Patient was instructed today upon practicing the grounding technique for anxiety management as follows:
- Grounding helps you to realize your surroundings and gain control of the current situation.
- Practicing grounding techniques can help prevent losing contact with the current moment.
- Identify your 5 fingers of the hand with 5 of your close friends or family members and their personal good attributes. For example, you can consider the index finger as a friend or family member, who offers you a suggestion or direction, when in need and you can consider the thumb as a friend, who enjoys having fun time with you.
- Whenever you get overwhelmed with flashbacks and are at risk of losing contact with the current moment, start deep breathing, look at your fingers, and try associating each finger with the friend or family member and their attributes you identified the finger with.
- Thinking of close associates, who offer moral support, reinforces your confidence and associating them with your body parts and surroundings, helps you gain control of the current moment.
- Since shifting the attention from anxiety and flashback episodes could be difficult when the intensity of episode is high, start practicing grounding techniques when the anxiety level is low or none and gradually move on to practicing the technique with high levels of anxiety, as you gain more control on practice.
