days to find ourselves getting lost in our thoughts and emotions. And when they start to escalate we can get completely swept away by them. It’s easy to feel helpless and as if there’s nothing that can be done about it. But there’s so much that can be done. There are so many stress-busting tools and techniques available.
Very often there is a misconception that the things that can help stress and anxiety are either hard/complicated to learn, take a long time to do and/or cost a lot of money. So I want to share with you a super simple technique you can use whenever you need. It’s really quick to learn, takes a matter of seconds to do, is really effective and completely free!
Quick Mindfulness Technique – 5,4,3,2,1
It’s called the 5,4,3,2,1 technique and it’s something I teach in my Introduction to Mindfulness workshop. It’s fantastic for getting you out of your head and back into your body. It helps you feel more centred and calm. It’s great to use if you’re feeling stressed, panicky, anxious or overwhelmed. It’s also really helpful if you suffer from a busy head as it helps get you out of your head, so you can think more clearly.
By focusing on your physical senses you can bring yourself back into the here and now (whilst coming out of your head).
Notice:
5 things you can see
4 things you can feel with your body (physical sensations rather than emotions)
3 things you can hear
2 things you can smell
1 thing you can taste
Go through these at the pace that’s right for you, given the time you have available to you. You can take your time and go slowly, really giving your full attention to what you’re picking up from your environment. Or you can go through at a quicker pace. It only has to take a few seconds to do. You can repeat the technique as many times as you like and you can do this until you’re feeling calm and centred again. So you’re better able to deal with what’s going on around you.
It’s good to know that if you lose count at any time it’s fine. You can either start again or change the numbers for each sense. It will still work. Also if you get to a sense and find yourself thinking “I can’t smell anything, or I can only hear one thing” don’t worry about it. Notice what you can see, feel, hear, smell or taste and then move onto the next sense.
Relax into it and go at the pace that’s right for you. You can use the technique wherever and whenever you need to. Any time you feel your stress levels rising, a panic attack coming on or anxious thoughts and feelings taking hold.
It’s a great tool to have in your toolkit to support yourself. You can check out my video taking you through the technique but more importantly practice it and use it for yourself. I’d suggest practising the technique when you’re feeling calm so that it feels more comfortable and natural to use when you start feeling stressed.
If you’d like to learn another super effective, easy to use stress busting technique request my free 5 Day De-Stresser training.
Think you need more one-to-one support? If you’d like to work with me, or would like to find out more about how I can help, get in contact.